LAST WEEK WE ASKED:  Do you think faculty members should be relieved of administration work at B-schools?

Student's corner

Business Standard

Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Milind Deora is active on Twitter with some 72,000 followers. His handle describes him as a musician and a dog's best friend, besides his official designations. While his tweets are generally about his daily meetings and an attempt to advertise his government's achievements, today he posted a picture of a half-cut Alphonso with the tag: "The future's bright - the future's orange", probably referring to the colour of the mouth-watering fruit rather than the saffron opposition party. Within minutes, he was back to plugging his government: "In 9 years, false controversies aside, #UPA has achieved a great deal for participatory democracy. E.g. RTI has empowered India's voiceless". The future may be orange, but is it bright?

Mango season begins

Apropos the editorial "Conflicting signals" (May 21), a minister can only lay down a policy; the precise implementation and assessment should be left to officials, with the minister having no role to play. Apart from the merit of the case, the alacrity with which the Vodafone tax case was reversed, shows that the law minister was running the ministry as his own personal fiefdom. Had Ashwani Kumar not been reprimanded by the apex court for meddling in Coalgate, and had he stayed on as the law minister, the ruling on Vodafone would have remained untouched. The government is supposed to take collective decisions. Then why was this case not discussed and views of the tax officials taken on board before taking a decision? N Rangachary is a distinguished former Indian revenue service officer, and has over 50 years of experience. He was appointed by the prime minister to examine various points of conflict, and he gave a detailed report on various contentious issues. The report ought to have b

Letters: Roles of ministers & officials

Apropos Vinayak Chatterjee's column "Renegotiating PPP contracts" (Infratalk, May 21), the public-private partnership (PPP) contracts are suffering, thanks to the government fully passing risks to the private sector and treating long-term contracts as cast in stone. Among others, one major project that continues to suffer is K-G basin. It's time the government showed courage to review such contracts. These should be revised through political will, and not under the fear of the Comptroller and Auditor General or the Supreme Court's reprimand. The responsibility of governance - taking action and execution - lies with the government. It needs to bring every institution concerned on board, including the Opposition, regulators and courts, to ensure the success of the PPP model - which is much desired for the $1 trillion dream in the 12th Plan.Sanjay Banka  GurgaonLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002F

Letters: The PPP dream

Manish Tewari castigating former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai and challenging him to a public debate on 2G loss amounts to calling the Supreme Court for a debate, given the latter cancelled 2G licences of 122 telecom companies. One wonders whether it is arrogance of power that gives this Congressman, and others in general, the brazenness to speak in public, however deep the charges of corruption. So long as the Opposition is divided - wasting time blaming one another - the elephant Congress is roaming freely and trampling everyone else on its way. The opinion poll on the performance of the United Progressive Alliance-II (UPA-II) conducted by two popular TV channels clearly reflect the level of dissatisfaction among the urban poor and the urban population across the country. Comments from the Congress and its popular spokespersons Tewari and Mani Shankar Aiyar would be welcome on this front. The performance of UPA-II is an open-and-shut case.D M Rajan  Caranzelem (Goa)Lette

Letters: The Congress' brazenness

India should once again be the world's vaccine capital

A shot of hope

Uniform national licences in telecom are overdue

Breaking the circles

The fifth and final year of the United Progressive Alliance-II government sets the countdown rolling to the next general elections; and in view of the regime's philosophy of making people happy, it is reportedly targeting government employees. In line with its other populist measures, the buzz in the corridors of power is that the government may soon set up a new pay commission. Normally, a pay commission takes two years to submit its report, as it did in 1996 and 2008, but if those generous handouts are an index, a bonanza can be reliably expected. That's in addition to the dearness-allowance-linked pay that government servants already enjoy thanks to high inflation.

Pay offs

Staff in the rural development ministry complain that far from taking money, they keep having to shell out money to destitute and needy individuals who seem to end up in its office. The other day a little boy somehow gained entrance to the ministry, and demanded that he be assisted in helping his mother who was dying of cancer. He was gently redirected to his district administration and told he must speak to it for assistance. Then, out of pity, the office staff raised a collection and gave him Rs 500. They distributed the money in all his pockets, warning him against pocket-pickers. They thought they'd seen the last of him but he returned within half an hour - to report that all his pockets had been picked and the money was gone, so could he please have some more. This time, the staff was firm and told him they had no more money to give him. "We don't know how people make money - we keeping giving away money," one of them wailed.

Artful dodger

Creative hands at advertising agencies often talk about how the "suits" (i.e. marketing executives) encourage awards-only advertising. Here's how a top 10 agency has institutionalised the process. It has a rating system, called seven-plus, to gauge the "creative quotient" of every piece of work that comes out of the system globally. Teams that have a few seven-plus campaigns to their credit are assigned the sole task of doing "item numbers" - that is, produce ads for advertisers that may not be its clients but have the potential to add to its medals tally at various functions.

