The implementation of General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) should be deferred by three years to April 2017, the Parthasarathi Shome committee had suggested (Click on graphic)

GAAR: All about the tax plug

Business Standard

The markets have greeted the results of India&rsquo;s two information technology leaders, TCS and Infosys, with a degree of added enthusiasm, which may not be fully deserved. Infosys has done better than otherwise would have been the case. This is because it is recognising for the first time the gains from the acquisition of Lodestone. This is not a fortuitous event and the firm is fully entitled to take credit for its action whose positives will continue to flow over time.

IT leaders please

This refers to your editorial &ldquo;Reason, not fear&rdquo; (January 14). The shrinking acreage and rising population demand an urgent increase in agricultural productivity. This cannot be achieved without technological innovations. The time has come to decisively usher in the gene revolution, the safety concerns of which need a scientific solution. It&rsquo;s not a legal problem that can be solved by judicial intervention. The judiciary and media should stay off the path of science. Else, the poor will suffer the most.

Lettes: Start a gene revolution

As the Sensex crossed the 20,000-mark briefly on Tuesday, investors are searching for drivers that can help continue the recent winning run.

Sensex @ 20K: Quo vadis?

Apple shares dipped below $500, the first time in almost a year, after a report said the firm had slashed orders for iPhone 5 components from its Asian supplier (Click on graphic)

Apple shares tumble on report of cuts

To express solidarity with protests against the recent gang-rape and death of a paramedic student in Delhi, the Madhya Pradesh government decided to organise a candlelight march in honour of women on January 18. The state Cabinet held informal discussions and decided that government officials and workers of all ranks, students and teachers, social workers and anyone else who wanted to join, will participate in the march, which will be organised at all district headquarters. The trouble is that schools and district headquarters are open only during the day. Strangely, a Cabinet rank minister also clarified to a gathering of curious journalists that this march will be organised in the day. To which a state official quipped, &ldquo;The state is on top when it comes to atrocities and rapes, according to the National Crime Bureau record.

Candles in the light of the day

Inflation is not just pinching the common man, it bothers finance ministry mandarins for professional and personal reasons. One senior official in the ministry recalled how rising prices have deprived him of a favourite Bengali condiment, Gondhoraj lebu, the aromatic lime variety found in West Bengal and not easily available in Delhi. He ruefully said when he asked his mother the reason she had stopped providing a piece with his meals, she retorted that it was no longer affordable because the price had gone up from Rs 5 to Rs 12 a piece.

Sour truths about inflation

Men and women in black may have trouble participating in programmes that Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh attends. Not because he has an aversion to black, but because that&rsquo;s the colour of the protest flags local Congress workers waved at Singh when he attended a function organised to commemorate the first foundation day of Balod district. The protests were against the rape of minor tribal girls in a girls&rsquo; hostel by a contract teacher and a watchman in Kanker district that only came to light after one of the parents reported it. The Congress claims that the fact the crime was committed for over two years reflects the failure of the state administration. But Singh&rsquo;s humiliation at a function where he had expected credit was enough for the security agencies. Strict instructions were issued that such incidents should not recur and the police duly obliged.

Black mark for Raman Singh

Apropos Mihir S Sharma&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Peacemakers&rsquo; courage&rdquo; (Policy rules, January 12), it is wrong to say we have sanctified public outrage as the highest form of politics. Whether it is on corruption, inflation or violence against women, people&rsquo;s anger was never about &ldquo;politics&rdquo; but the natural anger of the ruled for the rulers having crossed the limits of inefficiency in their basic responsibility of governance. Such anger needs no-one&rsquo;s sanctification. There may be another such outburst if the political leadership continues with its 60-year-old policy with Pakistan. New Delhi pursued confidence-building measures with Pakistan even after the Mumbai terror attack, but Islamabad has responded with hostility all along. After Pakistan&rsquo;s many ceasefire violations and the recent killing of two Indian soldiers, it is certainly time for India to stop registering &ldquo;strong&rdquo; protests, and take tough action against the nation.

Lettes: Act against Pakistan

This refers to A K Bhattacharya&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Appointments with a purpose&rdquo; (Raisina Hill, January 14). Although the writer focuses on the change of guard in the financial services department, his argument can be extended to deficiencies in implementing proper succession plans at the top in government, public sector undertakings and statutory bodies. The last few years have seen a half-hearted attempt on the Centre&rsquo;s part to fill vacancies at crucial positions &mdash; adversely affecting the Reserve Bank of India and UTI, among others. In fact, the last-minute decision on the Presidential candidate last year left North Block unguarded for sometime. Then, the hasty decision to shift the home minister to finance, who has now taken the responsibility to complete the entire United Progressive Alliance-II agenda in 2013, is proving to be costly for the political leadership.

