Like the previous ones the fourth volume of the history of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is a treasure house of statistical and qualitative information on its working during 1981-1997. It runs to 1,348 pages and is in two parts to facilitate easy handling. In this day and age even an ardent student of central banking cannot be expected to read the volume of such substantial proportions in full. Together with the previous three volumes relating to the period from 1935 the total number of pages of the history add up to around 4,600 pages. The RBI will be rendering a signal service to the academic community if it can bring out an abridged version of all the four volumes in, say, 400 pages. The price will also be moderate compared with the amount of Rs 2,195 one has to pay for the latest volume alone. The work involved should be simple enough to publish the volume next year marking the 80th anniversary of the passing of the RBI Act (1934) since there is no need to do any fresh research i

Letters: RBI history

Business Standard

This refers to the report "Mandela's death stirs sense of loss around the world" (December 7). Nelson Mandela was a person of great integrity, who took massive personal suffering in his stride for the sake of his countrymen. He upheld a basic value and principle that all people are created equal and should be treated so. And above all, he bore no malice towards those who disagreed with him or even imprisoned him.Rajendra K Aneja,  DubaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201  ·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: A principled leader

This refers to the editorial "Finding a way back" (December 6). The only fault in the current thinking is the belief that the public private partnership (PPP) model in roads is a failure. Partners in the PPP model need to be skill-sharing entities, not resource-sharing. If the private partner is expected to bring in the latest technological innovation to the roads, along with the required finance, the government must concentrate on the facilitation and approval front for access to land, forest and other statutory inputs that are the biggest hassles, and form the foremost reason for stalling a project for a number of years.Once skill-sharing is well framed and understood in the beginning, and the obligations are set, there is no reason a project should not be completed in time, and well within the budgeted cost frame. Other changes that need to be brought in to the infrastructure sector is the long amortisation of loans since there is no scope of a high return on investment in infrastru

Letters: Expanding the PPP model

The Marine Products Export Development Authority is confident that this financial year, seafood exports will exceed the target of $4.3 billion due to rising demand in markets such as Europe and Japan

Seafood exports set to net billions

A recent feature by The Caravan magazine titled The Network Effect  talked about how a leading media group was aligning itself to centre-right politics that seems to have caught the imagination of urban India. Amid a highly charged political environment over the past six months, a number of senior journalists, many in their young 40s, have seen their roles change. Some "raised hell"; others quietly moved on. The unprecedented upheaval on Fleet Street in the run-up to a bitterly fought election has encouraged even Tehelka's former editor Tarun Tejpal, who has been arrested for an alleged sexual assault, to cry political conspiracy. Business Standard looks at some recent exits

The endangered editor

Looking up and forward

We aren't urging for a compromise, but a consensus on food security issue: Anand Sharma

Private-public partnerships in roads must work

Finding a way back

Why the Japanese imperial visit was significant

A special relationship

This refers to the report "Now, India has to make the brand story a real one: Soumitra Dutta" (December 4). Mr Dutta's contention that "India is about quality, China is about rip-offs" could, at best, be an attempt at being outrageous or, at worst, ignorance. Let's take two of the so-called Indian successes - pharmaceuticals and information technology (IT). Quality issues in the global markets faced by the likes of Ranbaxy, Wockhardt and RPG Life Sciences should not be unknown to anyone. It is also known that growth of Indian generics has come about riding on protective local patent regime facilitating new generics, based only on cost structures and not innovation.In IT, corporate brands need not be confused with product brands. Indian IT brands have been built on international labour arbitrage, and not on product development through innovation and subsequent branding. Android, Windows, Google, Samsung, Nokia et al, are brands in the everyday life of Indian consumers. The same cannot b

Letters: Evolve as a nation

This refers to the report "BJP on a roll in 3 of 5 States, but Delhi hazy" (December 5). According to the exit polls, other than Mizoram where the Congress may win, there doesn't appear to be any surprises. The heavy turnout of voters reflects the success of the democracy and the power of the people. But it has, in a way, exposed the myth of the "Modi wave". In the rest of the country, regional parties with some aspirants are dominant. So, we have to wait and watch. The rise of the Aam Aadmi party is significant and it remains to be seen whether it will pave the way for a new trend of politics in the country.Jacob Sahayam, ThiruvananthapuramLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201 · E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: What exit polls say

