Address the current account deficit with concrete steps

Rupee responses

Business Standard

Lal Krishna Advani exits, wounding the party he built

Growing pains

Veenu Sandhu and T E Narasimhan's aptly-captioned report "Kickback nation" (Weekend, June 9) illustrates how the unholy nexus between the politicians, bureaucrats and businesspersons has spread its tentacles far and wide. The reasons? Much is made of the need for taking bribe due to poor salary of public servants. In fact, it is the greed for money. Otherwise, how do we explain why a bus conductor in state transport service owns a fleet of buses funded by ill-gotten money and still continues to shortchange the state, and why well-paid high-ranking bureaucrats are found with Rs 100-plus crore wealth when raided? A steep decline in societal values that now adores the corrupt is another cause. In the pre- and post-Independent India, the bribe-takers were treated like an outcast and earned a grudging respect from the affected wrongdoers. Premchand's well-known story Namak ka Daroga captures the mood of the nation then. Now kickback beneficiaries (like Lalu Prasad Yadav) are re-elected and

Letters: Greed, not need

Apropos Masoom Gupte's report "How far is too far" (The Strategist, June 10), the author simply restates the differences between bundled and unbundled pricing, without adding much substance to the discussion. I support unbundling prices for most services - airline or others - but I was expecting to read how it helps or hurts the various stakeholders: existing airlines, new airlines, the consumer, and government (via taxes). Sadly, the report merely took a silly restaurant and hotel analogy too far (pun intended), without going into any depth or making any new arguments.The analogy of unbundled aviation pricing to restaurants and hotels is very weak, since the latter has low barriers to entry and exit. Traditionally, businesses with a high barrier to entry have been over-regulated to protect the consumer. An airline carrier operates with a limited and finite set of competitors. Unlike at a restaurant, an airline consumer does not have the choice of moving to the one next door if he\she

Letters: Unbundling prices

With the Congress playing on the Narendra Modi-L K Advani feud, Bharatiya Janata Party spokespersons like Siddharth Nath Singh are irked no end. While "thanking" the Congress for its "sudden concern" over Advani's ill health, Singh said the party was "capable of managing its own house". Congress leaders like Rajeev Shukla and Digvijaya Singh were seen appearing on different TV news channels all of Sunday afternoon, espousing their "concerns" over Advani's health. However, it's almost clear now that Advani skipped the National Executive in Goa for no other reason than to voice his opposition to Modi's elevation as the party's campaign committee chief.

Playing house

Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh may have been on the defensive in his comments on Narendra Modi's appointment as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP's) campaign committee chief but in his old stamping ground of Chhattisgarh, now ruled by the saffron party, he was very much on the offensive. As chief minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh, from which Chhattisgarh was carved out, Singh naturally has a fair number of supporters in the new state. But the Congress is so divided here that he was  subjected to much critical innuendo from within the party during a recent visit. A senior state Congress leader, for instance, said Chhattisgarh did not need "guidance" from outsiders. Then he added for good measure that no leader from any "garh", including Raghogarh, Singh's hometown, would work for the interests of Chhattisgarh. To which Singh smilingly countered that those who opposed him either had links with the BJP or the Naxalites, leaving it to senior Congressmen to prove their credenti

Digvijaya's defence

The Chhattisgarh government provides the state police with ample funds for secret operations, which includes gathering intelligence about the Naxalites. The mystery is that this fund has grown enormously over the years but the expansion does not seem to match the quality of the intelligence, as the assassination of key state Congress leaders last month indicated. When Chhattisgarh was formed in 2000, the state government had allocated Rs 5 lakh for this secret, unaudited fund. That amount has now been increased to Rs 6.5 crore, much of which appears to be spent on informers. So how come the police did not know about Naxalite activity in the Darbha Ghats two days before the attack? The police authorities are unable to explain why the money in the fund is rapidly depleting when the tips in the intelligence box remains empty, too.

