As Japan goes for elections on Sunday, the country&rsquo;s main Opposition party, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is set to win a landslide victory, according to opinion polls by three leading newspapers in Japan &mdash; Asahi, Yomiuri and Nikkei. If it happens, it will pave the way for the comeback of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and hopefully end Japan&rsquo;s political gridlock.

Rise of the new sun

Business Standard

An illustrative list of allegations of corporate governance failure by MNCs in India(Click on graphic)

Corporate governance of MNCs in India: Is the slip showing?

Exposure by international firms in Indian B-schools in placement season depends on the current state of the economy, the batch size, the college overall profile including that of students, the state of economy in IT and finance sector as they are major recruiters at B-schools.

Students' corner

Walmart, the $444-billion US retail chain, filed 29 lobbying disclosures with the US Senate for domestic and foreign markets between 2008 and 2012 &mdash; a period during which India was part of its agenda. The disclosure it made in the third quarter of 2012 shows &ldquo;discussions related to FDI in India&rdquo; as one of the 12 items listed for lobbying. But Walmart is in good company.

The 'lobbying' loop

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;The pressures on Aadhaar&rdquo; (December 11). The government is using Aadhaar as a trump card to boost its image ahead of the next polls. But given the questions being raised on it, the government should not act hastily. First, for the direct cash transfer (DCT) to plug leakages, it must create a proper mechanism for the flow of money into the right hands. The poor should be able to use the banking system effectively. Second, experts say the biometric identification for manual workers has a high 20 per cent margin of error as fingerprints of such workers keep changing. Lastly, the Election Commission has questioned the timing of DCT and sought a report from the Cabinet secretary.

Letters: Questions before Aadhaar

The distance between North Block and Mint Road has been growing for quite some time. The latest evidence of tension is the finance ministry&rsquo;s decision to introduce a clause in the Banking Amendment Bill allowing banks to trade in commodity futures, despite the central bank&rsquo;s reservations on the issue. The ministry has argued that this will enable banks to hedge exposure to agricultural lending arising out of price fluctuations. While it is the ministry&rsquo;s prerogative to submit to Parliament the laws under which regulators like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will have to work, it is possible that it has not listened closely enough to the regulator&rsquo;s arguments, as a major stakeholder. The RBI says the Forward Markets Commission still does not have statutory powers for compulsory registration of traders and brokers, which makes it difficult to curb illegal trading and prevent excessive speculation.

A growing distance

The civil aviation ministry has decided to launch an airfare monitoring cell and push domestic carriers to reduce fares so that the passenger load factor, or PLF, goes up. The argument is that, although this is the busy season, average PLF is declining; a cut in fares will improve it and help the carriers make money. The cell, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told this newspaper, will &ldquo;monitor fares closely and make them reasonable and transparent&rdquo; and will not regulate fares. Earlier, in August, the finance ministry had asked banks to put pressure on real estate developers to cut prices. And last week the Cabinet approved changes in the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy that will reduce the prices of 348 essential medicines and their various combinations. The new prices, which some estimates suggest could be 50 to 70 per cent below current prices, would come into effect by April next year.

Endless interventions

Last week, leading Kannada actor Pooja Gandhi joined former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa&rsquo;s newly formed Karnataka Janata Party (KJP). Not that she has abandoned the Bharatiya Janata Party to join the new party &mdash; like many other MLAs in the current Assembly. In fact, she had been a member of former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy&rsquo;s Janata Dal (Secular).

Role model

After meeting film actors Sunny Deol and Amisha Patel at the muhurat shot of Deol&rsquo;s latest movie Singh Saheb the Great, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has decided to form a new policy to provide better facilities to film-makers who want to work in the state. The Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister was given the honour of operating the clapboard for the muhurat shot. The multi-starrer movie will also have Amrita Rao and is being directed by Anil Sharma. &ldquo;The Madhya Pradesh government will soon bring a new policy to provide better facilities to film-makers who want to work in the state. This will also give local artistes job opportunities and will make Madhya Pradesh the capital for arts and artistes,&rdquo; Singh said.

Star struck

This refers to Aditi Phadnis&rsquo; article &ldquo;Mayawati&rsquo;s exchange programme&rdquo; (The Beat, December 12). To say Mayawati&rsquo;s single-point agenda is the interests of the Dalits is to ignore the opportunistic nature of our politicians, whose main agenda is power and the sub-agenda is creating and nurturing their vote-banks. Mayawati is no exception.

Letters: UPA's friends and foes

Post-retirement, Ratan Tata is not only getting a new home tucked in a corner in tony Colaba in Mumbai, he is also shifting his office from Bombay House, the iconic Tata group headquarters. Insiders say Tata&rsquo;s new office will be situated in the Elphinstone building, which overlooks the majestic Asiatic Library and Horniman Circle in Fort. Keeping him company will be confidant R K Krishna Kumar, who will also shift to the new office.