Ad world's item numbers

Apropos the column "No room for HR" (Worm's Eye View, May 19), neither Robert Townsend (who advised winding up of personnel department as a solution for business prosperity, vide Up The Organisation) and Dilbert (who called human resource, or HR professionals "hatchet men") were among the first, nor will the author be the last to declare HR as the "black sheep" of management. As one who spent 37 years in the field of HR, I found that the image of HR managers varies from one sector to another. In the public sector (I worked with SAIL for 30 years), the job is institutionalised as a valued contributor. This is because most public sector undertakings are large headcount-wise, are in manufacturing, insist on compliance with labour laws and adherence to principles of natural and social justice, and place premium on employee and community well-being without losing sight of contemporary talent management practices.HR is personalised in the private sector - it is the personality and the person

Letters: HR - Highly Rewarding

This refers to the editorial "Sting in the tale" (May 16). Being a bankers' bank, regulator and supervisor, no doubt the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has the moral and physical responsibility to ensure that banks do not err, and indulge in transactions that are against prescribed rules and guidelines. However, one ought to acknowledge that the RBI, with its limited resources of manpower - 17,000-odd staff - cannot be expected to scrutinise millions of transactions involving exotic products carried out by banks and their associate business concerns, having thousands of branches, and whose only philosophy is to make money at any cost. All said, the RBI cannot escape from its responsibility of keeping the banking system sound and viable, but aberrations do take place in the context of an ever-increasing expansion of business having interlinkages with various markets, institutions and economies under a severe competitive and liberalised environment. An individual bank's greed and overconfid

Letters: Why blame the RBI?

NEW DATAWHOLESALE PRICE INDEX-The rate of Wholesale Price Index-based inflation fell to 4.89 per cent in April, the lowest in three and a half years, raising hopes the Reserve Bank of India would cut interest rates sharply to revive economic

Green shoots tracker

So it wasnt just the aam aadmi who were stuck in the monumental traffic jams caused by road closures in the capital on account of Chinese Premier Li Keqiangs visit. Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also discovered that his official car, red light and siren couldnt penetrate the gridlock. All of which he found irritating enough to send out this tweet: Crazy traffic mess, just walked the length of Shahjahan Road to Kashmir House. My sympathies with all those stuck in the jams in Delhi. As one of his Twitter followers commented: When even Chief Ministers like @abdullah_omar are victims of Delhis Made in China gridlock today, what of the little people?

Gridlock, Made by China

It is not only small-time investors from rural areas who have been victims of chit fund companies and collective investment schemes of the Saradha ilk. A state minister ruefully admitted that he, too, has been taken in by such schemes. In an informal chat with journalists, West Bengal Industries Minister Partha Chatterjee recalled his experience in the days before he entered active politics. I was young and had invested around Rs 10,000 and, surprisingly, I got back Rs 18,000 after 18 months, he said. Encouraged, he then invested Rs 30,000 in another scheme  and that was the last he saw of it!

Money for nothing

Among other things, the unceremonious ouster of former Railway Minister Pawan Bansal from his post deprived him of an official opportunity to escape the capitals debilitating summer heat. This was courtesy a planned tour to Jammu & Kashmir, where he was headed with some journalists to showcase the Railways achievements in that troubled state. Not surprisingly, as the temperatures soar into the forties, the journalists who were originally slated for that trip are now anxiously enquiring about the fate of that tour from his successor C P Joshis office.

Off track

Shankar Acharyas column Early exit from economic stress? (A Piece Of My Mind, May 9) rightly attributes Indias slow economic growth rate to supply-side bottlenecks owing to, among others, a sudden tightening of environmental regulations, a host of high-profile corruption cases, judicial restraints on iron ore mining, delay in the completion of core sector projects and general policy paralysis. The inertia in policy making and implementation in these critical areas indicates a certain unwillingness to take bold initiatives, and a preference for populist measures such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the food security Bill. It would be helpful if political parties could rise above what the author calls partisan politics and put the interests of the nation first. Unfortunately, in a climate of successive coalition governments at the Centre, competitive populism has become the order of the day. The culture of consensus and consultation that lie at the heart

Letters: The erosion of democracy

This refers to Devangshu Dattas article Too soon to bet on inflation rate (May 19). The market has taken note of inflation and the associated interest rates that are yet to be passed on to customers. If that happens, the deposit rates would fall to some extent, and the market would gain on interest rates stocks. The market is going forward on the back of the recovery in the US and the likelihood of project commissioning. The market may pull back if there is a general rebound in demand. However, it is time for the cyclical stocks to exhibit some charm.R K Arya  FaridabadLetters 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: Signs of recovery

Apropos the editorial Sting in the tail (May 16), deficiencies in governance arise from the fact that the control mechanism put in place to detect aberrations simply do not work in India. For example, most banks have their major deposit functions subject to concurrent audit (mostly by external auditors). Yet, violations abound and the auditors are barely held responsible for acts of omission and commission. Similarly, the board and the statutory auditors are never held accountable for lapses that abound in bank balance sheets. Given the fact that certain segments of the economy (mostly trade, specifically commodities and real estate) are either entirely based on cash or have significant cash component, it is a surprise that Cobrapost came as a surprise to anybody. Its obvious that such cash look for opportunities to come into the formal banking channels. May be the sheer brazeness of the transactions took the public by surprise. Supervisors are a small cog in a fairly large governance

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 730 - Business Standard

Student's corner

Mango season begins

Letters: Roles of ministers & officials

Letters: The PPP dream

Letters: The Congress' brazenness

A shot of hope

Breaking the circles

Pay offs

Artful dodger

Ad world's item numbers

Letters: HR - Highly Rewarding

Letters: Why blame the RBI?

Green shoots tracker

Gridlock, Made by China

Money for nothing

Off track

Letters: The erosion of democracy

Letters: Signs of recovery

Letters: Accounting lapses in banks

Old policies, new costs