For some months now, guests of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) are told not to expect bouquets of flowers. Instead, a sapling will be planted in their name as part of the industry chamber's green initiative with a non-governmental organisation. This is what Ficci President Naina Lal Kidwai told International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara ahead of his visit to Federation House, and she used the practice to urge him to come again. "Visit Ficci more often - you will get a forest in your name," she concluded in her welcome speech.

Saying it with saplings

Business Standard

It is not often that a minister decides to stay back after his keynote speech to listen to the next speaker. But Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor's interest in the social media got the better of him. Soon after addressing a session on "Emergence of Social Media in Politics and Governance" in an information technology seminar in the capital, Tharoor was all set to make a quick exit when he was introduced to the next speaker, Waleed Rashed, a young Egyptian who along with his friends effectively used the social media to mobilise popular mass support during the anti-Mubarak rising at Egypt's Tahrir Square. The Twitter-loving minister changed his plans, quickly found a front row seat, and sat through Rashed's session on how a group of young people used the social media to drive home their message to the masses.

Staying power

Apropos the report "Saradha due to formal financial system's failure: RBI" (May 1), it's clear that the financial system in India has still not reached the unbanked population. One needs to understand this from the viewpoint of the primary stakeholders who put their money in the Saradha schemes. In fact, the scam reveals lesser-known facts about the poor and their financial behaviour. Their need to park their frugal savings in chit funds shows their thirst to save. It's a myth that subsidised credit is needed more by the poor. Allow the poor a safe place to save Ã  la pigmy deposit schemes. Even National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development's move to allow voluntary savings in self-help groups is a recognition of this fact. Chit funds are not bad in themselves. There are several cases of government-run chit funds, such as the one by the Kerala government, and other funds by people with good intentions, providing yeomen services to the poor. Why must the government take the extrem

Letters: Banking for the poor

Apropos Abheek Barua's article "Good news at last" (May 1), among other data, the author has cited moderation of core inflation as a good news, and in the process, differentiated between core and headline inflation. However, core inflation, or inflation stripped of volatile food and energy components, is a popular measure followed by the US Federal Reserve. The reason is an inflation index ought to capture only the structural components - those components of the index for which prices do not adjust readily. Food and energy in the US being actively traded through futures have no adjustment problems and, therefore, headline inflation is being stripped of these two components. However, in India, food prices (owing to a periodic adjustment of the minimum support prices) and energy (owing to an administered pricing regime for the most inflation-sensitive segments: diesel, LPG and CNG) are indeed part of the structural components. Hence, stripping headline inflation is fraught with conceptua

Letters: Core problem

Apropos Jyoti Mukul's article "Coal, gas and misaligned priorities" (The Beat, May 2), the government's role in India's industrial sector needs a paradigm shift. It should transfer conducting businesses to the private sector, and allow market forces to decide the pricing mechanism. The focus should be on its role as a regulator, so as to ensure that fair practices prevail in business operations. This will put an end to manipulations involved in granting of licences and allocation of resources, which currently serve, inter alia, as a conduit for political funding. The entry of the private sector would also bring in the much-needed competition in and fillip to the industrial sector.V Sridhar  KolkataLetters 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: Power of privatisation

Recent automobile sales volumes point to overall weakness in demand with no recovery in sight. Auto companies are attributing the weak offtake to subdued overall macro conditions and lower discretionary spending. Auto companies now say the speed of slowdown has been faster than expected in FY13.No wonder the earlier view of a recovery in FY14 is now being shelved, as analysts lower FY14 volume estimates across-the-board and factor in a recovery for autos only in FY15. Here's how the sector is expected to fare in the coming months:

Auto: No recovery in sight

External commercial borrowing for low-cost housing is a bad idea

Risks without returns

Borrow cheaply in the West, earn high returns in India

Unilever's logical surprise

LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Should the government allow distance education mode for ME/MTech degree programs by Indian varsities?

Student's corner

With the political atmosphere heating up ahead of next year's general elections, the pace of work in the government is slowing down. As government officials admit - though strictly off the record - little work on policy is getting done these days and the entire focus is on image-building for the ruling alliance. "It's just 'marketing' now; no ground-level work is happening because of the elections. There is no follow-up action on announcements that were made in the last five years," said one official. Nobody in the government now wants to take responsibility for anything for the fear of getting blamed later, he added.

