The summit commemorating the 20th anniversary of India&rsquo;s &ldquo;partnership&rdquo; with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, was held in New Delhi on December 20 and 21. Unusually for an occasion where so many heads of government arrived, it was kept low-key; this is all the more remarkable because its centrepiece was agreements for free trade in services and for investment. This comes &ndash; as the leaders of the Philippines and Vietnam pointed out in their speeches &ndash; when many countries in Southeast Asia are growing increasingly concerned about the sheer scale of Chinese influence in their region, and it thus has implications that go well beyond the domain of economics. As the culmination of a sustained focus on India&rsquo;s &ldquo;Look East&rdquo; policy steered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it is a triumph for both foreign policy management and for reformist, open economics.

The grand Eastern U-turn

Business Standard

Korean pop star PSY became a worldwide phenomenon this year thanks to his Gangnam Style video going viral online. Last year, Kolaveri Di had become a national obsession &mdash; it spawned several clones in multiple languages &mdash; right through this year. Both videos can thank YouTube for raising them to cult status.

What India was watching in 2012

The US House of Representatives&rsquo; rejection of a Bill to raise taxes on just 0.18 per cent of Americans &mdash; those making more than $1 million a year &mdash; has raised questions about the Republican-led chamber's ability to approve any plan to avert the looming &ldquo;fiscal cliff&rdquo;. Unless President Barack Obama and the Congress forge a deal in time, the economy could thrust into a recession.

Scenarios staring at Americans

Making a presentation on Indian management, Stanford University professor Nick Bloom said India needed more companies with world-class management and not just a handful &mdash; just like the Indian cricket team needs 11 Sachin Tendulkars. Pity that it won&rsquo;t even have one, with Tendulkar having announced his retirement from one-day internationals on Sunday.

Tendulkars in management

This refers to the debate &ldquo;Should CAG audit PPP projects?&rdquo; (December 20). The massive provision of $1,000 billion for infrastructure in the 12th Plan &ndash; half of which will flow through public-private partnership (PPP) &ndash; needs the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit. Last week, The Economist noted in an article captioned ominously, &ldquo;Infrastructure in India-RIPPP&rdquo;, that 758 PPP projects worth $70 billion were under way or complete. The article also said only 40 per cent of projects followed the standard contract framework prescribed by the Central government and our banking system was grappling with dud loans related to these projects. In such a situation, not only is a CAG audit into PPP projects a must, but also an investigation on how civil servants concerned missed following the prescribed rules and allowed faulty agreements to prevail.

Letters: PPP treading on faulty lines

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;The world&rsquo;s cliff&rdquo; (December 24). It is ironical that the US produced two Nobel laureates in economics in 2012 but could not offer a solution to re-rail the economy. The US clearly cannot continue with its present economic policy that encourages &ldquo;consumerism&rdquo; and &ldquo;protectionism&rdquo;.

Letters: Re-railing the US economy

This refers to S C Aggarwal&rsquo;s letter to the editor &ldquo;Modi&rsquo;s Gujarat&rdquo; (December 25). In accordance with Central reforms, the Gujarat State Electricity Board has learned to control power theft, and made the people prudent about on-time payment of bills. But the power board is making profits because of its focus on providing electricity to the industrial sector. Narendra Modi&rsquo;s government has not bothered much to provide power to the agricultural sector for the purpose of irrigation. If Modi actually cared for the aam aadmi, he should first reduce value-added taxes on petrol and diesel, like the Goa government. Not to forget, energy charges and unit charges are the highest in Gujarat compared to other states in India.

Letters: Power in Gujarat

India remains a shallow nation &mdash; more so regarding issues concerning women. The people lack purpose while ventilating causes, and politicians would rather leverage popular mood for short-term political gains than a genuine concern for effective solutions. In Ireland, within two weeks, the conservative Catholic nation got together to introduce a simple but effective law on exigent abortion. What India needs is a mature and purposeful handling of complaints at the police-station level, refinement of existing laws and a demanding judiciary. But no one is prepared for that long-haul toil, and the nation reels from one incident to another &mdash; in sheer futility.

Letters: Immature Indians

This refers to the debate &ldquo;Should CAG audit PPP projects?&rdquo; (December 20). It&rsquo;s an open secret that Jaipal Reddy was ousted from the petroleum ministry because he did not succumb to Reliance Industries&rsquo; pressure to increase the price of KG basin gas. Lack of cooperation on Reliance&rsquo;s part during the audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) was a clear-cut indictment of its malafide intentions. CAG should audit public-private-partnership projects but, as rightly mentioned, the laws of regulation should be made in consultation with industry. However, conditions should not be so hostile that those should serve as a deterrent for investments. India, for sure, does not want to become another Maldives &mdash; whose reputation as a global investment destination has declined after the GMR case.

