I am a pronunciation junkie. As a child, I was particular to a fault about how the words leaving my mouth sounded. My mortification at being corrected in public knew no bounds &mdash; and attracted scrutiny that made me wish I disappeared. For the longest time, I said &ldquo;hear&rdquo; as if it were &ldquo;hair&rdquo; or &ldquo;hare&rdquo;. &ldquo;Hear me out&rdquo; on my lips became either a convoluted order involving silken black strands or a mock-serious exploration of a rabbity thing.

... As she is spoke

Business Standard

To help select public sector banks strengthen their capital base and comply with Basel-III norms, the government decided to infuse Rs 12,500 crore into these. While industry analysts say capital infusion will lead to marginal improvements in the banks&rsquo; capital adequacy ratios, it will ensure these lenders comfortably comply with the new regulations.

Boosting banks' capital base 

Every day when I manage to conclude any business.

My Life My Style: Kalyani Chawla

With tax collections in the current financial year indicating a shortfall, the revenue department appears to be getting its act together. Here&rsquo;s how.

Overactive revenue department? 

The decision by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to increase tuition fees by 80 per cent &ndash; from Rs 50,000 to Rs 90,000 per annum &ndash; is a welcome step in correcting the fee distortions prevalent in most state-owned higher education institutions. The last such fee increase was in 2008 (a 50 per cent hike) and even the worst critics of such fee hikes would admit that another revision was long overdue.

Look beyond govt funding

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?

This refers to Barun Roy&rsquo;s article &ldquo;Honey, we&rsquo;ve shrunk China&rdquo; (January 10). China undoubtedly has made tremendous progress in road and rail transports but aping it will be disastrous for India&rsquo;s finances. Consider the distance and the time taken by our express trains between one metro and another &mdash; some take more than 24 hours. The travel time has not been reduced in the last 65 years. There are hundreds of century-old bridges that need to be rebuilt.

Letters: Don't ape China

Aadhaar has been touted as a game-changer in ensuring foolproof delivery of government benefits. But many glitches have been reported in the making of the card and what better proof than the glaring mistake in this year&rsquo;s wall calendar sent by the Press Information Bureau. The picture for the month of January shows a girl holding an Aadhaar card. The only problem is that the card she holds in her hand shows her name as Sabita Kumari &mdash; son of Parshad Lal.

Son-set clause

Media kits and economic growth might not have a direct correlation but the quality of one could well be a reflection of the other, as journalists attending the last National Development Council meeting discovered. When the approach paper to the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17) was finalised in October 2011, the average annual growth was pegged at nine to 9.5 per cent and the media kits were distributed in leather bags. By the time the Plan was finalised in December 2012, the growth target was lowered to eight per cent &mdash; and the media kits were distributed in plain jute bags.

Kitted out for growth

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;Look beyond govt funding&rdquo; (January 11). The decision to increase fees in Indian Institutes of Technology is justified. While the government may continue to support these high-quality institutions for their research and development activities, the remaining administrative and operational expenses must be met from the students&rsquo; fees. Only wherever necessary should the government subsidise the fee for deserving students.

Letters: Meet IITs' costs with fees

Why do Mahindra &amp; Mahindra (M&amp;M) joint ventures break up so frequently? Asked the question at a press briefing in Delhi, Pawan Goenka, M&amp;M&rsquo;s president, automotive division, couldn&rsquo;t provide an answer but he did say the group had earned itself a label, as he discovered during a recent visit to the US. &ldquo;I do not know if it&rsquo;s a good thing or a bad thing but we have been referred to as the Marilyn Monroe of Indian industry,&rdquo; he said tongue-in-cheek, adding, &ldquo;But in each of our tie-ups, we have parted ways amicably and both our former partners, Renault and Navistar, continue to support us in our operations.

