The Cabinet reshuffle has given new heads to think through some of the old problems staring at various ministries. Here is a snapshot of ministries that have witnessed the highest churn in UPA-II and their achievements as well as the challenges going ahead.

Scorecard of ministries with the most churn

Business Standard

Business Standard brings to you a snapshot of average current rates and unit sizes in some localities that offer property in the Rs 75 lakh-1 crore price range. If you are looking at putting your money into prime Mumbai or Delhi real estate and your budget falls within this range, you might be disappointed.

Real estate investment: A wider picture

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

Case study

In January 2008, the Sensex hit its record inter-day peak, of just over 21,000. It came close again in 2010, but seems bound below 19,000, as Table 1 shows. Compared with that high, it has lost just short of nine per cent of its value, as Table 2 shows.

StatsGuru-29-October-12

This refers to the report &ldquo;Good behaviour may cut Gupta&rsquo;s two-year jail term&rdquo; (October 26). The Rajat Gupta episode brings to mind Benjamin Franklin&rsquo;s famous quote, &ldquo;It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.&rdquo; It is indeed a sad tale of an icon&rsquo;s fall from grace.

Letters: Gupta as Humpty Dumpty

Murmurs are growing in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its President Nitin Gadkari&rsquo;s resignation, following several allegations of corruption levelled against him recently. After Ram Jethmalani&rsquo;s advice to Gadkari to step down, it is now the turn of a close aide of former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, M D Lakshminarayana, a member of the Karnataka legislative Assembly, to demand that the BJP president should resign. The significance being that when Yeddyurappa was facing similar corruption charges, Gadkari had made him resign to stop political attacks against the party.

Now, Gadkari's turn

Bollywood star Ajay Devgn has started feeling the heat well before changing roles from actor to investor. The film star recently met Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh at an investor meet in Mumbai and expressed his interest in investing in a solar energy project in the state. A photograph of Devgn with Singh was prominently published in local newspapers in Chhattisgarh. Soon after, the actor started receiving calls from Chhattisgarh in connection with land and other requirements, which he will need to meet to set up the plant. Fed up with the calls, Devgn has reportedly complained to senior officials in the state government. Perhaps he&rsquo;s paying the price for being a high-voltage star.

Star power

Porika Balram Naik suffered the consequences of his &ldquo;silent loyalty&rdquo; to the Congress party. The first-time Member of Parliament from Mahbubadad in Andhra Pradesh took oath as minister of state for social justice and empowerment at Rashtrapati Bhawan on Sunday. Naik, who is understood to have been rewarded for supporting the Congress over the Telangana issue, chose to take the oath in Hindi. But his long silence probably dented his oratory skills, since he stumbled over the words so much that even President Pranab Mukherjee &ndash; who is not exactly known for his fluency in Hindi &ndash; felt constrained to correct him. That was not all. In his joy, the newly appointed minister forgot to sign his name after being sworn in and an official had to remind him to do so.

Hindi as she is spoke

Eventually, the reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers was a far larger exercise than anyone expected. Seven ministers resigned in advance, allowing the leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) enough space to substantially rework its team in what the prime minister said would likely be the last reshuffle of portfolios before the next general elections. Those hoping for a single, coherent narrative from such a large exercise are likely to be disappointed; as always, the final moves will have been a product of some peculiar combination of political necessity, regional balancing, reward for loyalty and punishment for non-performance.

A mixed bag

This refers to Bhupesh Bhandari&rsquo;s article &ldquo;The man who hates profit&rdquo; (White Knight, October 26). India started its march to prosperity through an untested idea of a mixed economy. That economy was initially functioning on the lines of Fabian socialism. The nation&rsquo;s earnings were placed at the disposal of bureaucrats and politicians in the form of public sector undertakings (PSUs). Politics was to drive the economy. The Constitution was merely a copy of the Government of India Act, 1935, with no time given for its evolution. Such an unwieldy Constitution allowed quotas to proliferate at the cost of national growth. In this context, I believe we need to switch to a laissez-faire approach by adopting more of a free market, dismantling the loss-making PSUs (like Air India) and rewriting the Constitution duly embodying experiences gained in the last six decades. This will ensure a clean slate for the future.