Apropos the report, "India ill-prepared to fight corruption" (December 2), corruption-control through legislative means has failed to reform the guilty or serve as a deterrent to potential offenders. Investigation into corruption cases is a long-winding process, and the justice delivery route taxes one's patience. Of the several scams, starting with the Bofors gun to the current coalgate, few have resulted in well-timed conviction. Procedural justice has been further tempered by the ease with which the accused manage to get bail for several years that enables them to lead a normal life.Social sanctions can serve as a preventive measure to chastise the culprits, but instead these culprits are heralded, given the same social status and even elected in politics. A system is as good or bad as the person who uses it. Our education system does not emphasise moral values of life. It produces qualified students as well as unethical citizens who are catapulted to important positions in the soci

Letters: Justice derailed

A southern company is struggling to repay thousands of small investors from whom it has raised several crores of rupees. A large number of these investors come from the same community as the promoter. Incredibly despite their hardships, these investors are not ready to initiate legal proceedings against him because they all believe that a person from that community will be god-fearing and won't cheat. A financial services professional from the same community, who has seen the world of finance from the inside, is convinced that the promoter is misusing this faith and getting away with the scam. But his view has no takers.

Community trust

More than the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress MP Lagadapati Rajagopal seems to be happy at the likelihood of his party's rout in the just-concluded elections in five states. As soon as polling in New Delhi was over on Wednesday, a beaming Rajagopal appeared on Telugu television channels to announce that his party would lose in four out of the five states. The MP from Vijayawada feels that the rout of the Congress will stall the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh since other political parties will not back the Telangana Bill in Parliament. So, even though it pains him to predict his party's defeat, he is happy because "this will keep the state intact".

Happy loser

Honesty has become such a coveted virtue in political circles that parties actually think in terms of organising public relations exercises around a non-corrupt politician. Hoping to burnish its image of sanity, probity, transparency and simplicity ahead of the next elections for the Lok Sabha and state Assembly, the Congress party in Maharashtra is leveraging the occasion of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's daughter's wedding. Held at the chief minister's residence on November 29, with a select few guests, a press release from Chavan's office emphasised that it was a low-key affair and that Chavan even worked on the following Sunday. Today, however, there is a reception at Colaba and another at Chavan's home town of Karhad. So are there takers for Chavan's simplicity?

Honesty is the best PR policy

Sector-wise allocations this yearThe real estate industry attracted the most investments, accounting for 18.68% of the investments in terms of deal value with an aggregate of $1.93 billion (43 deals). The software & services sector was the second, attracting $1.51 billion (14.63%) across 170 deals this year Telecom services, utilities and retailing were the other top sectors

A snapshot of PE activity & deals

Narendra Modi re-opens a debate stuck in the 1950sSpeeches by the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, usually set a cat amongst the pigeons. Mr Modi's latest feint - and it is no more than that, really - is his suggestion that the country should revisit Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) special status in 1952. Almost every major political force other than the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal has not reacted well to this suggestion. Indeed, even within the BJP, Mr Modi's suggestion of a relook has become controversial - the party had effectively dropped Article 370 from its agenda over a decade ago. By framing it as a "discussion", Mr Modi is in fact calling for the end of a consensus closed even within his own party.What Mr Modi wants discussed is whether this status has helped the people of the state. The answer can only be found in performance indicators. The statistical appendix to the Economic Survey of

Article 370, again

But problems linked to CAD haven't gone away

Early news is good news

Do you think B-schools should lay special emphasis on enrolling more women students?

Students' Corner

Here's an idea of what businessmen think of the current business environment in India. Hero MotoCorp Managing Director Pawan Munjal skirted a question about growth projections for the two-wheeler industry for the coming financial year even though, as someone pointed out, the business plans would have been ready considering the next financial year was just three months away. Munjal parried this by retorting, "Or I can say it's a quarter of a year away. Given the uncertain situation, if you can tell me by how much GDP will grow next year, I could try to share some estimates with you."

Certain uncertainty

Like most of India, central government officials, too, are eagerly awaiting the results of the Assembly polls on December 8. Since these results are considered a proxy for the outcome of next year's general elections, work has all but come to a standstill in government. Once the results are in, bureaucrats think they will be in a better position to judge whether the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will be returning to power at the Centre. As one of them explained, "If the results in the states show a lead for the UPA, work will be resumed."

Business Standard

Business Standard

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