'Marilyn' syndrome

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Indian Science Congress recently that issues like genetically modified (GM) foods cannot be settled by faith, fear or emotion, but by reason. This eminently sensible point of view must be taken to its logical conclusion, which means a review of the government&rsquo;s present anti-GM policies. Other recent developments, too, make such a review imperative. First, the Supreme Court last November turned down the plea made by its own-appointed technical panel to impose an interim ban on field trials of GM products. Instead, the court modified the composition of the committee and asked it to revisit its recommendations.

Reason, not fear

Estimates for India&rsquo;s industrial production were released by the Central Statistics Office of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation on Friday, revealing that the index of industrial production, or IIP, for November 2012 was 0.1 per cent lower than it had been for November 2011. The government responded by pointing out that festival dates can impact industrial production; in 2011 Diwali was in October, and in 2012 in November, meaning that there was a base effect to contend with. There is some truth to this observation; if industrial output in the two months of October and November 2012 is compared together with the same two months of the previous year, it is four per cent higher. Yet the contention that this inevitably reveals that the economy has bottomed out, and that government action is working, is highly debatable. The detailed figures reveal more than enough reasons for unease about those propositions.

Still in slowdown

As Table 1 shows, crude oil begins 2013 pretty much where it ended 2011. This is in spite of a dip in price in the middle of 2012 &mdash; a dip that Indian consumers did not receive full advantage of, because of the weak rupee.

StatsGuru: 14-January-2013

Every Monday, Business Standard analyses one family&rsquo;s finances and suggests a suitable way forward(Click on graphics)

Case study

In a second-hand car transaction, the seller is supposed to inform the regional transport office (RTO) within 14 days, whereas the car purchaser gets one month to intimate the RTO about the buy. Only then does the RTO record the transfer and change in ownership of the vehicle. In case the RTO delays the process, the buyer's claim against the car insurance cannot be rejected.

Tipping point

I had made a payment of Rs 70,000 to settle my credit card dues with a waiver of Rs 10,000 (interest). However, Cibil&rsquo;s records show the waiver as due. I plan to take a home loan and have got a no-due certificate from my bank. But the other banks I am approaching (as they offer better rates) are refusing me the loan.

Banking: Sumant Kathpalia

Gold
Gold is headed for a 12th straight year of gains on rock-bottom interest rates, concerns on the financial stability of the Euro zone, and diversification by central banks into bullion(Click on graphics)
&nbsp;

Metals surge

Indians shouldn't be cribbing about their jobs if a recent survey by LinkedIn is any indication. India has topped the list of countries where people are working in their dream jobs, with 44 per cent Indians admitting they have the career they wanted as a child. The networking website surveyed more than 8,000 professionals globally to find out about the most common childhood aspirations.

Indians living their dream (jobs)

Finance Minister P Chidambaram hopes to contain the fiscal deficit at 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product, and though no one knows how he will achieve this, one thing is for sure: frittering away government energy and funds on a public sector unit that was virtually a non-starter from its inception in 1972 is not the way to go about it. Indeed, given the stringent expenditure cuts imposed on government departments by a regime committed to heavy entitlement spending, the proposal to sink more than Rs 200 crore in reviving Lucknow-headquartered Scooters India Ltd is particularly inexplicable. On Thursday, the Cabinet deferred a proposal to this effect from the Department of Heavy Industry, the ostensible reason being that the minister concerned, Praful Patel, was not present.

Running on empty 

Getting invited for the Congress&rsquo; brainstorming session &lsquo;chintan shivir&rsquo; in Jaipur appears to be quite an exclusive affair. Only 300-odd people have made the cut. While the Congress Working Committee (CWC) members have been sent invites, as have the permanent invitees such as Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the special invitees have been left out. This gave rise to a piquant situation. Former external affairs minister S M Krishna (a special invitee) had been made in-charge of a sub-group at the &lsquo;chintan shivir&rsquo; deliberating on &ldquo;India and the world (foreign policy)&rdquo; but, according to the guest list, he could not have been present at the shivir. Realising this anomaly, with just a week to go for this all-important event, Krishna was appointed as a permanent invitee of the CWC. Incidentally, Krishna is also the Congress&rsquo; seniormost leader in Karnataka, which goes to polls later this year.

Business Standard

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