Germany must now rise above its own narrow interests

The Merkel effect

Business Standard

The old, familiar faces of political party spokespeople on TV, sometimes on multiple channels in one evening, has become something of a joke but Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has decided to do something about it. To this end, the Congress has started a series of workshops both to train new spokespeople and to hunt for fresh talent. In a recent five-day workshop, aimed exclusively at training potential candidates to appear on TV debates, select Congressmen were put through their paces in a mock studio, with each taking turns at being an aggressive anchor, an attacking Opposition representative, an articulate Congress spokesperson capable of fending off such attacks and a policy or subject expert.

Show and tell

The discovery of a hair-like substance in medicines produced at Ranbaxy's Mohali facility may have come as a shocker for the US drug regulator but some employees at the facility are actually annoyed that it has been made into a big issue. The point they make is that the plant is situated in a region where a large number of people do not cut their hair or shave. So, said an employee, it is possible to put on gloves and apron to cover most of the body but what about facial hair? The point, of course, is that that's a problem for which Ranbaxy needs to find a solution (beard-nets, perhaps?); the US regulator is merely pointing out the fault.

Hair-brained complaint

Titan Industries recently changed its name with much fanfare to Titan Company Ltd to reflect its widening product portfolio. It had even taken pains to ask the media to refer to the company by the new name in all future copies. Yet, the company's head office in Bangalore retains the old name. It's a small detail to overlook but surely a significant one in this case.

Out of office

Apropos the article "Forget NaMo, it's RaGa that counts" (Lunch with BS, September 21), the response from Jairam Ramesh left much to be desired. When asked about Rahul Gandhi's reluctance to share his thoughts, Ramesh dwells on his leader's mostly party-centric actions. He attributes the looming failure of his party in the next Lok Sabha elections to the former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai and "aggressive" judiciary questioning their knowledge. His reference to the former as bhumihar from Ghazipur does not behove his reputation as a cultured politician.He overstretches his admittedly high cognitive talent in emphasising that the Congress has moved from entitlement to rights-based strategy knowing well that they mean the same in terms of their debilitating impact on the fiscal deficit. His description of his party as one of hope and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as one of hype shows how party loyalty can blind even the brightest analysts to the reality on the ground. The

Letters: Hope and hype

This refers to the editorial "Voting for expertise" (September 19). The editorial gives an impression that proving oneself in the electoral fray is the ultimate test of a person's calibre in a democracy. This argument, typically put forward by politicians, is self-serving at best and vacuous at worst. Is it that a well-meaning and capable person cannot contribute to the well-being of a democracy in any other way? For example, would it be the editorial's case that Nilekani's contribution as the chief executive officer of Infosys or for that matter, as the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India doesn't count much compared to that of any minister? It is also not clear why the editorial is questioning the technocrats assuming positions of power on the basis of their knowledge and expertise.Kishor Kulkarni  MumbaiLetters 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

Letters: The ultimate test

This refers to the report "Should the land acquisition law worry India Inc?" (September 19). The land acquisition law in India could not continue with a 150-year old-colonial Act. It has to recognise new realities such as democracy, rising population, smaller holdings and large-scale use change over the decades. Being economically weaker individuals the farmers need protection. However, the current legislation has overshot reasonable limits on several counts.The social impact assessment can take much longer since there are few accredited agencies that can do a good job and won't get corrupted. Differentiating between private purchase and government acquisition is flawed since more erstwhile public sector activities are moving to the private sector. Clubbing land-owners with other project-affected people, while popular, is flawed in law. Getting 70 per cent or 80 per cent approval is a tough job, since the new law sets the minimum and not the maximum price. There should either be volunt

Letters: Land law lacunae

This year, even though the 2012-13 output was marginally below the previous year's, prices stayed above Rs 1,800 a quintal

Indicus price monitor

What lay behind RBI Guv Rajan's monetary policy decisions

StatsGuru: 23-September-2013

Budget: Rs 1 crore to Rs 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 withinthis range, an idea about prevailing rates would come handy

