Infosys, India&rsquo;s second largest information technology (IT) services company, is set to announce its third quarter (Q3) earnings for FY13 on January 11. It is widely believed that the company&rsquo;s financial performance would fail to meet Street expectations. The company is also expected to revise its already conservative annual revenue growth forecast of five per cent downward, despite the revenue it accrues from its recent acquisition, Lodestone.

Infosys: Will it meet street expectations?

Business Standard

The one-year full time MBA was introduced in India by the Indian School of Business (ISB) in 2001. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) followed, and over the years, they started offering a one-year full time MBA in addition to the two-year course they already had. While this course has become very popular, a lot of confusion regarding the content and value plagues students, the media and recruiters.

One-year MBA at IIMs decoded

November industrial production numbers would be significant, as those would determine whether the 8.2% IIP growth in October could be called green shoots of recovery for the economy. The index of eight core industries, contributing 38% to IIP, grew a dismal 1.8% in November. Most economists BS spoke to forecast a less than 3% IIP growth in November, citing last year&rsquo;s high base. Some even suggested a contraction.

The decisive numbers

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;Women at work&rdquo; (January 8). In stooping so low as to shift the blame for the unspeakable violence on the gang-rape victim, Asaram Bapu has betrayed his mental derangement and spiritual bankruptcy. Reading between the lines, we discern that the self-proclaimed spiritual guru makes an attempt to put the perpetrators of the crime on a pedestal. The pity is that men with misogynistic attitudes are masquerading as spiritual gurus and misleading the people about gender roles and relations. It&rsquo;s time they are exposed for what they are, and are socially boycotted.

Letters: Retrogressive ideas

Even as the government has bit the bullet and raised railway fares across the board &mdash; by Rs 100-300 on long-haul routes &mdash; the lowest airfares for these routes remain at least twice as much. Even for short-haul routes, airfares are seven to eight times higher than rail fares. Besides, the static nature of rail fares, as opposed to dynamic airfares (higher if a ticket is booked closer to the date of journey), keeps the railways&rsquo; status of an attractive travel option intact.

Rail vs Air travel: Chasm remains

The new US Congress is religiously more diverse than ever before &mdash; it includes the the nation&rsquo;s first Buddhist Senator and the first Hindu in either chamber of the Congress, a new analysis from the Pew Research has said.

Faith of the Congress

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh&rsquo;s spin doctors appear to have finally started managing matters well. Signs of this were evident in the decision not to go ahead with a plan to have Singh address the nation on New Year&rsquo;s Day, as he had done the year before. Apparently, the text of the new year address was ready but media managers decided the timing would not be right given the nationwide outrage over the brutal assault on a paramedic student and her friend.

Sense of timing

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is a doubly pleased man these days because a strong showing at the December Assembly elections has been followed by a strong showing by Amitabh Bachchan. The Bollywood superstar, who is the brand ambassador of Gujarat tourism, recently spent 23 days at a stretch in the state and travelled the entire state by road to shoot promo ads. Bachchan is also promoting the Rann festival and those advertisements are now on air, both in television and radio. Senior officials of the Gujarat government suggested that even though Bachchan is a superstar, he didn&rsquo;t create problems or throw tantrums during shoots.

Super-powered Gujarat

The Karnataka Assembly elections are a few months away but overzealous party workers seem to have begun campaigning in their signature styles already. A Congress party worker has painted his sedan in the party&rsquo;s colours (tricolour without the Ashok Chakra) and has been driving it all over Bangalore. To add to the effect, it had a slogan painted over it in Kannada: &ldquo;Join Congress, bring change&rdquo;. In addition to this, it has pictures of the prominent leaders of the party over the car. The Congress is trying to stage a comeback in the state after seven years, so maybe the hard work is warranted.

Campaign drive

Apropos the editorial &ldquo;Railways moves forward&rdquo; (January 10), modernisation of the Indian Railways will not be possible without doing away with political interference. However, do we need another authority in the form of a tariff board? In fact, the existing railway board can be strengthened with additional members and special responsibilities to fix fares and freight rates. Also, it&rsquo;s time that the government considers the corporatisation of the Indian Railways on the lines of its telecom undertaking, Bharat Sanchar Nigam. Converting the Indian Railways into an Indian Railway Corporation, with subsidiaries for each railway zone in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act, will pave the way for better administration, improved human resource management and easier mobilisation of funds for expansion.

Letters: Privatise railways

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;Asking for trouble&rdquo; (January 9). One main concern of large business conglomerates getting a direct foothold in the banking sector is that the bank will not be their core business. Even with the best of safeguards, it will be a challenge for the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to keep a watch over infringements. Inter-connected shareholding will perennially stress the regulator. The positive is that the RBI&rsquo;s draft rules for licensing new banks are stiff. Promoters, entities and groups must have diversified ownership credentials and a track record of at least 10 years. Besides, exposure to speculative sectors like real estate and broking over the past three years is barred. But the bank is likely to be at the promoters&rsquo; beck and call &mdash; indulging in cross-lending, and without a prudential restraint in their dealings with industrial houses.

Letters: Pandora's box?

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;A year of weakness&rdquo; (January 2). Increasing import duty on gold is a retrograde step and will leave scope for black market operators. The most effective step will be to demolish people&rsquo;s blind belief that gold is the most secure investment against high inflation. India needs to increase the supply of gold, say 750 tonnes, to the international markets to stabilise the prices, since Indian imports are the key drivers of the price rise. Even if two per cent of the gold holdings with the public can be garnered through an attractive scheme for exporting, the government will be able to influence the international prices. A gold bond scheme that offers the lowest of the market value of gold or an inflation-adjusted assured return can easily attract the public, and accumulating gold stock for export will not be difficult.

