The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science is set to be announced on Monday. The contenders include Jean Tirole, Bengt Holmstrom, Oliver Hart, Robert Barro, Paul Romer, Avinash Dixit, Angus Deaton, Lars Peter Hansen, William Baumol, Robert Shiller, Richard Thaler, Andrei Shleifer, William Nordhaus, Douglas Diamond, Alan Krueger, David Card, Joshua Angrist, Jerry Hausman and Eugene Fama. A look at the winners through the last 10 years

Nobel prize in Economics

Business Standard

This refers to the editorial "Succeeding on Phailin" (October 14). What irony. We have the capacity to plan and stand up to nature's furious Phailin. The situation is so remarkable that out of the 1 million affected, only 18 lives were lost - one deceased in 50,000! But we are unable to face our fellow men's follies. Pilgrimage disasters are neither the will of god nor the retribution of nature. The needless temple tragedy in Madhya Pradesh (MP) resulted in a fatality ratio of one in 20. All vulnerable religious sites need to be covered under an National Disaster Management Authority genre of protection. A list of such places and the standard operating procedures must be put in place. There is no point wearing the proud plumes of Phailin, only to be left with mud on the face at MP, on the same day.R Narayanan  GhaziabadLetters 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

Letters: Pilgrimage disasters

This refers to the report "Lesson from 1999 cyclone helped India tame Phailin" (October 14). For the first time, timely evacuation in Orissa helped in saving millions of people from the tropical storm Phailin. One question that arises - is Mumbai prepared for such a cyclone? Many people in Mumbai live near the seashore and this includes buildings, slums, and fishermen colonies. There is no information available on whether the buildings situated near the coast can withstand windspeed during a cyclone such as Phailin. Builders do not disclose such information in their advertisements. There are no cyclone shelters in Mumbai or the other coastal cities of Maharashtra. Shouldn't the state government make preparations to deal with such a situation if a cyclone were to strike Mumbai? Orissa and Andhra Pradesh have built such shelters to house the evacuated people.Deendayal M Lulla  MumbaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar

Letters: Cyclone shelters

The molasses allotment policy of the Tamil Nadu government for the stand-alone downstream alcohol industries lacks clarity. For quite some time, the Director of Sugar has not floated a tender for the allotment of molasses and as a result, the downstream alcohol and other industries have been forced to close operations. A few weeks back, the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Sugar Federation floated a tender for molasses at an upset price of Rs 4,500 a tonne and asked the molasses-based industries to bid for the tender. However, for some unknown reason, the tender was cancelled at the last moment.This is a strange and counterproductive situation since by not floating a tender and not allotting molasses, even on an ad hoc basis, to the consuming industries, the production activity of downstream units have stopped unnecessarily. The Tamil Nadu government is also losing revenue because of this short-sighted approach. Even without a tender or an allotment policy, molasses are permitted to be sold to u

Letters: Molasses allotment in TN

The index of industrial production (IIP) numbers for August reinforce the assessment that there are few, if any, signs of recovery in the industrial sector. Year-on-year growth was a mere 0.6 per cent, significantly below consensus expectations. For the April-August period, it was an even more measly 0.1 per cent. The manufacturing sector, which accounts for almost 80 per cent of the IIP, declined slightly in August and was flat for the April-August period. With almost half the year gone by, these patterns do not bode well for economic growth, with projections of anything over five per cent for the year becoming critically dependent on a sharp turnaround in the second half.

Editorial: An elusive economic recovery

Every Monday, Business Standard analyses one family's finances and suggests a suitable way forward

Case study

In recently released figures from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, or Siam, there is both good and bad news. The bad news is clearly visible in Table 1: the pick-up in sales of two-wheelers, which was seen as a sign of recovering demand at the bottom of the pyramid, has fallen sharply. Passenger vehicles, too, have seen a decline. Nor have exports stepped in to make up the difference, as could have been expected with a depreciating currency; Table 2 shows declining numbers there, too.Interestingly, when looking at market shares, three-wheelers have become a major component of automotive exports, as Table 3 shows. But their overall market share, shown in Table 4, is small. In that, two-wheelers continue to dominate, with a steady three-fourths share over the past few years.The markets, however, continue to be optimistic about Indian auto makers. As Table 5 shows, there has been a steady increase in the index tracking auto-makers' stock prices. One company that has seen a

StatsGuru: Siam figures bring no relief for beleaguered auto industry

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

Indicus price monitor

How do you trace an unclaimed bank deposit?Banks display a list of unclaimed deposits or inoperative account numbers on their websites. These are the ones which have been inactive for 10 years or more. The list will only have the names of the account holder(s) and their address.How do you claim the deposit from the bank?Banks have been directed by the Reserve Bank of India to give information on the claim process and also help customers activate the inoperative account(s). Banks also provide the necessary forms and documents online for claiming this.

