Chandresh Kumari Katoch has been made a Cabinet minister in the union government for the first time although she has been active in Himachal Pradesh politics since 1972 when she became a member of the Legislative Assembly. The sister of Maharaja Gaj Singh of the Jodhpur royal family, she is has good relations with Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and presently is an MP from Jodhpur. She has been a cabinet minister in Virbhadra Singh headed Himachal Pradesh government. Katoch first contested and won a Lok Sabha election in 1984, after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Profiles of the new ministers

Business Standard

Elizabeth Taylor tops Forbes' 2012 list of the top-earning* dead celebrities(Click on graphic)

Dead and still earning

The petroleum ministry has agreed to exempt Reliance Industries from a performance audit, and gave pending approvals for the country&rsquo;s largest private sector petroleum company&rsquo;s KG-D6 block.

Audit primer

Your Honour, thank you for the opportunity. The last 18 months have been the most challenging period of my life since I lost my parents as a teenager. I have lost my reputation that I have built over a lifetime. The verdict was devastating to my family, my friends and me. Its implications to all aspects of my life &mdash; personal, professional and financial &mdash; are profound.

What Rajat Gupta said before the sentence

Much debate can be expected on whether former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta got off too lightly. Many will wonder whether Manhattan US District Judge Jed Rakoff&rsquo;s sentence of two years in prison and a $5-million fine was influenced by Mr Gupta&rsquo;s extensive charitable work, as his experienced lawyer argued.

Trial and error

Thirty years ago, when he launched Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson had no cash for advertisements and, on an industry veteran's advice, took to offbeat promotions to market his airline. On Friday, Branson lived up to that reputation by perching himself on a black-and-yellow taxi to announce the return of his airline to Mumbai. The Mumbai-London flight starts October 29. In an interaction with media persons in Mumbai, Branson spoke on a range of issues.

India needn't be embarrassed about airlines going bust: Richard Branson

Unruly protests against politicians have become so endemic that policemen deployed to provide security to them often go overboard. At the inauguration of an Amul dairy in Dharuhera, Haryana, the police prevented anybody wearing a black shirt &ndash; including our photographer &ndash; from entering the premises. The reason: Union Cabinet Minister Sharad Pawar and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda were expected to attend the inauguration and the police anticipated protests against them, following India Against Corruption&rsquo;s allegations. Evidently, these protestors were expected to wear black, the universal colour of public discontent.

No entry for men in black

The Right to Information (RTI) Act is usually invoked by private citizens to uncover possible corruption by government officials and service providers. But in a curious case, the Mayor of Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh&rsquo;s second city, used the services of the RTI to access the files of her predecessor.

A mayor invokes RTI

This refers to the report &ldquo;Do not hesitate to give loans to poor, says FM&rdquo; (October 24). In his appeal to banks and financial institutions to lend to the poor, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has rightly said a small borrower goes after the bank but, if the borrower is big, the bank itself comes after him or her.

Letters: 'Lend to the poor'

Chhattisgarh&rsquo;s department of culture, which is responsible for finalising the list of artistes to perform at the state&rsquo;s foundation day function, became a sort of barometer of state politics. At a review meeting held at Chief Minister Raman Singh&rsquo;s house, Culture Minister Brijmohan Agrawal was all for inviting Bollywood stars. They were crowd-pullers, he argued, and, therefore, worthy of an invitation to the state government&rsquo;s celebrations on November 1 at Naya Raipur, the new capital. But Department Secretary K D P Rao strongly disagreed and suggested that artistes from different states should be invited instead. The dispute became so heated that the chief minister had to intervene and ask the two to sit together and finalise the list.

No, minister

This refers to the edit &ldquo;Sinking into landfills?&rdquo; (October 25). There is a natural tendency to seek short-term but unviable solutions to the urban waste problem. Urban waste management is becoming a nuisance, owing to urban planners&rsquo; failure to recognise the enormity of the problem and by opting for easy but unhygienic solutions of dumping the entire waste in landfills in nearby villages. Under the Jawaharlal Nehru New Urban Renewal Mission programme, it should be possible to fund a scheme in which the urban affairs ministry can pay special grants to all civic bodies that set up urban waste management projects. Through public campaigns, people living in urban areas need to be acquainted with how the civic bodies want to deal with the issue. It is time our civic bodies are allowed to collect a special tax from residents of all metros, cities and towns.

Letters: Managing urban waste

This refers to your report &ldquo;Large lenders asked to handhold small banks&rdquo; (October 25). The finance ministry&rsquo;s move to make another &ldquo;tier&rdquo; will embarrass the boards of smaller banks. It&rsquo;s yet another agency to scrutinise their advices.

Letters: An additional 'tier'?

On October 30, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will announce its review of monetary policy for the second quarter of 2012-13. The dilemma facing the RBI has not changed substantially since the last policy review; while, on the one hand, the government has promised to rein in the fiscal deficit and even taken a few tentative moves in that direction, on the other the optimistic would detect signs that economic growth is reviving even without a rate cut.

Thinking for itself

India Inc brass was surprisingly reticent on the Rajat Gupta sentence.

Voices on Rajat Gupta

At a function to launch an Aadhar-enabled service delivery system in Dudu, Rajasthan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi &ndash; expectedly &ndash; spoke in Hindi. That Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani should have opted to speak in Hindi was also not surprising. After all, he is known to be quite a cosmopolitan. The surprise, however, was Finance Minister P Chidambaram &mdash; who read out his speech in Hindi. Clearly, the minister had well-practised because though accented, the delivery was flawless.

Immaculate performance!

Did anyone notice the change? Every year, Congress President Sonia Gandhi attended the Ram Lila in Delhi with her daughter Priyanka, son-in-law Robert Vadra and her grandchildren. This year, neither Priyanka nor Vadra or the grandchildren were seen.

Out of sight, not out of mind

This week, Microsoft launched the eighth version of Windows, which, like all the versions of the operating system since the epochal launch of 3.1 two decades ago, reflects and marks the changing landscape of personal computing. This version, Windows 8, is Microsoft&rsquo;s most powerful attempt to expand the once-ubiquitous operating system&rsquo;s reach beyond desktop and notebook systems to smartphones and tablets.

The Empire Strikes Back 

The Union Cabinet reshuffle is causing sleepless nights to many a minister in New Delhi&rsquo;s power corridors. A senior minister &ndash; wary of losing his portfolio &ndash; let it be known to journalists, &ldquo;completely off the record&rdquo;, that he was keen to take over the ministry of external affairs portfolio. By Friday evening, television channels were even naming him as one of the contenders, following S M Krishna&rsquo;s resignation. But, on Saturday morning, the minister was stumped for words when he was drafted back into the party work. He later submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister.

New role

    introduced an element of predictibility in ties with China.

Ministry of external affairs SM Krishna's achievements

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

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