This refers to Shyamal Majumdar's column "NREGS and child labour" (Human Factor, August 16). The menace of child labour still prevails in India for several reasons. Despite initiatives such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the provision of mid-day meals, young boys especially from poor families are captured for low-end jobs because they have not been exposed to education or are no longer supervised by their elders. There are few instances where an able-bodied parent has the stamina to work and think of sending his/her children to school. In such cases, the incentives of free education and mid-day meals are sufficient. Unless a source of consumption smoothing is placed in each household, irrespective of whether they are involved in paid work or not, child labour would take time to be eliminated.R K Arya  FaridabadLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201  Â·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.

Letters: Child labour

Business Standard

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s blinkered focus on consumer price inflation while setting monetary policy is fallacious and ultimately dangerous. The vast differential between the consumer price index (CPI) and the gross domestic product deflator (more closely linked to wholesale price index) is one of the reasons behind the poor asset quality in the Indian banking sector. The lion's share of borrowers from the banking system do not earn their revenues from the basket of products in the weighting of the CPI. Rather their revenues, and ultimately their viability, are more closely linked to the price of industrial goods that are better reflected by non-food manufacturing WPI. Despite acknowledging this fact, it is a matter of exasperation for most corporates and bankers that the RBI has chosen to focus more on the CPI in managing liquidity and interest rates. Is it any surprise therefore that even good quality corporations are now turning into non-performing assets?Rohan Soares  Mumbai

Letters: Whose inflation?

This refers to the report "Blast sinks INS Sindhurakshak; experts blame battery fire, ammunition explosion" (August 15). The devastating fire that damaged the INS Sindhurakshak, is painful for the Indian Navy. This comes after India leap-frogged nations by launching the first indigenously built nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant, and the aircraft carrier Vikrant. It is high time we develop and possess deep-submergence rescue vessels (DSRVs). The private sector and the Defence Research and Development Organisation should make joint efforts in this direction. It is all the more essential to equip the Navy with submarine rescue equipment that can rescue sailors from the ocean, by linking up with the submarine's hatch. Divers are not able to reach the ocean depth since they have limitations and it is the same case with diving support vessels such as the INS Nireekshak. This aspect should have been given very serious thought, with the launching of nuclear submarines.Deendayal M Lulla,  Mumb

Letters: Submarine support

Central Bureau of Investigation director Ranjit Sinha hosted a big party in the capital to celebrate his daughter's wedding a few days ago. The party was attended by top bureaucrats, members of parliament and so on. The very next day, Sinha threw another party with the same caterers and decorators - but this was purely for staff members, including his drivers and peons.

Two-party system

The Indian pharmaceutical industry, with its talent for developing low-cost generic alternatives, is suffering a double whammy in its largest market - the US. On one hand, the industry is facing an increasing number of regulatory audits and inspections by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) resulting in warning letters and import alerts; on the other it is being made to pay a fee for these inspections. Recently, this fee was raised over 48 per cent, causing an industry official to quip, "These days we arepaying the USFDA to come and serve us warning letters!"

USFDA: Pay per view

Janata Dal (United) leader and spokesperson K C Tyagi (pictured) was all prepared to deliver his maiden speech in Parliament on the trouble in Kishtwar, Jammu earlier this week but his attempts to speak were being thwarted by the sloganeering of the Telugu Desam Party MPs protesting against Telangana. Tyagi first appealed to them to quieten down but when slogans of "Save Andhra Pradesh" persisted, an irritated Tyagi shot back, "Save Bharat, Save India." After successfully delivering his speech to much applause Deputy Leader of the Opposition Ravi Shankar Prasad attempted to embarrass him by asking, "Tyagiji, you referred to us as your old friends. Do let us know who are your new friends?" He was referring to the fact that the JD(U) and Bharatiya Janata Party recently parted ways after being in alliance for 17 years. Tyagi was equally quick to reply, "Abhi banenge, bane nahi hai" (Not yet, but we're making them).

Friendly fire

How Bajaj Auto ended the strike at Chakan

Bargains in a slowdown

INVESTMENT AND MANAGEMENT SERVICES FOR HIGH NET WORTH FAMILIESFamily offices around the globe are booming because they're on the right side of the supply-demand equation. The number of people in the world with at least $1 million of investable assets, excluding their primary residence and collectibles, rose 9.2 per cent to a record $12 million in 2012, according to an annual report by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. Assets held by the rich grew 10 per cent to $46.2 trillion, driven by gains among people with $30 million or more

Chasing the wealthy's $46-trillion assets

Gold demand in second the quarter of 2013 totalled 856.3 tonnes, worth $39 billion. Lower prices generated another surge in quarterly jewellery demand, most notably in India and China. Record quarterly investment in gold bars and coins was countered by sizeable outflows from ETFs, as western investors reacted to a seemingly more positive outlook for the US economy and an eventual tapering of quantitative easing

Gold rush

A new frontier is opening up for humanity

Life on Mars

Days after posters projecting Narendra Modi with the message "New Thinking, New Vision" appeared in Hyderabad, similar posters appeared in Delhi on Saturday morning with the Gujarat chief minister slated to land in the capital to speak at the National Media Conclave. This is the first time posters of any BJP leader without the accompanying party stalwarts Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani or current party President Rajnath Singh have appeared in Delhi. The BJP leadership has categorically said that these posters are "not authorised" by the party, but party workers are going ahead nonetheless.