Tipping point

The cut-off yield for the 7-day term repos was 8.80 per cent, 20 basis points below the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate. The range of bids was 7.60 to 8.96 per cent. While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had indicated that banks could not bid for term repos at or below the repo rate there was no bar vis-à-vis the MSF rate. Looking at the trends in the call money rates, the substantial bid-cover ratios in the Treasury Bill auctions, the revival of commercial paper and certificate of deposit markets and the forthcoming maturity of the Cash Management Bill of about Rs 50,000 crore, it was expected that the banks would bid for yields at or less than the MSF rate. Otherwise, they may as well prefer the MSF even though it will not have the benefit of additional liquidity of a small order. The repos and the MSF have been rolled over daily, making them effectively term borrowing for even more than 14 days. The acceptance of yields below the MSF rate is an extension of the already-prevai

Letters: RBI term repos

This refers to the editorial "Little and late" (October 11). The National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) episode suffers from some generic failures and appears more a conspiracy of silence. Things could never come to such a pass overnight and many people must have been watching from the sidelines and drawing false solace that they are not directly responsible for the failures. Sadly, the business of governance/monitoring in India has come to such a pass that either we do not have regulation or regulators and when they are present, basic things are allowed to deteriorate while they fight turf wars. Regulators need to first ensure that the basic structures of a financial system are intact. It is because of its no-nonsense approach to core regulation that the Reserve Bank of India is respected worldwide. The slow-motion handling of the NSEL saga during the last two months does not bring any glory to our capabilities.Y P Issar, KarnalLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Busine

Letters: A conspiracy of silence

This refers to the report "MMRDA to rope in firm for new  image"(October 10) and "Space for humour" (Chinese Whispers, October 11). What the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority needs now is a word of encouragement from the public when it has undertaken projects such as the monorail and the metro. Such difficulties have confronted project builders the world over and a 2003 study on mega projects, while dealing with the rearrangement of public and private responsibilities in mega project development, prescribed that professional expertise should be used to plan and implement. It catalogued cases of delays and cost overruns in many projects. India cannot be an exception especially since there are only a few highly-experienced infrastructure companies here.S Subramanyan, Navi MumbaiLetters 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 hav

Letters: A good word

The festive season in India appears to have reached as far as Merseyside, England. On Saturday morning, Liverpool football club's official Facebook page wished all its fans in India a happy Durgashtami. The post said: "We would like to wish all those celebrating a very Happy Durgashtami! Happy saradiya #LFCIndia". The warm post elicited even warmer replies. One fan commented, "thanks #LFC!!! U guys r doing a great job. #Respect". Others were keen to know who the page administrator was: "The admin [of the Facebook page] is a Bengali?" and "hunt down the admin, he'll be our source to Anfield. And thank u reds". Liverpool was the only Premier League biggie to wish its Indian fans.

Liverpool FC's Indian touch

After their proxy battles on Twitter and Facebook, admirers of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi have now come up with separate websites, each ridiculing the other. A website called pappupedia makes fun of Gandhi, complete with videos of the Congress leader's various faux pas. In retaliation, fekuexpress questions Modi's development claims and labels them fake. With both websites being an instant hit, expect more online rendezvous before the Lok Sabha elections.

Pappu & Feku meet again

Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily had his day in the media sun with his metro ride last Wednesday as part of his fuel conservation strategy. That was the big news. Less noticed was a little cameo that revealed much about the minister's sense of self. Instead of sitting, Moily chose to strap-hang to get an idea of the average Delhi-ite's commute. Then, a young man in his twenties courteously offered the 73-year-old minister his seat but Moily refused. Asked why, the minister responded in his unique brand of Hinglish, "Woh seat senior citizen ka tha. (That seat was reserved for senior citizens). I don't want myself to be branded a senior citizen."

A senior moment

The issue of a huge 154-mscmd shortfall in natural gas production in the four years to 2013-14 from KG-D6 by Reliance Industries (RIL) may be a hot favourite for journalists covering the oil and gas beat but bureaucrats in the ministry are emphatically less than happy dealing with this tricky and complicated topic. Currently, the government is working on a Cabinet note that may deny RIL a new, higher price, if it is able to prove that the company had "hoarded" gas in anticipation of a price rise. Recently, meanwhile, RIL wrote the ministry a letter blaming the directorate general of hydrocarbons for creating roadblocks. No wonder an exasperated senior bureaucrat commented, "RIL creates more steam than gas these days."

Steamed up over D6

But government's hard work has just begun

Succeeding on Phailin

Indian consumers desire deeper engagement than brands currently provide and they don't distinguish between the promise of a product's brand and the reputation of its corporate owner, finds a study by Edelman. Nearly 67 per cent stated that it is important for brands to value their input in the creation of a product

Business value of sharing

L K Advani will not attend the Hunkar rally - Narendra Modi's first full fledged public meeting - in Bihar. Why? Ostensibly because the Bharatiya Janata Party has an elaborate programme of public meetings by all its leaders and he will be addressing another public meeting elsewhere in the country - except no one knows where.

Missing in action?

Just because he's become the President of India, he will not give up some things he's done all his life. Pranab Mukherjee arrived in Kirnahar, his ancestral village for the second time since he became India's First Citizen, donning the role of a village priest to conduct the Durga puja before the idol at his ancestral home in Mirati, a village 200km from Kolkata. He reached the temple early in the morning on Saptami and began the puja rituals. He was assisted by his son and MP from Jangipur, Abhijit Mukherjee. After the completion of Saptami Puja on Friday, he went to Santiniketan to attend a cultural programme at Visva Bharati. At the university, he was asked about the chit fund scam. He said it was a fallout of people's greed that was tapped by some unscrupulous companies. "The problem is not that there aren't enough laws. Greedy people are often trapped by some companies. A campaign is required to make people aware of such companies and schemes," he said. No one asked him any questi

Home-bound questions

Ever more clear that sports bodies need reform

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