Tata's Bombay house

Devesh Kapur&rsquo;s article &ldquo;The fear of the foreign&rdquo; (December 12) lacks analysis of the manufacturing competitiveness of India vis-a-vis China. This loophole in the article renders the writer&rsquo;s conclusion useless. Walmart&rsquo;s manufacturing is driven by scale and competitive advantages to reduce prices. India hardly offers the same. Grey areas remain on whether other cheaper manufacturing havens are being used by Walmart. These make India stand out as an expensive base, too.

Letters: The cost of manufacturing?

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;A changing enemy&rdquo; (December 11). The fact that India is performing exceptionally well compared to other Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to curb AIDS is commendable. Recently, India set a milestone in the health sector by gaining the status of a polio-free nation. And now, the National AIDS Control Programme&rsquo;s engagement with people working at grass roots level to eradicate AIDS is praiseworthy. That is an indictment to the fact that any mass-immunisation programme would only give the desired result if its implementation strategy is centred on decentralisation. The challenge now is the same for both AIDS and tuberculosis viruses, since they are on the evolution stage. It is expected that all existent drugs would soon become ineffective against these two viruses. Hence, India needs to keep up the work and divert adequate amount of funds towards research and development of effective medicines.

Letters: Fighting AIDS

It&rsquo;s not just big business that is unhappy with the strictures of the Ministry of Environment and Forests; brick and tile manufacturers also claim to face annihilation. They&rsquo;re not writing elegant letters to the minister, but protesting in a manner in which India excels: a mass rally of workers and owners at Ramlila Maidan in north Delhi on December 18. No surprise, the All India Brick and Tile Manufacturers Association, the representative institution, has mobilised politicians from almost every conceivable major Opposition party &ndash; the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (United), the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Rashtriya Lok Dal &ndash; to address the rally.

Brickbats

A rare error in a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notification has caused minor confusion among bankers. In order to relax Know Your Customer norms for opening bank accounts, an RBI-issued notification had said a customer need not furnish a separate proof of address if the identity document carries the same address. Giving examples of such documents, RBI listed driving licence and passport. It also added PAN (permanent account number) card to this list.

Know your documents

The money spent by Walmart on lobbying has rocked Parliament, but the relatively modest amount involved has caused laughter in some quarters. An industry insider pointed out that Bharti, the Indian partner of Walmart in its cash-and-carry or wholesale venture, is more focused on the $1-billion initial public offering of its tower company at this point, and has no time to focus on the $25-million lobbying charges that the American retail chain reportedly paid since 2008 for various markets, including India. Meanwhile, many of those watching the &ldquo;much-ado&rdquo; over Walmart lobbying, disclosed to the US Senate as part of a quarterly exercise, are wondering at the furore over $25 million paid to lobbyists by a company whose 2012 revenues were $444 billion.

Spent force

Last month, the US issued a guide to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA. The resource guide, published by the Justice Department and the US Securities and Exchange Commission, explains how they enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars US-linked firms from bribing officials of foreign governments.

What the other side is doing

It has never been clearer than during the ongoing commotion about Walmart&rsquo;s lobbying expenses that the Indian polity is yet to reach a certain level of maturity. After losing the debate on foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in Parliament, the Opposition has eagerly seized upon Walmart&rsquo;s disclosure to the US Senate that it has spent $25 million (approximately Rs 135 crore) since 2008 on lobbying (in the US, not in India) for aims including gaining &ldquo;enhanced market access in India&rdquo;. Nancy Powell, the American ambassador to India, pointed out in a television interview that the money was used by Walmart to lobby for 80 issues, of which FDI in Indian retail was just one. Still, the Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded a &ldquo;time-bound judicial probe&rdquo;; others have said a joint parliamentary committee should be set up to investigate.

Bring lobbying overground 

The Central Statistics Office has released the quick estimates of industrial production for October this year, and they have startled most observers. The overall index of industrial production, or IIP, has risen 8.2 per cent when compared to October 2011. Of course, October of 2011 was a particularly bad month for the IIP &mdash; it shrank just under five per cent on a particularly poor performance from the capital goods sector.

Don't celebrate yet 

&ldquo;What is Tata Consultancy Services [TCS&rsquo;] turnover?&rdquo; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know, Sir.&rdquo; &ldquo;Who is the company&rsquo;s CEO?&rdquo; &ldquo;Sorry, Sir.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 800 - Business Standard

Rise of the new sun

Corporate governance of MNCs in India: Is the slip showing?

Students' corner

The 'lobbying' loop

Letters: Questions before Aadhaar

A growing distance

Endless interventions

Role model

Star struck

Letters: UPA's friends and foes

Tata's Bombay house

Letters: The cost of manufacturing?

Letters: Fighting AIDS

Brickbats

Know your documents

Spent force

What the other side is doing

Bring lobbying overground

Don't celebrate yet

Talking smart