Indians seem to be spending a lot of time on their mobiles, according to the Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights survey.And, consumers seem to like a mix of all kinds of media - offline, feed-based, as well as on-demand video services

Media on the mobile

Business Standard

Every Monday, Business Standard analyses one family's finances and suggests a suitable way forward

Case study

Apropos the report "End of BJP-JD (U) ties but not the end of the world" (June 17), Nitish Kumar's action brings back memories of former PM V P Singh in the 1990s. Kumar has parted ways with the BJP to check the rise of Moditva, the aggressive face of Hindutva, knowing well that it would alter the composition of the "social alliance" in Bihar. Similarly, Singh had ordered the arrest of L K Advani to halt his odyssey to recruit kar sevaks to tear down a mosque and build a temple in its place, despite knowing it would bring down his government, as it did. If Kumar has done what is best for the nation, Singh renounced power for principle.G David Milton, MaruthancodeLetters 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.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Secularism's triumph

Apropos the editorial "Rain before time" (June 19), the monsoon mayhem caused in Uttarakhand makes one wonder whether our infrastructure is capable of withstanding a natural calamity. We need to find scientific ways of dealing with disasters. Also, the application of engineering needs to be improved so that buildings are not prone to such calamities.P Senthil Saravana Durai, MumbaiLetters 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.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Monsoon readiness

The rationale for the Third Front of political parties to fight the next parliamentary elections is not clear. It makes sense in the case of parties with an all-India presence. On the other hand, the likely constituents of the Third Front are all regional parties with no presence outside their home states. How can the Telugu Desam Party help the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh or the Trinamool Congress help the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar? It is quite likely that the Third Front will be a non-starter owing to the wrangling for the position of the chief who would be the candidate for the post of the prime minister. It will make more sense if the Third Front is formed after the general elections depending on the results.A Seshan, MumbaiLetters 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.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Irrational Third Front

This refers to Jaimini Bhagwati's article "The rupee and risks" (June 21). In the context of volatile capital flows used to finance the current account deficit, the author says "we should aim to raise our foreign exchange reserves to about $600 billion over the medium term (from $300 billion or less at present)". Additional reserves are one kind of safeguard. International credit lines are another. The cost of a credit line can work out less than the opportunity cost of reserves. So we should, at the margin, think more in terms of credit lines rather than additional reserves. The idea is not to replace reserves with credit lines, but to have an optimal mix of the two reserves and credit lines. It is important to provide a perspective. Consider firms, households, commercial banks and central banks. For precautionary liquidity, firms rely more on credit lines than on cash (reserves). Households have increasingly shifted from cash to credit cards (a form of credit line). Commercial banks

Letters: Other safeguards for RBI

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has always projected himself as someone who is accessible to people at all times. But his reluctance to get a mobile phone meant his calls were always routed through his secretaries and assistants. With his personal staff facing allegations of having been in contact over the phone with the main accused in the latest cheating scam to rock Kerala (nicknamed "call gate"), Chandy has now decided to do something he managed to avoid for years: get a mobile phone and SIM card of his own.

A phone for Chandy

Vyas' public display of religiosity may attract attention because her party, the Congress, is ostensibly secular. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) need not have such qualms, being a Hindu nationalist party by ideology. Its Delhi unit President Vijay Goel has, in fact, gone one step further in his electioneering campaign for the Assembly polls this time. Having been out of power in the state for 14 years, he has decided to hold kitty-parties for women and girls and organise religious functions in residential colonies to get people to vote for the BJP.

Goel's functional campaign

US gene judgment opens up biotech industry

DNA of the future

There is indeed a link between growth and employment

Growthless and jobless?

Is the extra advance tax adjusted against future payment or can one get refund? In case one pays a higher amount than the total advance tax liability, there is a refund. If the extra amount paid is 10 per cent higher than the tax liability, then one will get a nine per cent interest on that amount.What if the extra advance tax paid is less than 10 per cent of the overall liability?If the extra advance tax paid is less than 10 per cent of the total tax liability, no interest will be paid to the taxpayer. In this case, one will only get the refund of the extra amount paid.

Tipping point

Data breach. These two words give most people nightmares. According to the 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon, the past year proved that data breaches could occur to anyone - as many as 47,000 such incidents were reported.

When there is data breach

And now middle-class anger spreads to Brazil

The ugly game

As Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna drew flak for the failure of his government to react to the national calamity in his state readily and effectively, the Congress had no other option but to put the spotlight on Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The party let it be known that she was "personally" monitoring the situation and touring the affected areas along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The "absence" of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, while Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi parked himself in Uttarakhand and was even planning a visit to Kedarnath, saw the Centre coming in for further criticism. The response, however, was tepid: "The Congress president herself is taking stock of the situation."

Missing in action

With the growing influence of Narendra Modi in the Bharatiya Janata Party, political circles are rife with speculation of B S Yeddyurappa joining the National Democratic Alliance. The latter has serious differences with L K Advani.

Yeddy's comeback

A majority of Indian corporates will bear the brunt of the rupee hovering at Rs 60 to a dollar as most of them are net foreign exchange spenders. We look at the top Nifty 50 companies which disclosed their foreign exchange earnings and expenditure for fiscal 2012. Since then, the foreign exchange earnings and expenditure have gone up sharply for fiscal 2013 for these companies as we await annual reports. While many companies in the power sector will pass on the rupee depreciation to their customers, some like Maruti Suzuki are planning to aggressively localise sourcing of parts.

The forex earners... and the spenders

The equated monthly installment (EMI) schemes have turned out to be a masterstroke for Apple

Smart payment

No easy answers

Instead of tinkering with roaming, end circle system

Wrong target

Gurudas Dasgupta was livid at being called the "import lobby" by Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily. The two have been at loggerheads because the veteran communist is against the increase in gas prices that the government has proposed. At a press conference that he had called at the All India Trade Union Congress office, he thundered , "I am not part of any lobby. It is fantastic nonsense." True to swadeshi ideals, even the soft drinks served at the conference did not have any foreign connection. Instead, small bottles of Mycola and its lemonade cousin, made on the outskirts of Delhi, were served. Journalists were seen straining their eyes to read the labels.

Desi colas at 'import lobby'

What's the difference between a death sentence and a sentence by hanging? The question may seem pointless but clearly not to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Angry over the rape and murder of a college student at Kamduni in Barasat, villagers accosted Banerjee with slogans such as "hang the rapists" and "we want the death sentence" during her visit last week. Never one to pass up the opportunity to respond to a crowd, she assured the protesters, "The charge sheet has been prepared and will be submitted to the court within seven days. We will ask for both hanging and death sentence for the culprits."

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