This refers to the editorial "Clinical errors" (October 28). Clinical trials for new medications are conducted all over the world but developing countries often serve as cost-effective locations. A decade ago a clinical trial could be conducted in secret. The sponsor, claiming proprietary rights, could keep all the information confidential. Now, in many countries, sponsors of all clinical trials must register their studies, at the time of their inception, in a public database sponsored by their national boards. Breaches of clinical research standards are strictly monitored. The Union health minister has admitted that 2,868 deaths took place in clinical trials. This is not a small number in clinical studies. In the West, this would attract serious consequences. The global pharmaceutical industry is under increasing scrutiny because of its failure to follow quality standards and one can only hope that it is not true for India.H N Ramakrishna  BangaloreLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-ma

Letters: Pharma watch

Business Standard

Why is it so hard for India's political leaders to explain what it is they want and plan to do? It is not as if Indian voters are stupid.

Editorial: Why can't India's politicians talk specifics?

The government is supposed to be in austerity mode but hundreds of brand new air conditioners lying around North Block suggest quite the opposite. Why did the finance ministry order these machines when the winters are approaching? It is learnt that some of them are meant for the press that prints the Union Budget, but for the rest it is only the next government, which will be sworn in at the height of summer, that will enjoy the benefits.

Cold comfort

For responsible private health care, improve public hospitals

Medical negligence

The corridors of North Block are buzzing with speculation over the identity of the next expenditure secretary when R S Gujral retires next month. Insiders say the Haryana cadre official is unlikely to get an extension because it has "rarely happened before" for a November retirement, even though the Budget exercise would have begun. But the chances of an extension for Gujral are also weaker because there will only be an interim Budget before the general elections. One of the names in contention, therefore, is Shaktikanta Das, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs. Rumours are also doing the rounds that financial services secretary Rajiv Takru might be moved into North Block as expenditure secretary and Das could go to the banking division in his place.

Next, please?

Union Minister for Mines Dinsha Patel seemed amused that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was urging farmers to donate pieces of iron for the proposed 182-metre statue of Sardar Patel called the "Statue of Unity" that will be built facing the Narmada dam near Bharuch. "As far as I know - and I have asked a few sculptors -  statues are made using malleable metal like copper, which may be mixed with nickel and other metals and certainly not iron. I don't know which sculptors Modi is consulting," Patel said. Then, in an oblique reference to the warm relations between Modi and Ratan Tata, he joked somewhat tastelessly, "If Modi wants iron he can tell Tata, he will provide all the iron needed."

Irony in the soul

Every time Wipro reports some good numbers after a few quarters of disappointing performance, its senior management explains that there are many more things to come. Senior executives explaining what the company is doing, frequently refer to the fact that there are "works-in-progress". This has generated an in-joke among journalists covering the beat that the full form of Wipro actually stands for Work In Progress.

Work in Progress

The report "Vadodara's Gaekwad royal family settles Rs 20,000-cr property dispute" (October 25) is mostly correct. Towards the end, it has a statement that defies logic: "After... Independence, Pratapsinh, the son of the then king Sayajirao Gaekwad, had handed over the reins to his elder son, Fatehsinhrao Gaekwad." If Sayajirao was the king, how could Pratapsinh hand over the reins?Sayajirao III died in 1939, after a long and illustrious reign. Pratapsinh, the son of Sayajirao's eldest son Fatehsinh (who predeceased his father) succeeded him by primogeniture. Already married with eight children, he married again in 1943, defying the anti-bigamy law of the state. Pratapsinh was considered to be the opposite of his grandfather. He was reported to have spent $10 million in 1946 when he visited the US with his second wife, Sitadevi.After Independence, the state acceded to the Indian Union in 1949 and Pratapsinh effectively became a pensioner while retaining the title of Maharaja. He abdica

Letters: Royal facts

This refers to the report "Indian IT's Big Four build $9-billion cash chest" (October 27). Looking at this cash reserve, I feel that after getting exempted from tax for more than 15 years, it is now time for the government to tax Indian information technology (IT) companies at the standard corporate tax rate. The IT industry has now matured and there is no further need to extend these tax sops to the companies. The recent rupee fall has also benefitted them immensely. The government, while reducing subsidies, should also review the tax sops given to the IT companies.Anand Wadadekar  PuneLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Reviewing the tax sops

This refers to Srinivasa-Raghavan's column "Do data have context?" (Marginal Utility, October 26), that begins by saying "you cannot step into the same river twice" is a Chinese proverb. It is usual to attribute all words of wisdom to Confucius or, in general, to China. It is not a proverb, nor is it Chinese. It is a well-known thesis in philosophy that nothing is fixed and all is in flux. It is the theory of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century BC. Since a river is in constant flow, whenever you step into it, it is a different set of water than what it was before. It is a philosophy, and not a proverb.Sukumar Mukhopadhyay  New DelhiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Stepping in the river

CRISIL has analysed the trends in profitability of 9,200 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the manufacturing, service, and trading sectors from 2009-10 to 2011-12 (refers to financial year, April 1 to March 31). The analysis reveals that service-sector MSMEs have held on to their operating margin much more tenaciously than their counterparts in the manufacturing and trading sectors.The operating profit before depreciation, interest, and tax (OPBDIT) margin of service enterprises actually improved to 11.34 per cent in 2011-12 from 10.84 per cent in 2010-11 and 11.04 per cent in 2009-10. In comparison, MSME profitability in the manufacturing sector declined from 8.51 per cent in 2009-10 to 8.13 per cent in 2010-11, and stagnated thereafter. Operating profit in the trading sector too remained low at 3.32 per cent in 2009-10 and 2010-11, and declined to 3.28 per cent in 2011-12.Manufacturing enterprises have been battling slowdown in demand while simultaneously trying to cope

