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Business Standard

India, the world's top gold buyer, has taken a series of measures this year to curb demand for bullion -its second-biggest import after oil-as it looks to reduce its record trade deficit

Efforts to curb gold imports

Jobs' vision disadvantages it in emerging markets

Tropical Apple

Business Standard takes a look at the performance of RBI governors since 1990

Has RBI Governor D Subbarao delivered? Take a look at his report card

Learn from errors of the National Disaster Management Authority

Fearing MERS

Congress' small window

Naya Raipur, the newly built capital of Chhattisgarh, currently only has the Mantralaya (secretariat) functioning. Here too, there are still many gaps to fill, none more urgent than the one a staff member of Manoj Kumar Pingau, who is, ironically, secretary for general administration, discovered recently. This was the presence of a snake in his boss' washroom. Though the staffer raised the alarm, security personnel were helpless. The Mantralaya has state-of-the-art security systems but they were all useless for dealing with a visitor of a reptilian nature. Eventually, the secretariat fell back on the traditional method of evicting the snake through the simple expedient of hiring the services of a snake-catcher from a nearby village.

To catch a snake

Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan took a break from economic numbers recently to consider item numbers. All for good reason, of course, but the mistake he made was interesting. Talking about corruption, he started out referring to Guru, the movie loosely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani. Then, he suddenly asked the audience, "Which was the movie that had the item number Kajra Re?" That was from Bunty Aur Babli, the story about two con artistes, and someone in the audience swiftly corrected him.

The guru on corruption

It is well known that the Karnataka chief minster does not use any initials or surname. This is said to be an expression of his atheist values, but his preference may be less well known for those from outside the state. Thus, at a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) event in Bangalore the organisers had put a "K" before Siddaramaiah's name. When he pointedly drew the organisers' attention to this, a senior Ficci office bearer instantly apologised. Still, it was a careless mistake for a reputed industry body to make and its current president Naina Lal Kidwai sought to allay the general embarrassment by commenting that the "K" stood for Karnataka which raised some laughs from the audience and glossed over the error.

The K factor

I have read with interest the report "Bhagwati versus Sen: What's going on?" (July 25). Whenever I read views on such matters especially on development or poverty among economists, I recollect an interesting event in my life.

On April 8, 1972, I came from a village in Haryana to attend a seminar on the subject "Quit Poverty - How?" at Delhi's Gandhi Peace Foundation. It was my first seminar in Delhi and I had the opportunity to listen to Moraji Desai, A M Khusro, C Subramaniam and other prominent economists. At that time my purpose for attending the seminar was to identify who is poor in my village. The discussion was on estimating the number of poor in India - living below the poverty line or just above the poverty line. I could not follow what they meant by "below the poverty line?" So, I asked Moraji Desai, "What should be the income of a person who should not be called poor?" His answer, after consulting others, was "Rs 192 and Rs 172 for a family of five members residing in urban

Letters: The poverty question

This refers to Sanjeev Sanyal's article "Cities' cycles" (July 24). It was interesting to note the author's concerns about promoting and preserving city centres in urban India. It may be worthwhile to promote a healthy blend of hard and soft infrastructure amenities within cities in order to make them live forever and not die out like Detroit. A city like Allahabad, for instance, in the pre-independence era enjoyed supremacy of higher education (Allahabad University was once known for being a centre of excellence) apart from strong spiritual soft infrastructure of pilgrimages and the Kumbh Mela. Yet over the years it seems to have lost its hegemony to more vibrant cities like Agra , Jaipur and Noida.

Letters: Reinventing cities

Aviation ministry's needless worry about airfares

Aviation Ministry should stop worrying about airfares

RBI and government fighting the symptoms, not the disease

The rupee, over growthÂ 

Amartya Sen, when releasing his latest book An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions in Delhi this week, did not hide his displeasure with how his statements are reported in the Indian media. More than once, he criticised the choice of headlines that suggested he was anti-growth, and the claim that he was a "passionate" backer of the food security Bill. "Every answer to an NDTV question appears to be passionate," he told NDTV's Barkha Dutt. But his problem with Indian journalists' take on his work went further. "I have never seen any other group of people," he said, "who can write so clearly and lucidly without ever reading."

