A delegation of members of Parliament (MPs) from the tiny island nation of Maldives was mystified by events in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, and not just because of the disruption caused by the Opposition over l'affaire Bansal. Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was repeatedly addressed as "mamu" by Parshottam Rupala (of the Bharatiya Janata Party), a close aide of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. "O Mama... Desh ko mamu mat banao... Mama isteefa do (Uncle, don't fool the nation... Please resign, uncle)," Rupala kept shouting, till one Maldivian MP asked the interpreter what "mamu" meant. It was explained that MPs were referring to Bansal, the maternal uncle (mama) of Vijay Singla who was caught by the Central Bureau of Investigation allegedly accepting a Rs 90-lakh bribe from a Railway Board official.

Questions about 'mamu'

Business Standard

Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai may not have been unduly apprehensive of government censure for his headline-grabbing performance audit reports, but there is one authority he treats with due apprehension. Recently quizzed by journalists on his retirement plans, since he is due to demit office on May 23, Rai demurred. He was reluctant to share his plans, he said, since he had not even discussed the matter with his wife and didn't want to get into any trouble by discussing it with the media first.

First information report

Government officials frequently mentioned the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway and India Expo Mart as examples of good infrastructure at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) conference in Greater Noida last week. But not even once did they mention that these two showcases were in Uttar Pradesh, the state ruled by the Samajwadi Party. Instead, they obliquely referred to the area as the "National Capital Region", the implications of which only Indians understand. So not surprisingly, when ADB President Takehiko Nakao and some other foreign dignitaries spoke about the venue, they also referred to it as being in Delhi.

Capital gains

Apropos Debashis Basu's column "The price of regulators' ignorance" (Irrational Choice, May 6), the author has firmly placed accountability where it should belong. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Reserve Bank of India are lax in their responses to anything that does not concern a big corporate house or a significant macroeconomic issue. Ponzi schemes are run so openly and on such a massive scale that it's surprising that they run their full course. A few months ago in Ahmedabad, a realtor was heavily advertising his plots on radio channels. He promised double the investment made in buying the plot in three years, or an option to keep the plot. The underlying plots are immaterial; he was clearly running a collective investment scheme. People, in fact, must have bought the plots expecting to double their money. When I contacted Sebi informing it about this scheme, I received a prompt response that "the subject matter of complaint did not fall under the purview o

Letters: Who's accountable?

This refers to Pratip Kar's article "Saradha: Define the scam correctly first" (May 1). An entity's popularity is certainly no assurance of the legitimacy of its operations. But the important issue is making people aware of this fact. Those who lose their money in such schemes are poor and innocent - either lured by celebrity-endorsed advertisements or the belief that the company is too large to fail. It's much easier for them to believe such advertisements vis-Ã -vis the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi's) warnings against these astronomical-return schemes (given the poor visibility of the Sebi advertisements)? Why not put a blanket ban on chit funds and Nidhi companies? Also, why not limit the number of companies that an individual can register in his name or his associate's name? Allowing the registration of hundreds of companies of the related parties will entail such companies to do gullible related-party transactions to earn unethical and illegal advantages.Ravi Kant

Letters: A blanket ban on chit funds

This refers to the report "Rate cut not enough to revive investments" (May 4). India Inc's reaction to the recent rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India overlooks the fact that revival of investment is not dependent only on the monetary policy, but also on the government's ability to encourage investor confidence. Recently, we have observed some revival in foreign investors' confidence as witnessed in deals in the aviation sector, and investments by Unilever and IKEA. But these can be at the best described as localised ones. To enable this confidence to sustain and permeate to all other sectors, the government needs to implement reforms in diesel and coal and gas pricing as well as pass pending Bills on land acquisition and so on. But given the continued logjam in Parliament, this appears to be a distant dream. The government should, therefore, come clean on charges levelled against it and initiate steps against its erring members, as a mark of good governance. The Opposition, on the ot

Letters: India Inc on rate cut

India's Census has recently released data from the decennial exercise that allows some final conclusions, and draws attention to the startling demographic difference between India's north and its south. As Table 1 shows, the states of the Hindi-speaking belt are growing quickly in population, though not as quickly as they did in the 1990s - but definitely much more quickly than the South. Note also that Nagaland is the only state to have seen a decline in population. In the recently released data, India's treatment of its women and girls has also been foregrounded. In particular, it is clear that some states are doing much worse to India's women than others. As Table 2 shows, in 2001, it appeared that the sex ratio problem in the North was worse than it was in 1991, but 2011 seems to be a little better than 2001. However, that may not last. According to Table 3, the child sex ratio across the states of the North and the West is worse than it has ever been. Meanwhile, the puzzle about f

StatsGuru: Two Indias

A price index for agri commodities: A Business Standard and Indicus Analytics initiative.