Inactive government

Addressing a conference on internet-based start-ups last week, Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan spoke eloquently about how India could be the nursery for the next Facebook, Google or Microsoft. Then he had second thoughts and amended the wish list - the last one is not so revered any more, he said, drawing a chuckle from 100-strong audience, largely comprising budding start-up entrepreneurs, investors and information technology professionals.

Microsoft, fallen idol

Two independents contesting the Karnataka Assembly polls seem to have a lot in common though they are contesting from different constituencies. That's because they have had their pamphlets with their manifestos printed from the same press. As a result, both pamphlets are identical in content and appearance - including the phone number of the printing press - except for the pictures of the candidates and their symbols. While one has bread as the symbol, the other has cake. It's worth wondering whether the candidates even know what's in their manifestos.

Bread and cake

Apropos H N Ramakrishna's letter "Demystifying GM" (April 29), all the three mentioned, Michael Antoniou, John Fagan and Claire Robinson, are card-carrying members of the anti-GM brigade. Robinson is not even a scientist and is a rabid anti-GM activist who operates an anti-GM propaganda outfit, GM Watch. Antoniou and Fagan had long ago abandoned mainstream "science", and have now thrown themselves into anti-GM activism. Fagan founded a private company called Genetic ID to offer GMO detection services that many seek owing to the fear created by the anti-GM activism that people like him carry out around the world. One could do well by reading GM plants literature available on the internet, and visiting the websites of the leading academies of sciences in the US, India, Brazil, the Royal Society of the UK, as well as the World Health Organisation, the United Nations' Food And Agricultural Organisation, the European Food Safety Authority, the US Food and Drug Administration and many other

Letters: The anti-GM brigade

This refers to the editorial "Horns of a dilemma" (April 30). Given the present economic and political conditions, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has no option but to reduce the policy rate at least by 25 basis points (bps) - if not by 50 bps - to satisfy the finance minister and honour market sentiments. Except, perhaps, a small reduction in the wholesale price index, all other parameters are not according to the RBI's expectations. Thanks to the recent fall in gold and crude prices, the current account deficit may register a fall, but that alone cannot be expected to strengthen the other fundamentals of the economy, particularly the fiscal deficit, investment and growth. Savings have not been picking up and the banks face liquidity constraints where the RBI cannot be of any assistance. An increase in credit is based on market borrowings, and how far the credit expansion will help to improve production and expansion of the economy is a matter of serious concern. Recycling of credit d

Letters: Can the RBI innovate?

PMEAC pegged 2013-14 economic growth at 6.4%, up from 5% in 2012-13; current account deficit at 5.1% for 2012-13 and 4.7% for FY14

Green Shoots Tracker

Shree Cement, Hexaware Technologies, Hero MotoCorp & SIEMENS

Analysts' corner

Diesel price hikes should not have been put on hold

Unnecessary reversal

Only resignations and moves to free CBI can help govt now

All co-opted

This could well be called friendship season for corporate rivals. Just as Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani joined hands, first, with his brother Anil Ambani and then rival Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel, now Fortis' Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, have decided to tie friendship knots with at least one competitor. Fortis, which announced the launch of its flagship hospital Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurgaon yesterday, has invited none other than Apollo Hospitals Group Chairman Prathap C Reddy as guest of honour for the formal, on-site launch today. Of course, Fortis says it does not believe in rivalry; when it comes to patient care, it only believes in "united health care".

'Frenemies' in business

With India set to host the Asian Development Bank's 46th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors from May 2 to 5, Finance Minister P Chidambaram is taking a keen interest in the arrangements. Besides the senior finance ministry officials regularly monitoring the preparations, Chidambaram took time out to visit the venue for the event in Greater Noida in April; and after discovering that a lot of work remained to be done, he asked one of his officials, who was to travel with him to the US, to stay back and oversee the arrangements. The finance ministry has also roped in some public sector banks employees to usher in foreign dignitaries coming for the event.

Hands-on scrutiny

This refers to the editorial "A pinch of salt" (April 28).  It concludes: "Thus, given these uncertainties, fingers really need to be kept crossed till the actual performance of the monsoon is known by the end of the season in September".  This is the crux of the issue. What then is the worth of the forecasts, no matter how we dress them up? I have argued over a long period, often in the pages of this newspaper, about the irrelevance and utter uselessness of these forecasts. Should we not have the courage at last to say the emperor has never had any clothes, even as he parades every year in what he claims to be a new (and ever more expensive) robe?Shreekant Sambrani  VadodaraLetters 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

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