CRISIL SME tracker: The margin game

Intermediation struggles

The information technology industry has done well out of the weakness of the rupee.The big IT firms are shown in Table 1. Clearly, TCS is by far the market leader - and it is rewarded by a price-earnings ratio well above the average for the sector, as Table 2 shows.It is worth noting, however, that P-E ratios for Indian firms are largely below those for many of their counterparts in the United States, as shown in Table 3.This, perhaps, reflects doubts about their business models; US companies which appear to be trapped in dead-end business models, like IBM and Microsoft, have P-E ratios well below the average.Meanwhile, the Indian markets have rewarded IT with some major price increases over the year, as Table 4 makes clear; the rupee's weakness since July is responsible for part of that, it seems.Certainly, they have seen robust revenue growth recently, as Table 5 makes clear. Profit growth has also increased - but so have employee costs.

StatsGuru: 28-October-2013

A price index for agri commodities: A Business Standard and Indicus Analytics initiative

Indicus price monitor

Budget: Rs 1-1.5 croreBusiness Standard brings you a snapshot of average current rates and unit sizes in localities that offer property in a price range of Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore. If you are looking at buying real estate and your budget falls within this range, an idea about prevailing rates would come handy

Realty check

Clinical trials need better regulationThe pharmaceutical sector has been hit by one crisis after another. The latest is the Supreme Court directive to the Union health ministry to review 157 clinical trials approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation. On January 3, after allegations of irregularity in the approval process came up, the Supreme Court had banned clinical trials for all new chemical entities unless they were personally vetted and cleared by the health secretary. The recent directive comes after the government admitted that only five of the 162 approvals granted since then had been vetted by the health secretary. The Supreme Court has asked the ministry to re-examine the other 157 approvals by December 16.Frost & Sullivan has estimated that in 2010-11 the Indian clinical trial industry was worth $450 million (about Rs 2,800 crore at the current exchange rate). It is growing at 12 per cent annually and will cross the Rs 6,000-crore mark in 2016. However,

Clinical errors

Finance Minister P Chidambaram, his senior bureaucrats and financial sector regulators gave former Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao a farewell lunch at New Delhi's Gymkhana Club last week. In an interview last month, Subbarao had jokingly said he would like to learn salsa after he retired and the finance ministry appears to have absorbed half the message because he was given a coffee-table book on Indian dance as a memento. But it was Chidambaram's good-natured dig that left the former governor speechless. As he presented the book the finance minister told Subbarao, "I know you are health conscious, but don't walk alone; dance alone." "Walk alone" was an oblique reference to a statement Chidambaram had made after the central bank refused to toe the finance ministry's line last year and the differences between the two were brought out in the open. Subbarao, too, had made a joking reference to that comment when he retired. At Thursday's lunch, though, the chemistry between the t

Two to tango

Why is it that every finance ministry official who moves to the Reserve Bank of India as governor turns against the finance minister who is the most responsible person for appointing him? Y V Reddy, D Subbarao and now Raghuram Rajan - all stop seeing merit in many of the things the finance ministry suggests. Subbarao, who had helped mend relations between the North Block and Mint Road when Reddy was governor, turned down a proposal he had moved as finance secretary after he became governor. Rajan reportedly also has different views on some issues. A government official quips that it's all in the vaastu - the Indian doctrine that determines the relationship of the elements of nature to buildings - which is a useful way of explaining the inexplicable.

Vaastu differences

A few days ago, information technology services major Infosys had a bomb scare at its Mangalore campus in Karnataka. It had everyone in the city in a tizzy. Not just the security personnel stationed on campus but the entire police machinery and all emergency services were on high alert and sniffer dogs pressed into service. But no amount of searching or sniffing could unearth anything even remotely threatening. A thorough investigation, traced the call to a house in the city and it was found to be a wrong number to boot from the domestic help in the house who had a thick accent. The person who took the call could not understand what she was saying. "Bombay?" was the query from the woman, and that sounded like "Bomb hai" to the person who received the call.

Bombs and Bombay

This refers toShubhashis Gangopadhyay's article "When girls refuse school" (October 26). The author talks about the pilot study that covered girls dropping out of school after class VIII. There are a few other reasons that may be applicable to even boys dropping out similarly. The main reason could be that the academics suddenly gets tougher from class IX onwards, with students expected to cram history, geography as well as three languages and science. This proves beyond the capability of many students, especially if they have no help available at home because their parents are not educated enough. A possible solution could be to provide students an option to branch out to one of the many subject streams after class VIII. Currently, this happens only after class X. In doing so, students who are inevitably variously endowed can all find a subject stream appropriate to their aptitude and capability and continue their education. The crux is to tailor education to the differing needs of va

Letters: Tailor-made education

This refers to the report "Shivraj govt playing politics of 'India Shining', says Rahul" (October 25). It is heartening to note that the Congress vice-president has urged that Indore must be made the commercial capital of not only Madhya Pradesh, but India as well. In this context it has to be recalled that about 25 years ago a report of the Union Urban Development Ministry highlighted several towns in India that needed development; two of them that it mentioned were Gwalior and Kolhapur. Twenty five years and several five year Plans later, these towns remain what they were -  without any appreciable development. This indicates that the ministry failed to get the recommendations of that expert committee report implemented.Our political leaders talked from time to time of their objective of making Mumbai, the urbs prima in indis, an international financial centre between London and Frankfurt on the one hand and Tokyo and Sydney on the other. That promise remains on paper but Mumbai is n

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