Indicus price monitor

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

Case study

Shyamal Majumdar's column "When HR meets economics" (Human Factor, April 26) is a timely reminder to the human resource (HR) professionals to practise the art and science of measuring their activities so as to be seen as adding to the organisation's "economic value".In fact, they need to redo HR functions in two ways: one, they should align the HR strategy with the company's business strategy by recasting the affected HR jobs (from HR planning and recruitment and selection to performance and reward management) so that these support the business strategy separately and mutually; two, they should translate benefits from HR initiatives in monetary terms.Economists' tool of cost-benefit analysis and return on investment can be profitably employed in evaluating many HR functions. Another useful tool is controlled experimentation. Organisations like Infosys and SAIL apply the technique of HR accounting in their books of accounts to calculate the worth of their human capital.Y G Chouksey, Pun

Letters: Measure to treasure value

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said it would try to contain the annual inflation rate to five per cent by March 2014, using all the instruments at its command. It's not clear how it can accomplish this. It has itself pointed out on several occasions in the past how it is in a bind in matters of inflation when supportive action from government is required.I have in the past argued in this newspaper that what the country faces is inertial inflation. It refers to a situation when the rate of price increase attains a stable equilibrium, where it remains stuck until a shock is administered to move it to a new position ("India is suffering from inertial inflation", December 10). I had cited high support prices for agricultural commodities, periodical wage increases and the RBI's declaration of an acceptable inflation rate as some of the factors that maintain the inertial equilibrium.I suggested there could be a shock on the supply side to move the equilibrium to a lower level by underta

Letters: RBI & inflation

With the election code of conduct in force in Karnataka, politicians are wary of carrying too much cash on them since government officials on election duty are wont to seize money they believe could be used for enticing voters. But it is easy to make a mockery of this stricture as Janata Dal (Secular) leader H D Kumaraswamy showed. When he landed in a hired helicopter, which costs Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 an hour, to address a rally recently, an official monitoring for code violations found just a Rs 500 note in Kumaraswamy's pocket.

Pocket watch in Karnataka

Eighty-nine-year-old Ram Jethmalani tried to put his age to use to help his client Sahara group buy more time. "I am the oldest and weakest," Jethmalani told the court while asking for more time to go through the 600-page document filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).But the judge noted that Sahara has already filed a voluminous reply. To which Jethmalani, pointing to the bulky volume of notices sent by Sebi, said there should soon be a forum for the prevention of cruelty to counsels, just like the one on prevention of cruelty to animals. Judge Radhakrishnan quickly replied, "We also have to go through this cruelty. It is the judges who need such a forum."

Prevention of cruelty

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) used the wealth tax issue to great effect to score brownie points off the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA). A clause in the Finance Bill redefining land within eight km of municipal limits as "urban" and, therefore, subject to wealth tax had caused much heartburn, especially in Punjab.NDA constituent Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) quickly tom-tommed the clause as another "anti-people, anti-farmer" policy from the UPA-led Centre, announcing statewide protests on May 2 and calling a special Assembly session on May 3.Then, Finance Minister P Chidambaram announced an amendment to the clause in his reply to the Budget debate on April 30 - much to the annoyance of SAD's members of Parliament (MPs) who were brandishing placards and protesting in the House. The finance minister went on to thank profusely Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa and Congress MPs from several states who, he said, had met

UPA's farmer-friendly gain

Along predictable lines

Under UPA-II, India's world stature has diminished

Incredibly shrinking India

Vinod Rai, the controversial Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) who has put the government on the mat several times in the past three years, spoke to journalists on Saturday on the sidelines of  the inauguration of the International Centre for Environment Audit and Sustainable Development (ICED in Jaipur on his stint, retirement plans and future of the audit body. Edited excerpts from a free-wheeling conversation with Rai, whose term as the CAG ends on May 22:

We are mandated to share draft reports under RTI: Vinod Rai

As Karnataka goes to the polls today, Business Standard brings to you a snapshot of major issues, candidates and other details from the state that will prove important

Karnataka: In poll position

About three years since Congress directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to require public companies to disclose the ratio of their CEO's compensation to the median of the rest of their employees, the agency is yet to produce a rule. Across the S&P 500 Index of companies, the average multiple of CEO compensation to that of rank-and-file workers stands at 204, a rise of 20% since 2009.

A tale of two classes

It appears that the Saradha scam has not only opened up a can of worms for politicians, industrialists and journalists in West Bengal, but has also caused bad blood within the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Two senior leaders, who are former Union ministers, have demanded the resignation of party member Kunal Ghosh, despite TMC chief Mamata Banerjee refusing to accept his resignation. The scam has also spilled over to the TMC chief's family, with her brother Kartik Banerjee publicly declaring that the TMC was aware of Ponzi schemes being run by companies like Saradha. He has also alleged that his pleas went unheard in the party. Apparently, Banerjee's brother is miffed with the importance being given to Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, head of the party's youth wing, who enjoys much clout within the party.

The Saradha mess

A century old, India's movie business is still immature

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