T N Ninan in his column "3 pols x 3 wonks = ?" (Weekend Ruminations, August 31) asks whether Sonia Gandhi really thinks that two-thirds of India's people go to bed hungry. Sadly, this number may not actually be of those going hungry to bed. An even larger number is financially insecure in India. A November 2012 Technical Note by the Center for Global Development of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, based on India's National Sample Survey of 2009-10, estimates that the size of the financially secure Indian middle class (defined as those with $10 purchasing power parity per capita income a day) is only 70 million. So, food support to that section of Indians who are not yet financially secure - that will give a much-needed boost to nutrition and health of India's children - should perhaps not be grudged by the better-off.Those of us who do not subscribe to the Jagdish Bhagwati view that all money and facilities should first be allocated to the rich and only the trickle-d

Letters: Financially insecure

Business Standard

LAST WEEK WE ASKED:  Do you think IITs should do a rethink on the new IIT-JEE pattern and change it?

Students' corner

India should take the lead on post-US Afghanistan

Into the breach

India Inc enables the US' frostiness to India

Time for a rethink

The going has become really tough for Jignesh Shah and his group of companies in the last couple of months following the debacle in the National Spot Exchange Ltd. But maybe this did not come as a surprise to the players concerned - apparently a priest is said to have foretold the impending troubles about a year ago. And ever since, there have been special pujas in the premises of the group's offices every single day to ward off the bad stars. Whether and how far the rituals succeed, only time will tell.

Star power in business

Convergence is that marvellous development in technology that allows you to watch live TV on your mobile and laptop and provides advertisers with an exponential increase of "eyeballs" viewing their ads. Amusingly, however, there appears to be a technical glitch involving the most advanced of tablet devices, the iPad. As a result, when the ad breaks begin, viewers occasionally - though not always - get to see those "behind-the-scene" moments when anchors retouch their hair and make-up or instruct the staff. We caught several cameos, one of which is reproduced here.

Really candid camera

J&K Bank is one of India's most profitable banks and no one knows this better than Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Inaugurating the bank's plush new building in Mumbai's Bandra-Kurla Complex, he said he regretted not buying more shares in the bank when it was listed on the markets and then holding on to them. "I would have been a much wealthier person if I had done that. Instead, I invested for the bare minimum quantity and sold them very soon," he told reporters. The bank, which ironically derives most of its business from the state, was listed 15 years ago and its share price has risen 30 times since then.

Missed opportunity

Free speech and dignified debate are an integral part of democratic functioning. Therefore, we cannot but be concerned about the plummeting standards of intellectual debate as evidenced in Jagdish Bhagwati's personal attacks on Amartya Sen in the media (The Bhagwati-Sen Debate: An Epitaph, August 9). Not only are Bhagwati's attacks offensive and abusive, they are also factually incorrect.We are indeed surprised by the misinformation in Bhagwati's recent articles on Sen. Bhagwati charges that Sen appointed himself Chancellor of Nalanda University. This is patently false since Nalanda University is a co-operative initiative involving several Asian governments, and India's then President Pratibha Patil, as Visitor to Nalanda University, was the responsible authority for the appointment of the Chancellor. Amartya Sen was requested by President Patil to undertake the role as Chancellor without remuneration which he did, because of his commitment to the vision of Nalanda University, an inval

Letters: Getting the facts right

This refers to the editorial "Elusive Pax Syriana" (September 2). A US presidency, despite being trapped in a rapidly failing second term, is still powerful enough to start another misadventure. If Vietnam was for fighting communism, Iraq was for West-Asian dominance and oil, was Afghanistan for neutralising terrorism? The US economy did suffer every time, but that is the dollar's exorbitant privilege and even more to the nation, that alone can print it. This is deja vu time in Syria .With scaled-up technology and drones, the US can afford to wage a war in alien lands with little casualty to its forces. In the meantime, technology has further chipped in with plentiful shale oil and gas within the US. The Syrian war must not happen and every nation around the globe will have to face extremely serious consequences - monetary and political - if it does.R Narayanan  GhaziabadLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew D

Letters: The Syrian war

Veerappa Moily's suggestions on oil use do not inspire hope

Moily should learn the value of silence

Explore new instruments to deal with the problem

Treating the gold bug

Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud are the latest buzzwords in the world of technology. Since almost all information technology companies are focussing on these areas these days, a convenient acronym was formed to refer to these concepts without wasting much breath: SMAC. In the recent past, however, this acronym has been modified to SCAM. Asked why, a tech chief replied that SCAM is an easier word to remember in India these days. True that!

IT's SCAM

The issues that Members of Parliament (MPs) raise during zero hour are usually decided by lottery every day when the House is in session and 20 selected MPs are allowed to speak. This prompted a senior Rashtriya Janata Dal MP to quip that though MPs fight elections in the real world, when they come to Parliament they are made to participate in a form of gambling because the issues raised during zero hour are not decided on the basis of merit or content but pure lottery.

Zero merit

Last week Members of Parliament from Telangana were protesting in the well of the Lok Sabha against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, forcing yet another adjournment of the House. RJD leader Lalu Prasad, who never misses a chance to showcase his wit, quipped that now that the MPs had won half the battle they should return to their seats.

Halfway House

Apropos the article "The Bhagwati-Sen Debate: An Epitaph" (August 9), Jagdish Bhagwati and Amartya Sen are as different as chalk and cheese.Sen has consistently ignored the centrality of growth in raising the incomes, and hence the consumption and living standard of the poor while even denouncing the proponents of growth as misguided. In sharp contrast, Bhagwati has written in support of growth as necessary to reduce poverty since the 1950s.Second, totally unlike Sen, Bhagwati criticised India's counterproductive policies in his "India: Planning for Industrialization" in 1970 and argued for a policy course correction during the years of Indira Gandhi's socialism.Third, Sen supports the dysfunctional public distribution system and finds universalisation a better way to make welfare schemes more effective, unlike Bhagwati who supports modern and cost-effective cash transfers and voucher schemes.Fourth, currently Sen has supported the expansion of the food security Bill when the economy i

Letters: Chalk and cheese

CRISIL has analysed the sales growth of 320 micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) exporters in five manufacturing sectors in 2011-12 (refers to financial year April 1 to March 31). These sectors (tabulated below) constituted 46 per cent of India's exports of principal commodities in the year, as per the data on merchandise exports released by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S).Even though India's export growth began moderating from the second half of 2011-12 owing to contraction in world trade and the economic slowdown, MSME exporters have posted double-digit growth across these five sectors. Interestingly, sales growth has been higher in sectors offering value-added products such as engineering and leather goods. Thus, the rupee depreciation alone could not have catalysed this impressive growth in revenue. In the long term, rupee depreciation can boost the competitiveness of MSME exporters in all five sectors, provided that supportive p

MSME exporters poised to rake in valuable forex

Does India need a food security Bill at all?

StatsGuru: 2-September-2013

Soybean prices peaked last monsoon, with low stocks, poor rain prospects and a 30% rise in the minimum support price (MSP)

Indicus price monitor

The economic slowdown is forcing banks to rethink how they engage with customers

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 690 - Business Standard

Letters: Financially insecure

Students' corner

Into the breach

Time for a rethink

Star power in business

Really candid camera

Missed opportunity

Letters: Getting the facts right

Letters: The Syrian war

Moily should learn the value of silence

Treating the gold bug

IT's SCAM

Zero merit

Halfway House

Letters: Chalk and cheese

MSME exporters poised to rake in valuable forex

StatsGuru: 2-September-2013

Indicus price monitor

What banks can learn from retailers

A bleak prospect