This refers to Subir Roy's column "Refer a patient, earn a commission" (Value For Money, July 17). Just as the pharmaceutical companies shower the medical profession with gifts and goodies, similar benefits accrue by referring patients to select diagnostic centres for investigations essential or otherwise. Like exceptions to every rule there are highly ethical and morally scrupulous professionals who are indifferent to these blandishments. Spending time or using basic clinical skills like talking to the patient takes time. Recently a wealthy Chicago couple donated $42 million to the University of Chicago Medical Center for the creation of an institute to improve the doctor-patient relationship and improve communication skills. Medical students must pass a "clinical skills" exam assessing, among other proficiencies, how well they acknowledge patient concerns, ask about feelings and show empathy.Awareness campaigns by the health care industry seek to transform the worried well into the w

Letters: Unhealthy practice?

Business Standard

This refers to the report "New banks might queer the pitch for state-owned ones" (July 18). The entry of a new generation of banks and the possible consolidation among the public sector banks might widely alter the banking scenario in the country. In this context, however, one neglected public grievance against the new generation private sector banks needs to be voiced again - their refusal to issue passbooks to savings bank customers. Despite the Reserve Bank of India pleading the case for the issue of passbooks, the new generation banks have not acceded to this demand. They have adamantly maintained their stand on issuing monthly statements. In fact, this persistent refusal borders on arrogance. Imagine the plight of a new generation bank customer who has to keep 12 monthly statements a year. Some of these statements get delayed in the post and do not reach the customer. No wonder, it is often said justifiably that these banks want our money but not our presence in their premises. Ho

Letters: Passbook pangs

Requiring ethanol in petrol is unsustainable

Say no to sugar lobby

Government moves on FDI welcome, but insufficient

More steps please

Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi, who was recently elevated as the Congress party's Vice-President, has been at the receiving end of the collective scepticism of the social media world. He has been christened #Pappu on Twitter and panned countless times for being high on wordage but low on achievements. Nothing captures this more pithily than a website "RahulGandhiachievements.com - A comprehensive guide". When you click on the web page you get a totally blank screen. Nor is this an old, forgotten web page. On the bottom left-hand corner are the words. "Last updated July 16, 2013." Check it before Congress netizens get active and pull it off the world wide web, since our political parties have a poor sense of humour.

Firing blanks

Just how poor can be seen from the fortunes of another website titled http://narendramodiplans.com/. Set up by an internet prankster it was a hilarious take on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The websites invitingly stated, "For a detailed explanation of how Mr. Narendra Modi plans to run the nation if elected to the House as the Prime Minister and also for his view/perspective on the 2002 riots please click the link below." When you clicked on the link, an arrow moved around the page at random without settling anywhere. Clearly this mild humour annoyed Modi acolytes, because by 11 a m on July 17, the site was closed with a wry message from its creator. A query to the email provided on the site elicited this response: "I would like to completely stay away out of this issue. I hope you understand." The hit count, however, showed that between July 15, 5 a m and the time it was closed, the site got 80,070 hits.

Modified plans

Meanwhile, within the Congress, Narendra Modi-bashing is creating some mild internal rivalry between Ajay Maken and Manish Tewari, information and broadcasting minister, the two most vocal officials on this issue. Usually Tewari tweets early in the morning on some Modi-related issue which is followed by bytes to any television journalists who may be around later in the day. Now Maken, who is the media head of All India Congress Committee, was missing out on the sound bytes. As a result, he has smartly advanced the timing of his daily media briefing from 4 p m to 12 noon. That way he has not only managed to gain an upper-hand over Modi, but also his own party colleague.

Modi-bashing rivalry

This refers to the editorial "Liquidity trap" (July 17). The recent measures by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) were designed, inter alia, to restrict the flow of bank credit. The collateral damage is to bank investments in government paper. The yield on the bellwether 10-year bond of the Centre rose by more than 140 basis points to close at 8.1 per cent on July 16. The securities of 10 state government bonds floated on that day were a near disaster. Against the total notified amount of Rs 8,600 crore, competitive bids of Rs 2,210 crore (25.7 per cent) only were accepted by the central bank, obviously due to the high yields demanded. Bids for five states drew a blank. The weighted average yield ranged between 8.50 and 8.87 per cent. The bid-cover ratio was less than two. In the case of Himachal Pradesh, only bids of Rs 100 crore were received against the notified amount of Rs 300 crore. Such results have been seen perhaps for the first time in recent years. I expect the forthcoming RBI

Letters: Liquidity problem

In the article "Excisability, thy name is confusion" (July 14) Sukumar Mukhopadhyay has said, "Nil rate of duty is also a rate of duty" relying on Supreme Court decisions on the cases of Wallace Flour Mills (1989) and Vazir Sultan Tobacco (1996). In fact, the Supreme Court in the case of Associated Cement Co Ltd vs Commissioner of Customs (2001) has reiterated that "if by virtue of an exemption notification the rate of duty was reduced to nil, the goods specified in the Tariff Act would still be regarded as excisable goods on which nil rate of duty was payable". Hence, the Supreme Court has not categorically stated that goods with a nil tariff rate can also be considered "excisable goods".In a subsequent decision in Collector of Central Excise, Vadodara vs Dhiren Chemical Industries (2002), while considering the eligibility for an exemption notification subject to the payment of appropriate duty on raw materials, the Supreme Court has held that, "An exemption notification that uses the