Lettes: Succession plans

Infosys shares rose 3.5 per cent to Rs 2,807.25 on Monday, extending gains from Friday, even as most top brokers kept ratings unchanged after the company&rsquo;s better-than-expected third quarter results. However, most broking firms upgraded their price targets for the stock. While most analysts cheered the October-December results, they said the stock&rsquo;s rally on Friday factors in the optimism surrounding the stronger-than-anticipated earnings.

Infosys Technologies: back in the reckoning

This refers to the debate &ldquo;Is UID-linked cash transfer a good idea?&rdquo; (January 10). With every passing day, more inadequacies in the direct cash transfer scheme are surfacing. Reportedly, the government had handed the electoral rolls in respective areas to public sector banks operating in the districts selected for the launch of the scheme, with instructions to ensure that every household has at least one bank account. One wonders about the reason for using electoral rolls, and not Aadhaar numbers. If the Centre&rsquo;s objective is transparency and fewer leakages in reaching the benefits to the poor, planning should start from the grass-roots level. Local bodies, revenue officials, bank offices and branches, cooperatives, non-banking financial companies and social organisations operating in respective areas should be taken on board while identifying the beneficiaries of the scheme.

Letters: UPA's last chance?

It should go without saying that the media has a role in informing and educating a citizenry about the issues of the day, providing background, context and holding the powerful to account. A case study in how not to go about this is currently being provided by the electronic media in its coverage of recent raids and counter-raids on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, in which two Indian soldiers have been killed, and one allegedly subjected to post-mortem mutilation.

Crossing a red line

Consider the following discrepancies in the farm sector. The country is now the world&rsquo;s largest exporter of rice, a crop grown with huge quantities of scarce water and heavily subsidised fertilisers. At the same time, it is the leading importer of pulses, which require very little water to grow and fortify the land with nitrogen to reduce the fertiliser need even for the subsequent crops. Also, the government is sitting on mammoth foodgrain inventories worth over 66.5 million tonnes, three times the buffer requirement, even as the market prices of rice and wheat are high, hurting ordinary consumers. Furthermore, the annual production of cereals already exceeds the anticipated demand in the terminal year of the 12th Plan (2016-17). Yet the government continues to raise the minimum support prices (MSPs) and offer other incentives to ensure higher production of these cereals.

Balancing a diet

LinkedIn, the professional network, recently joined the 200-million user club. India, with 18 million members, comes a distant second after the US, which has 74 million members. Brazil and the UK are tied for the third spot with 11 million members each.

A 200 million member network

A job in senior positions in government usually tempts private sector professionals and economists because it adds significant heft to their resumes. When it comes to remuneration, however, a government job can by no means be considered a lucrative offer.

Pay-back and pay-offs

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) clearly suffers from a severe shortage of proofreaders, if the spelling mistakes in one of its recent ad are anything to go by. Ajit Pawar was described as the Deputy &ldquo;Chef&rdquo; Minister and Minister of State for Industries Sachin Ahir&rsquo;s first name was spelt &ldquo;Sachine&rdquo;. Most importantly, Maharashtra appeared in one place as &ldquo;Maharashtera&rdquo;.

MIDC's spelling bee

Ordinarily, the government would have been happy to play up the announcement of a pilot scheme for dealer portability for LPG cylinder holders, since this answers a long-standing consumer demand. But Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily was visibly keen to keep the press conference as short as possible. The reason: he realised that the reason for the packed attendance was to question him on the impending diesel and LPG price rise and swamp the aam aadmi-friendly announcement. So instead of lingering to take questions and make comments on the sidelines, he spent about 15 minutes at the conference before leaving in a hurry.

Stop press

In &ldquo;Peacemaker&rsquo;s courage&rdquo; (January 12) Mihir S Sharma&rsquo;s core point that we must make peace with Pakistan is well taken, but he has not explained this in a way that can be understood by an Indian soldier or his family and friends.

Letters: No need for war

I admire the author of &ldquo;&hellip;As she is spoke&rdquo; (Worm&rsquo;s Eye View, January 12) for his insistence on the correct pronunciation of English words. It requires great competence and confidence to speak a language like English correctly. This is because in English words are not necessarily spoken the way they are spelt and have a set of rules each with several exceptions &mdash; whether it is a simple &ldquo;do&rdquo; or &ldquo;go&rdquo; or the complex &ldquo;psychology&rdquo; or &ldquo;Czar&rdquo;. For the uninitiated the problem is aggravated when it comes to proper nouns. How to verbalise &ldquo;Blanchard&rdquo; or &ldquo;Iacocca&rdquo; or Machiavelli or Freud? Moreover, in a big country like ours, with the dimensions of a continent in linguistic and geographical terms, inflection varies from state to state.

Letters: English or Iinglis?

A new price index for agri commodities: A Business Standard and Indicus Analytics initiative (Click on graphic)

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 786 - Business Standard