Letters: A laissez-faire approach

This refers to &ldquo;Doing business still tough in India, Singapore the best: World Bank&rdquo; (October 24). The World Bank-International Finance Corporation study shows that India continues to be among the most difficult countries to do business in &mdash; ranking 132nd among the 185 countries in which the study was conducted. In India, there is much talk about reforms. But they seem to be limited to raising the diesel price or opening sectors like retail trade to foreign investment. Their impact, if any, on growth will be insignificant.

Letters: Doing business in India

This refers to Bhupesh Bhandari&rsquo;s article &ldquo;The man who hates profit&rdquo; (White Knight, October 26). It seems Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan believe that our country&rsquo;s situation is gangrenous. So, it follows that they would advocate an extreme remedy like amputation. Amputation indeed entails a serious loss, but without it, life itself is in danger. Similarly, the Kejriwal school of thought may be convinced that sacrificing the economic growth of the kind that was globally accepted and reworking the development model may be necessary, if the interest of our country and its people is to be safeguarded.

Letters: New development model

Another round of musical chairs has started in North Block. As joint secretary (multilateral relations) Alok Sheel has left the finance ministry after completing his tenure, joint secretary (infrastructure &amp; investment) Sharmila Chavaly has shifted to his ground-floor room. A N Jha, who has been appointed officer on special duty, 14th Finance Commission, has occupied the room vacated by Anna Roy, a director who moved out of the ministry recently. Sudha Krishnan, joint secretary in the expenditure department, has swapped rooms with Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan. Rajan&rsquo;s earlier room on ground floor was close to the main entrance of North Block and since he will be closely involved in the making of the Budget, the first floor room would provide more privacy and make it easier to meet other secretaries and the finance minister.

Rooms with a view

Models walk the ramp, right? But in Bhupinder Singh Hooda&rsquo;s Haryana, it&rsquo;s buffaloes that do the honours. Or so Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar revealed at the inauguration of an Amul dairy in Daruhera, at which Chief Minister Hooda was present. Recalling an earlier event where both of them were the chief guests, Pawar said he noticed a ramp was positioned opposite the stage and soon, he watched a line of buffaloes saunter down it. There&rsquo;s a reason for this, of course. Haryana is famous for its buffaloes and Hooda is justly proud about showcasing them.

Buffalo beauty

A senior Cabinet minister has decided to stop talking to the press altogether because he is fed up of fighting the onslaught of questions from the media on a daily basis. He was, he declared, following the concept called the &ldquo;veil of ignorance&rdquo; as propounded by the Harvard political philosopher John Rawls. The concept involves a thought experiment that requires ignoring or setting aside all class and social considerations while determining an issue on the basis of fair play. The minister, however, has decided to simplify this Rawlsian theory to simply mean &ldquo;ignore the media&rdquo;.

Stop press

Typically, credit cards have a 55-day interest-free period. This means the maximum time for which you won&rsquo;t be charged interest on your bill for a new purchase is 55 days. This is tied to the day of the payment cycle and the purchase day. If a credit card billing period starts on the first of every month and ends on the 30th, the due date would be the 25th of the next month. That is, there is a total of 55 days between the first day of each month and when the bill is due. The cardholder is not charged interest during this period.

Tipping point

I had invested Rs 30,000 in an arbitrage fund in March last year. I have earned decent returns.

Investing:  Rishi Nathany

The government&rsquo;s initiative to begin the spadework for reforming inter-state trade and commerce by removing unwarranted barriers in the flow of goods and services across the country is a welcome move. The country&rsquo;s internal market for agricultural, industrial and other goods and services has been fragmented by varying systems of taxation and a host of other trade-unfriendly rules and formalities.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 825 - Business Standard