Letters: Dump gold abroad

The government&rsquo;s announcement yesterday on raising railway passenger fares for all classes of travel was long overdue. Basic fares for all categories, except a small segment of upper-class and air-conditioned travel, have remained unchanged for almost 10 years. As a result, the Indian Railways&rsquo; losses in passenger operations are estimated to have risen to Rs 25,000 crore in 2012-13, a fourfold increase over 2004-05. Cross-subsidisation of passenger fares through increases in freight rates helped only up to a point. That option is now exhausted since competition from other modes of transport has made railway freight rates unviable. With the Indian Railways&rsquo; ability to generate internal resources seriously impaired, investments in fresh capacity &ndash; and even maintaining existing facilities, including safety measures &ndash; have slowed with the curtailment of its annual plan size in the last few years.

Railways moves forward 

&ldquo;Aadhaar is being made de facto compulsory for welfare schemes.

Is UID-linked cash transfer a good idea?

By all accounts, the finance ministry is seriously considering increasing the marginal tax rate on the richest Indians in the next Union Budget. The reasons for this are easy to understand. The Centre needs to act on fiscal consolidation urgently &mdash; the reminder from Fitch, the ratings agency, this week that India still stood at risk of a downgrade will not have eased minds in New Delhi. Direct tax rates have not been revised for some time; they remain at the level set by Finance Minister P Chidambaram during his first stint in the job, in 1997. Direct tax revenue was then at six per cent of gross domestic product, but is now actually lower. Further, the Congress party will no doubt try and sell any tax increase on the richest Indians as proof of its aam-admi credentials.

Broadening the net

Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nanki Ram Kanwar is a deep believer in the role of astrology and religion in public life and, indeed, as an explanation for atrocities against women. When journalists sought his reaction to news of the rape of tribal girls, all minors, in the state&rsquo;s Kanker district for two years, Kanwar blamed it on the stars. In fact, he went further, and said the astral alignments worked against the paramedic student who was gang-raped in Delhi in December. No doubt he would have recommended a yagya to appease the gods. After all, that is exactly what he did when he was the state&rsquo;s agriculture minister and suspected that the state would receive deficient rainfall. It paid off, since the state received sufficient rainfall, resulting in a bumper crop.

Star power on atrocities

India suffers a chronic power shortage as last year&rsquo;s grid breakdown highlighted. But Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said you wouldn&rsquo;t think so if you visited government offices where the air-conditioning is kept at a bone-chilling 16 degrees Celsius in the summer. This was quite unlike government offices in other Asian countries, which keep the temperature at 24 degrees to save electricity consumption, he said at a recent do in the capital. True to form, however, Sen decided to find out why. &ldquo;We feel cold but we somehow manage,&rdquo; shrugged an official by way of explanation. Clearly, the simple power-saving ruse of raising the temperature, a small service to the nation, has not occurred to India&rsquo;s bureaucrats and ministers.

Cold comfort

Former Union minister and senior leader of the Congress in Jharkhand, Subodh Kant Sahay, is not willing to speak to the media these days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) government fell in the state. Although the Congress is talking to Shibu Soren to form alliance and run a government, Sahay doesn&rsquo;t want to talk to reporters because he fears that the Congress leadership would be annoyed with him for spilling the beans. The JMM had a peculiar alliance with the BJP because the regional party is a member of the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre.

Non-talking head

This refers to Rajeev Malik&rsquo;s article &ldquo;Silencing the RBI&rdquo; (January 9). Future historians of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and perhaps Indian economy, would do well to keep this article clipping. Several observations, such as &ldquo;... a common fixture through the various gaps is a government with its head in the sand...&rdquo; and &ldquo;... perhaps Mr Gokarn became the fall guy for resisting calls for interest rate cuts by the government and industry lobby groups...&rdquo; are comments worth preserving for posterity. Without dampening the underlying hope in the change that 2014 may bring, one is tempted to ask whether this sort of blatant arrogance on the part of those in charge of governance &ndash; even if it was prompted by a survival instinct &ndash; was called for in handling the financial sector, and through that the fate of the country&rsquo;s economic development during the last couple of years.

Letters: North Block vs Mint Road

This refers to T Mukherjee&rsquo;s article &ldquo;Can India dare export to China?&rdquo; (January 5). It helps break some myths surrounding China&rsquo;s &ldquo;low cost manufacturing prowess&rdquo;. While it is true that China&rsquo;s large production volume (including components) has helped reduce the total costs, it is also a known fact that it has been able to &ldquo;market&rdquo; products better. China is a brand in itself, and it has been able to sell without any advertising &mdash; but mostly through word-of-mouth. However, a weakness that Indian manufacturers can exploit is Chinese products&rsquo; poor reputation for quality. If India can give even a slightly higher priced product of better quality, then in the not-too-distant future, the country stands a chance of not only standing on its own feet in the world market but also exporting to China.

Letters: Better quality than China

By merely bringing in foreign faculty cannot suffice the need for quality research. Though the faculty appointed from offshore at B-schools may serve as a medium for conducting efficient research process but it cannot be a sole criterion to depend on for improved research.

Business Standard

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