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

Business Standard

This refers to M J Antony's column "Changing the goalposts" (Out of court, August 14). This comes at a time when the government is thinking of amending laws to overcome judgments that went against politicians. The ruling that a convicted person cannot stand for elections may be the first step in curbing criminals from becoming lawmakers. Further, the Supreme Court's direction to frame guidelines in election manifestos to curb competition in offering freebies may irk the government. Political parties may join hands to go against the court, but our Constitution makers have empowered the judiciary to perform its duties and guide the country in the right direction.Jacob Sahayam  ThiruvananthapuramLetters 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: Outwitting the courts

Public sector banks' poor performance needs better response

SBI leads downwards

Devalued private sector is in no condition to rekindle growth

Unable to invest

A look at 10 lesser known and interesting facts about Independent India

Independent India @ 67: 10 interesting facts

Dear Students,LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Do you think donations to education institutions should be tax-exempt?BEST RESPONSEDonations to educational institutions should be tax-exempt as long as these are utilised for the purpose of fostering knowledge. The scope for these donations is immense, with schools and colleges advancing towards technology-savvy classrooms, initiated by organisations like Educomp and Scholastic, and parents ensuring that their wards are 'facilitated' more than instructed. Even at the post-graduation level, simulations such as Ceteris-Paribus and tools like SPSS require infrastructural support to foster learning. However, donations should be monitored by the Tax Appellate Tribunal.Aastha Malhotra, IMT GhaziabadOTHER RESPONSESDonations should be tax-exempt to encourage people todonate more. This would directly have an impact on the growth of the country, since education is directly proportional to growth of a country.Jagdish Dangi, UIT-RGPV, BhopalDonations to education

Students' corner

The change of guard at the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) from Vinod Rai to Shashikant Sharma has been marked by a key change in the style of functioning of the country's auditor as well. Insiders say CAG will no longer bring out press releases or hold press conference to publish its findings, a practice that Rai had made common even for minor issues such as losses to the exchequer from the import of pulses. Signs of the new order were evident after the latest AgustaWestland report was tabled in Parliament yesterday. CAG neither put out a press release nor held a press briefing, which made many beat regulars and even officials wonder whether the auditor has gone back to the pre-Rai days of secret and opacity.

CAG gag

What will happen to Lalu Prasad now that the Supreme Court has said the trial judge hearing the fodder scam case in a sessions court in Jharkhand cannot be transferred? There's no telling but the chatter in Parliament lobbies was that with this order, the Jharkhand court will be free to pronounce its judgment in 15 days. When that happens - and if Lalu Prasad is convicted - the Supreme Court ruling on convicted people not being able to contest elections may apply. Just as well the Rashtriya Janata Dal now has his son running the party!

Early son-rise for Lalu

Ram Jethmalani missed the relevant paragraph in a case law he was quoting while arguing on behalf of Sahara India Real Estate in the Supreme Court. His long-suffering opponent, Securities and Exchange Board of India counsel Arvind Datar, was quick to help, saying it was "para 21." Even as Jethmalani was thanking Datar, Judge J S Khehar pounced on the opportunity to say, "He is very good to you. You are not." Referring to the senior lawyer's dig at Datar at a previous hearing, the judge said, "you left-handed him the other day" ( see "Meaning of Contempt", Chinese Whispers, August 8). To this, Jethmalani said it was "a hand of friendship." A bewildered Datar said to Jethmalani, "You are making matters worse!"

Friendship with the left hand

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has used the opportunity of Lunch with BS to drive home two points ("We've paid the price for delayed decisions", August 10). First, the acts of omission (such as the failure to check the growing burden of subsidies) and commission (like a less-than-friendly tax regime that impacted the environment for foreign investment) during the earlier years - no need to guess who he is targeting here - cost the economy dearly. Second, the articulation that the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India is limited to monetary policy, going to the extent of stressing that the government has the authority to issue written directives to the central bank on other matters if the situation so warrants. Apart from being an advance warning to the governor-designate, Raghuram Rajan, this also reflects his resentment that the outgoing governor, D Subbarao, enjoyed (or so perceived) far more leeway than the minister liked. If Chidambaram has come out relatively unscathed despite Adi

Letters: Candid FM

This refers to the report "Companies Bill passed" (August 9). The Bill has a provision for a "class action suit", for the benefit of shareholders. This will enable them to claim compensation from an "erring" company. Investors in India lost almost Rs 5,000 crore in the Satyam scam, though shareholders in the US received a compensation of Rs 675 crore by filing a class action suit. With this new provision, Indian shareholers can now get compensation by approaching the National Company Law tribunal.Satish R Murdeshwar Pune.Letters 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: A boon for investors