Letters: On 'nil' duty rates

Dear Students,LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Do you think spending two per cent of average net profit on technology incubators is a good idea to help them?BEST RESPONSETechnology is a field that is evolving. However, most technology start-ups, as well as some successful companies, have limited financial backing and this is an impediment to their growth. So, allocating two per cent of average net profit for technology incubators is a welcome move.Shivam Chhabra, Integral University, LucknowOTHER RESPONSESMandatory spending of two per cent of net profits for CSR is a good move by the government but including technology incubators as CSR will only divert the funds under CSR which are meant for spending on the weak and deprived classes of the society. The incubators have the backing of the institute, angel investors, and investment funds which are sufficient to provide a good start to early tech entrepreneurs.Swar Grover, GNDU, AmritsarTwo per cent of average net profit must be spent on technology in

Students' corner

The window created by Iran accepting rupees for oil

Relief and opportunity

RBI squeezes liquidity, makes macro situation worse

Liquidity trap

With the Bharatiya Janata Party set to project "Brand Narendra Modi" as its ticket to victory in the next Lok Sabha polls, the Congress seems to have found an opening in its battle to devalue the brand. After an entry fee of Rs 5 was fixed for a Modi rally in Hyderabad, the proceeds of which would go towards the victims of Uttarakhand, Union Minister Manish Tewari tweeted: "Baba Pravachan Ticket Rs 100-100,000; Cinema ticket Rs 200-500 even for box office flops; Ticket to hear a CM Rs 5. Market discovers true value."

Cheap shot

Congress legislators in Chhattisgarh were asked to wear black to the Assembly on Tuesday as a mark of protest against the ruling party's lack of action after the Naxalite ambush at Darba, in which its key leaders were killed on May 25. But any impact of the protest was lost since most MLAs could not comply with the colour code in full. Some wore black kurtas but white pajamas or churidars, others wore a token black jacket and one MLA was so colour-blind as to wear a blue suit. As for the women MLAs, their black saris all had gay designs - scarcely a mark of protest or mourning - and one of them did not manage even that, though she had stoutly denied the help of a fellow-MLA in acquiring one the day before.

Blacked out colour code

The massive arrears that mills owe sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh and the prospects of a further increase in state-advised support prices in an election year has caused some unexpected bitterness within the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA). The association recently held a news conference in Lucknow to communicate its anxieties on these issues. As ISMA Director General Abinash Verma briefed the media on the mills' paying capacity in the 2013-14 crushing season, an industry representative in the audience interjected and questioned his stand. Verma initially tried to deter him by promising that the issue would be discussed internally but when the elderly dissenter persisted, Verma tersely told him that he was there to address the media and not him alone.

Bitterness over sugar

The report "India imports yellow fever vaccine to overcome shortage" (July 14) says new stock was imported on July 11. I have called almost all centres and stockists where the vaccination is administered in India and the answer has been the same: stocks have not arrived. After three days of fruitless searching for even a single dose, I finally called the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ask if someone could direct me to a stockist who had the vaccine. The lady who answered confirmed that the vaccine had been imported and handed over to the ministry of health and said one Inder Prakash, deputy director general in the health ministry, is the person responsible. When I called Prakash's office, I was told he was not available. When I called the Port Trust hospitals, I was told I could expect the vaccines next year! As a result of the non-availability of this vaccine, which is required by more than 40 countries in Africa and South America, thousands of people have been forced everyday to

Letters: Yellow fever vaccine mystery

This refers to the report "No target for number of new bank licences" (July 16). It is comforting to find that "supporting financial inclusion", which was included as an objective for opening new banks when the discussion paper on the subject was released almost three years ago, remains in the back of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s mind. The observation that "Financial inclusion has to be a precondition for such banksâ€¦" coming from RBI Executive Director R Gandhi, who had also said earlier in the same context that "enormous challenges lie ahead for us in achieving financial inclusion," gives credibility to the central bank's intentions.A recent CRISIL study conducted on the basis of three parameters, branch, deposit and credit penetration, across 632 districts showed that the bottom 50 districts had just three banks per 100,000 people; just half of the 7.6 bank branches on an all-India level. These districts had just two per cent of the total bank branches in the country.A lack of

Letters: Financial inclusion

INCEPTIONThe father of pneumatic tyres, Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop had founded the UK-based Dunlop Tyres. In 1896, Dunlop started marketing cycle tyres in India and incorporated the business in 1926 with Rs 50 lakh. The company assumed the name Dunlop India in 1928.THEN AND NOWIn 1936, Dunlop set up the first tyre manufacturing plant in Asia at Sahagunj, Bandel, near Kolkata. While it had started manufacturing tyres for passenger cars, cycles and even animal-drawn vehicles then, it eventually added capacities for truck, scooters, earthmovers and aircrafts, and industrial products. With the objective to manufacture rubber goods, it also was known for its pillow brand, Dunlopillo. Some of its earliest advertising includes text-heavy print ads on the "finest materials and the faculty of blending" exhorting users to fit Dunlop tyres, another on a series of great Indian travellers reminding us of "modern road travel" and even one asking customers to restore the "Empire's overseas trade" by b

Dunlop through the rear-view mirror

Interview with Vice-chairman, Tata Global Beverages

In 2-3 years, expenditure on brand promotion will zoom: R Krishna Kumar

Government efforts to curb gold imports are yielding results. Riding on lower gold imports

Green shoots tracker

Non-food manufacturing inflation, the Reserve Bank of India's core inflation measure, fell to a 42-month low in June

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