Reporting Sen

The birth of a baby boy to William and Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, may have attracted prominent coverage in the British and, surprisingly, American media but both countries also have their fair share of readers with an aversion to public adoration of royalty. Thus, Huffington Post, the respected online journal, carries a spoof that says: "Breaking news: Woman Gives Birth to Baby" followed by terse text that says, "A married woman of childbearing age has given birth to a baby boy. The event followed nine months of pregnancy. 'Both mother and baby are doing well,' a spokesman for the woman said. It is now expected that the baby will grow up". Huff Post, of course, is American, but the the British Guardian's online edition also considerately provides readers an option to block out Will-Kat coverage. A tiny link on the top right corner of its site gives you the option: Republican? Royalty? Click on the first and royal coverage is blocked out whereas the second retains it.

Royal omission

In Mumbai, the initials NCP are usually understood to stand for Nationalist Congress Party, the political party of Maratha politician Sharad Pawar that rules Maharashtra in alliance with the Congress. But Reserve Bank of India deputy governor H R Khan invested the initials with a new meaning after the central bank's liquidity tightening measures to arrest the volatile rupee made the street unhappy and caused bond yields to rise sharply. When journalists asked Khan about this at an event in Mumbai, he solemnly replied: NCP. This meant, he elaborated straight-faced, No Comments Please.

The NCP factor

This refers to G R Saha's letter "Sen on Modi" (July 24). Masses cast their votes and take pride in doing so in most cases. Classes also vote, to a lesser extent but do so after intellectually evaluating or not evaluating anything. It is evident that people who will vote or not vote for Narendra Modi will be guided by their own sentiments, developed over a period of time by viewing TV, gossip and of course seeing what has been done in Gujarat based on whatever be the model. I do not think Sen's remarks may change a substantial portion of voters' mind although it will trigger intellectual discussions and quotes from political parties.A K Chakrabarty  KolkataLetters 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: When masses vote

In his column "Much ado about FDI" (New Delhi Diary, July 24) A K Bhattacharya effectively punctures the disproportionate euphoria created by the Congress party about the recent decisions on foreign direct investment (FDI). The government should be concerned about the lack of FDI in manufacturing in spite of already relaxed caps on investment there. Relaxing investment norms merely creates an interest in potential investors but action follows only after the necessary wherewithal exists to fructify investment as a source of return on capital.  The government has done little in this regard, whether it is sound land acquisition policy, supportive infrastructure (power, water, etc.), skilled manpower development, graft-free administrative procedures and labour laws.Secondly, as the author highlights, between 2000 and now, 30 per cent of total foreign investment has been in the services sector alone. This makes it vulnerable to fluctuations in the global economy as foreign investors desert

Letters: Why FDI policy fails

Do you think the engineering institutes and MHRD should revert to older version of IIT-JEE?

Students' corner

A small correction is needed to Vivek Mishra's otherwise informative article "Service tax on restaurants and hotels not constitutional". Towards the end of the article Mr Mishra says, "The clause 29A was introduced, as it was felt necessary by the experts to declare those transactions as deemed sale of goods that could otherwise lead to a dilemma in classification between sale of goods and/or services." In fact, the need for the 46th amendment to the Constitution came up because of an apex court judgment in the matter of Northern India Caterers versus Lt Governor of Delhi (decided on September 7, 1978) wherein sale and supply of food in hotels and restaurants were held not as a sale because the basic definition of a sale, i.e. transfer of property, never takes place. In that judgment, English and American law on taxing food supplied by hotels and restaurants was discussed at length and, after doing so, a three-judge Bench declared, "Service of meals to the visitors in the restaurant is

Letters: Sales, service and tax

Were the rupee measures a panic reaction?

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