This refers to the report "Govt to increase import duty on gold, luxury goods" (August 13). The steps announced by the FM seem to be an act of desperation. Many of the announcements are about funding the current account deficit (CAD) and not reducing it. No one can argue against imposing higher duty on luxury imports, though India's flexibility in that aspect, too, is limited by its commitments via the World Trade Organisation and free-trade agreements. Financing the CAD through quasi or direct government exposure bonds, tax breaks and higher interest rate carrying deposit is quite detrimental even in the medium-term, since most of the CAD can be linked to revenue account imports such as energy, gold and defence. There is no increase in the domestic manufacturing capability that can alter the fundamental trade deficit by replacing imports and boosting exports. The government can consider steps such as auction of trade-available foreign currency for all but energy and defence importers,

Letters: The CAD problem

Sand is vitally needed for economic activity

Stop only what is illegal

The wrong way to control the current account deficit

Worse than the disease

The Akshay Kumar-starrer Special 26, in which a group of criminals posing as sleuths rob businessmen and political leaders, saw a real life re-run in Kolkata recently. Interestingly, the victim was none other than Sudipta Sen, the promoter of Saradha, the collective investment scheme that recently went bust. Sen is currently behind bars for the fraud but as he awaits a court verdict, people posing as income tax investigators tried to "raid" his Salt Lake residence. It was his neighbours who suspected something irregular and summoned the local police after which the culprits ran away. Ironically, these are the same neighbours who had been particularly vocal about Sen's perfidies when Saradha folded.

Saradha's Special 26

Acute competition in the airline business has reduced the frequency of flight delays, most of which now occur for wholly unavoidable reasons. Sometimes, though, employees of state-owned Air India seem to have forgotten that the old monopoly no longer exists. Recently, Flight AI665, which leaves Delhi at 8 a m and is usually full of businessmen flying to Mumbai to attend morning meetings, was delayed 90 minutes. The reason, according to the stony-faced ground crew: the cabin crew was late - the stewardesses, to be precise, not the pilots. A senior bureaucrat who was on the flight asked the stewardess on board whether this was true; her reply was a smile and the offer of a "nice cup of tea".

Tea & sympathy

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Index of Industrial Production for June and the general index showed a 2.2 per cent drop from the index a year ago, and a cumulative drop of 1.1 per cent in the April-to-June quarter over the previous corresponding quarter. No surprises there for anyone who has been following the economy - including, it appears, CSO functionaries. Thus, when opened on some browsers the title of the PDF file containing the press release on the June numbers was titled Are You Surprised?-t2_new.pdf.

Surprising CSO

I am disappointed that many learned columnists and journalists are not asking the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or public sector bank chiefs the right questions. Why haven't we heard you ask them if depositors' money is now at risk? The impaired loan stock of the public sector banking system has risen above bank capital levels, ergo, bank deposits are now being lost because over the ensuing loan-recovery period there will be no interest accrued. The so-called net profits of the banking system are a chimera as banks are afforded tremendous accounting flexibility to show the profit levels they desire.I have noticed Business Standard mention that the current account deficit, the rupee, growth and so on are the biggest challenges in front of Raghuram Rajan. This is a fallacious, elitist view, and it takes attention away from the RBI's primary job, which is maintaining the integrity of the financial system. Please focus on the single real issue instead of writing as many talking points as you

Letters: What about bad loans?

The mid-quarter and second quarterly reviews of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s monetary policy are scheduled for September 18 and October 29, respectively. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve System meets on September 17-18 and October 29-30. Due to the time difference between Washington DC and Mumbai, the FOMC's press release is available a day later. The forex market in India is deeply affected by the Federal Reserve's decisions in areas such as quantitative easing that have implications for the RBI's policy stance. I remember a former governor saying how, due to the time difference, he kept awake late at night to hear the FOMC announcement because he was to make his own policy statement, already finalised, the next day! Would it not be advisable to time the RBI policy deliberations a day or two after the FOMC meetings when the impact on the forex market would also be known?A Seshan  MumbaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Busin

Letters: RBI's timing

Increasing its ad spends to a reported Rs 120 crore, Suzuki Motorcycle India (Suzuki) has unveiled its integrated brand campaign to shore up its brand image, ahead of the festive season. The TVC will feature actor Salman Khan. Atul Gupta, executive vice-president says, "This is a very important chapter for Suzuki two-wheelers. In a market where product differentiation is minimal, brand recall is important. The customer must recount the brand while making purchase decisions. This is a significant step towards building a strong brand to double our market share"

Suzuki bikes: All for brand recall

If there is a surface, small or large, there is a marketer figuring out how to use it, says Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange. Ads have appeared on eggs, in bathroom stalls, on people's foreheads! Most of us learn about new brands from more predictable places, though. Ads on Internet and TV rank as the first and second source of new brand information according to Ipsos. The top three ways people in India learn about new products has the Internet at 75 per cent, followed by TV advertising at 74 per cent and then friends and family at 55 per cent finds. TV shows and movies introduce new products to 52 per cent of the those surveyed, while 49 per cent cite social networks, 48 per cent retail stores and 47 per cent magazine advertising. The audiences overlap in a multimedia environment.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 698 - Business Standard