Letters: CAG for PPP audits

This refers to the Q&amp;A with Tejashree Patel, &ldquo;Not Modi, Central grants helped Gujarat develop&rdquo; (December 23). The Central government&rsquo;s grants to any state is not the personal property of any leader at the Centre. Although grants are available to every state, can Patel explain why Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been successful in providing electricity to every household in Gujarat uninterrupted for 24 hours a day.

Lettes: Modi's Gujarat

In response to the gang rape of a young Delhi professional, the Shiv Sena has recommended a desi form of the modern pepper spray for women to fend off assailants: chilli powder. As part of its campaign against attacks on women, the party has started the distribution of chilli powder in Greater Mumbai &mdash; and has attracted a fair number of women. This has encouraged grocery shops in Mumbai suburbs to increase chilli powder stocks in anticipation of mass orders from Shiv Sena shakhas.

A chilli reception

Even as the government prepares to try and pass a food security law in Parliament&rsquo;s next session, it has been criticised from a fresh perspective &mdash; suggesting it may, after all, need another re-examination. A discussion paper put together by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has debunked the draft Bill on several counts, some of which are well founded. Disputing its long-term feasibility, the CACP paper maintains that it would inflate food subsidies to an unsustainable level, hamper the functioning of the foodgrain markets and deal a formidable blow to Indian agriculture as a whole by skewing the cropping pattern.

Future insecurity

Any company that raises capital from the public has to give an exhaustive list of risk factors that an investor might encounter while investing in that company. Such disclosures, which have to be mentioned in the company&rsquo;s red herring prospectus, normally talk about the company&rsquo;s business model, debt, pending litigation and so on. Recently, P C Jeweller, which tapped the capital markets for equity, listed its first risk factor as the &ldquo;remuneration of our MD&rdquo;. It read that the salary of the managing director, Balram Garg, had been increased before the initial public offering, and that could &ldquo;have an adverse effect on our profitability and results of operations&rdquo;.

MD as risk!

Across India&rsquo;s towns, protesters demanding greater safety and justice have gathered, their original core consisting of young professionals and college students. Notably, unlike previous such movements, they do not demand special treatment from the government, but the undeniable right to live safely &mdash; a core duty of the state. Nor is the protest against any single political party or organ of the state or, for that matter, any specific act of the state. They collected, at first spontaneously, in Narendra Modi&rsquo;s Ahmedabad as they collected in Sheila Dikshit&rsquo;s Delhi; and they collected in J Jayalalithaa&rsquo;s Chennai, and O Ibobi Singh&rsquo;s Imphal.

The children of reforms 

Sachin Tendulkar has an assured place in the cricketing pantheon. He may be the greatest batsman of all time; unquestionably, he is among the very best. His career is unmatched in many ways &mdash; and certainly, in recent times, for longevity. When he first played for India, there was a Soviet Union, and Manmohan Singh had never delivered a Budget speech. It is possible, though, that he has not chosen his timing when it comes to retirement with the same perfection that he did for his cover drives.

The art of leaving 

Changing jobs frequently may be the new normal in today&rsquo;s professional world but it is rare to find a professional return to his previous employer barely a week after his resignation. The chief marketing officer at YES Bank recently resigned from his position to join an old-generation private bank. But he returned to YES Bank and was reinstated as chief marketing officer within a week. It happened so fast that many of his colleagues, both in the old-generation private lender and YES Bank, were not even aware that he had moved to and fro. Few in the bank know why he decided to return but the grapevine had it that he found it difficult to adapt to the working environment in the other company.

Reverse swing

A diversified group that has been in the headlines recently for conflicts with regulators has decided to take stronger action against all the negative news about it. It is planning a business news channel, which it thinks can be an avenue to boost its image in the corporate world and persuade the authorities to tone down punitive action against it. The group is also considering inviting foreign direct investment for its media unit. All of this may deprive other newspapers ad revenues from its full-page exculpations.

Supporting the cause

What exactly is India&rsquo;s relationship with Sri Lanka, given our interventions in its ethnic wars? How does it compare with China, given that country&rsquo;s energetic investment in the island nation? Sarath Amunugama, Sri Lanka&rsquo;s deputy minister of finance and planning, provided an interesting answer from the Sri Lankan perspective while addressing an economic conference in Delhi. China is a friend, he said, while India is a relative.

Friends and relatives

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;The banking win-win&rdquo; (December 20). I disagree that the passing of the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha would herald a new era in the Indian banking system. The government&rsquo;s recent step will cause much harm to public sector banks. It may be recalled that when existing new-generation banks started functioning, they opened a new chapter in banking history. They attracted customers through the use of new technologies and techniques. That took away the cream of public sector banks&rsquo; businesses. What remained with them were left-out customers. Now, upcoming private banks would do the same by offering different incentives to lure more customers of public banks. Eventually, the latter would be left with dry accounts. Besides, with the reduction in total business (read deposits and advances) handled by public sector banks, they would become weaker by the day.

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