Where's the tip-off?

Mr Modi takes centre stage, but not a PM candidate yet

Party with differences

Inflation in bajra has been rising over the last year, peaking in December. Though inflation has moderated since, prices are 20% higher than last May's levels

Indicus price monitor

Decoding the rise and fall of gold as an investment

StatsGuru: 10-June-2013

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

Case study

Apropos the editorial "Something to build on" (June 7), the government would do well to pay attention to the alternate mode of providing housing: rental housing. The Maharashtra Housing Board (MHB) provided rental housing in Mumbai till about the early 1970s. It was useful for young people coming to the metropolis for work because it did not need any investment of large funds upfront. Sadly, MHB discontinued it and the state government shifted to ownership housing through the MHADA. Rental housing, however, is not tought since the government holds many empty plots within the city and suburbs.Kishor Kulkarni, 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: Reviving rental housing

Rajiv Rao's article "The tangled tale of Jindal's waste-to-energy project" (June 3) is a good effort to address a sensitive issue but certain facts lack credibility. For example, he writes that when dioxins and furans are superheated, they are rendered harmless. It is correct that dioxins and furans disintegrate at temperatures above 850 degrees. The author, however, misses the point that de-novo synthesis takes place as gases cool to 450-200 degrees range and dioxins and furans are formed again. Other points in that paragraph are also sketchy. It is worth pointing out that scrubbing, lime injection and activated carbon injection are not so uncommon. To the best of my knowledge, the Jindals are also using the same technology. Most of the scientists and journalists quoted in the article are comments of those who are residents of colonies in neighbourhood of the plant in question. Obviously, their views will have some bias, as the societies world over suffer from the "NIMBY" (not in my b

Letters: Waste conversion practices

The suspense over an ordinance on the much-awaited National Food Security Bill reached a crescendo early last week following reports that the subject was listed for discussion in the weekly Cabinet meeting. The suspense grew because Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath was slated to address the media on that day's Cabinet decisions. In the end, though, Nath's name was dropped from the list of ministers who would brief the press, leaving it to Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari to do so. No one knows whether his absence was deliberate because his nameplate remained in front of an empty chair, causing a senior official to point to it and tease the media by saying Nath may not be on the dais, but he could well be sitting somewhere in the room.

Missing links

Titan is said to have conducted a survey on sunglasses and its desirability among people. One of the survey findings was that a fair number of people lately wanted to avoid sunglasses. That's because they are apparently closely associated with villains in the movies rather than the heroes. Not that this deterred the company, which launched Titan Glares, a new brand of sun glasses from its stables.

Through a glass, darkly

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) celebrated its silver jubilee with much fanfare with the prime minister and finance minister gracing the occasion. A separate cultural programme was organised for the Sebi family. The idea was to get together former and present Sebi officials with families and have fun. Stand-up comedian Kapil Sharma is said to have tickled the funny bones of the audience for about half an hour. The organisers were said to be doubly happy because Sharma agreed to come for half the price he normally charges "because it was organised by the market regulator". Singer Kailash Kher, though, did not show any such benevolence; he charged his quarter crore for the four songs he sang.

Silver Jubilee concessions

UPA should focus on the nuts and bolts of policy

No grand moves

Stable hiring and decreased turnover in India has been instrumental in creating a stable work environment in spite of the economic pressures of inflation and lower rates of GDP growth

Trends in hiring and attrition

People around the world are decidedly unhappy about their economies. Most are displeased with current economic conditions and concerned about rising economic inequality; few are optimistic about the coming year, reveals a recently released PewResearchCentre survey

Economies of emerging markets better rated during difficult times

A casualty of shifts in global currency trends, the rupee has neared its record low of 57.32 against the dollar in June 2012, raising the prospect of authorities taking steps to arrest its decline. A look at some measures the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government could consider

Arresting the rupee's slide

India should have showcased its soft power at Venice

Business Standard

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