Realty check

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

Case study

I have taken a joint home loan with my wife of Rs 50 lakh. We are going to jointly own that house. Our total loan outgo towards this loan is Rs 2 lakh. How should we claim tax deductions?All the deductions that pertain to home loans are assessee-specific and not property-specific. So, where a property has been purchased jointly by taking a joint home loan, each of the persons repaying would be able to claim a deduction separately for the amount repaid by him/her. Repayment of the principal amount can be claimed as a deduction under section 80C of the Income tax Act (IT Act) up to Rs 1 lakh. Tax deduction for interest on a housing loan for a self-occupied property is allowable up to Rs 1.5 lakh under Section 24 of the IT Act. Additional deduction of Rs 1 lakh has been provided to first-time home buyers under section 80EE of the IT Act, with certain conditions.Your wife and you can separately claim tax deduction for principal and interest payments only if both of you are contributing tow

Banking: Prashant Joshi

The increase in the adoption of DTH in 'cable dry' areas is set to boost subscription revenues

TV industry gets digital push

Rise in Registration of Cyber Crime Cases  in IndiaCyber crime related arrests since 2008: 1,600

Cyber Crime & conviction

Trade facilitation agreement a must for India

Say yes at WTO

Raghuram Rajan will live up to his stated views on inflation

Tightening while loosening

The industry is exercised over a retrospective clause in the recently passed land acquisition Act but Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh is keen to emphasise that he prefers to refer to it as bhootlakshi pravdhan, the Hindi translation of the term. That was because, he said, he has been discussing the law in Hindi wherever he travelled. Plus, he told an anxious gathering at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the term offers differing perspectives. He said the provision that applies compensation under the new law to five-year-old cases may be a bhoot (in this case spectre) to the industry but it was a boon to potential land-losers. He hastened to add that the provision would not create a "GAAR-type situation", referring to the draconian tax anti-avoidance rules that the government recently gave a quiet burial.

The ghost clause

Whether the land acquisition law helps anyone or not, they are guaranteed to provide jobs for one class of people: the lawyers. Answering questions from industrialists at the Ficci meet on the various problems they encountered in land acquisition, Jairam Ramesh said each land acquisition case was unique and the law did not have an answer for every situation because it was a general law. The courts were there to resolve such cases using the law as a reference point, he pointed out. Which is why, he added, the law was a Lawyer Rozgar Guarantee Yojana, a pun on the national rural employment guarantee scheme that guarantees 100 days work to rural people.

Lawyer rozgar guarantee

In Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party has asked its councillors to sell onions at "affordable prices" but the canteen in the party's central office isn't ready to wait. The canteen, which serves both senior leaders and party workers, has stopped using onion in its food. Reason: the canteen managers are unable to maintain their budgets and the party isn't willing to revise rates.

Peeling off

This refers to A K Bhattacharya's column "Getting more numbers with 'chemistry'" (New Delhi Diary, September 18). Mr Bhattacharya has expressed lukewarm doubt as to whether the Narendra Modi "wave and chemistry" would enable the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to hit the magic number of 273 MPs in the 2014 general elections.I feel the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP will hit the magic number, with or without Modi. Let us take the case of West Bengal in 2011. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress won a very comfortable majority not because she offered any effective alternative, but because the people of West Bengal were so fed up with the abject misrule of the Left Front government over the past 34 years that they thought it was time to bring in some change. Whether their hope has been belied is a different story.Today, the scenario in India, is almost the same. The atrocities that have been committed on the people and the economy by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance

Letters: For the sake of change

At the press conference after the mid-quarter review, Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan said the emphasis was on maintaining the internal stability of the rupee that should ensure it externally also. I am not sure of this. This view is a hangover from the days of the purchasing power parity theory when the current account decided the exchange rate. Today, it is the capital account that dominates the balance of payments where hot money flows, of the type we see in the case of foreign institutional investors, have a significant influence on the determination of the rate irrespective of domestic inflation. We have seen it in India and elsewhere also.A Seshan  MumbaiLetters 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

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