Poster problem

Finance Minister P Chidambaram was replying to a heated debate on the state of the economy in Parliament the other day and impressed upon the Opposition, the challenges in steering an economy in a democracy. Urging his critics to refrain from comparing the Indian economy to its Chinese counterpart, Chidambaram explained, "In China, I don't have to sit and plead with everybody saying, Please pass the Insurance Bill." I only have to plead with two people, the General Secretary of the Communist Party and the Prime Minister of the country." As this gave rise to much laughter from treasury and Opposition benches alike, Chidambaram added, "Here, I do plead with two people - the Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha respectively,"  but that he explained does not guarantee a consensus. Not just the Bharatiya Janata Party, other parties also need to agree. As the Insurance bill has had to be deferred for want of consensus, the FM's angst is understandable.

Comparing economies

The new set of laws governing companies, which was passed by the Rajya Sabha on August 8 and is awaiting the President's signature before getting notified, introduces rules to bring clarity and ensure investors' interests are protected

India gets its companies 'act' together

The communal clashes that erupted in Kishtwar in Jammu led to much of the disruption in Parliament this week, especially after Rajya Sabha Opposition Leader Arun Jaitley was prevented from visiting the area and had been detained at Jammu airport by the state government. A flustered Deputy Leader of the Opposition Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded to know from the home minister how a leader of the "stature" of Jaitley could be stopped under the garb of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. To which an unruffled Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who was standing in for Sushilkumar Shinde, set the record straight. "Section 144 is a status-neutral section," he said, taking the wind out of the Opposition's sails. "It is also gender, caste and religion-neutral," he added for good measure.

Neutral law

Mis-selling products has become the bane of the insurance industry and it appears no one is untouched by this scourge. One of them was financial services secretary Rajiv Takru. Way back in 1992, he ruefully narrated at an event in Mumbai, he had been a victim of such mis-selling by no less than state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). After duly paying the premium over the term of the policy, he approached LIC for the maturity value - only to be told he would get the money when he turned 80. Takru said he now needs to wait for 24 more years to get this amount.

'Mature' mis-selling

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is one of the most energetic lobbyists against foreign direct investment in retail but it is clearly well aware of global brand names. In one of its recent press releases, it reported senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi giving a "Clairol call to trades of the Country and prepare them self to face worst ever economic situation in the country". Clairol is a personal care range owned by the quintessential multinational Procter & Gamble. Still, maybe CAIT's press release writer really did think in terms of Clairol instead of clarion calls. After all, he writes in his unique style, Joshi "firmly said that off course the country needs to run with globlisation but a certain "Laxman Rekha" needs to be casted. We cannot handover our vibrant bazaars to global countries." Or perhaps our vibrant sense of language, he could have added.

A Clairol call to protest

This refers to Jyoti Malhotra's column "How India's pride INS Arihant was built" (Elsewhere, August 12). The Indian Navy's interest in nuclear propulsion actually predates 1974. It started in 1967, then reinforced by events during the 1971 war (when a Russian nuclear submarine surfaced somewhere in the Indian Ocean to stave off the USS Enterprise entering the Bay of Bengal), and reconfirmed formally in 1976 by the Committee of Secretaries. The actual ATV programme began in 1984 and not 1985, with the first Director General ATV (with the ex officio rank of secretary to government) being appointed on March 31, 1984, and a budget provision for 1984-85 of Rs 20 crore was approved by the Cabinet Committee of Political Affairs on April 28, 1984.The original plan (in 1980) was to build a land-based prototype with enriched uranium. Project S was sanctioned in 1982, but delegations from Russia and India had been visiting each other since 1981 to explore training, leasing and design & manufa

Letters: Nuclear interest

I entirely agree with Sukumar Mukhopdhyay's letter ("Bhagwati's angst", August 13). The reforms in India, in 1991, were driven by the International Monetary Fund, just the way the devaluation of the rupee under Indira Gandhi was also driven by the Bretton-Woods Institutions. Both were correct decisions and India had no choice in both cases. What Professor Amartya Sen has been talking about is much more fundamental and requires deep as well as broad thinking. Is inequality and poverty constraining growth in India? If it is, then we should go with what Professor Sen has been saying. The growing gated-communities in urban areas, breweries and wineries and exotic agro-processing centres in rural areas are a display of inequality and callousness of the rich towards the poor and oppressed. Rich people have by and large no interest in alleviating poverty. If they had any interest then they would not have tolerated poverty in the slums of Mumbai and the streets of Kolkata. Since the rich are c

Letters: Bhagwati's angst revisited

The NSEL crisis has wiped out hundreds of crores of many investors. The episode also shows how manipulation, lack of knowledge and greed can cause big losses to investors and pose a threat to the financial system. Here is a snapshot of some of the biggest scams that the country has witnessed over the years

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 697 - Business Standard

Letters: Child labour

Letters: Whose inflation?

Letters: Submarine support

Two-party system

USFDA: Pay per view

Friendly fire

Bargains in a slowdown

Chasing the wealthy's $46-trillion assets

Gold rush

Life on Mars

Poster problem

Comparing economies

India gets its companies 'act' together

Neutral law

'Mature' mis-selling

A Clairol call to protest

Letters: Nuclear interest

Letters: Bhagwati's angst revisited

Financial Scandals: That shocked the markets

An old tune