Optimism in the country&rsquo;s growth story has eroded substantially in the past 12 months, says the Pew Center&rsquo;s latest study, making India the most pessimistic among some major global economies(Click on graphic)

India's crisis of confidence

Business Standard

Cash-strapped oil marketing companies were waiting anxiously for the end of the monsoon session of Parliament to raise fuel prices &mdash; only to be turned down by the ministry.

Fuel price rise slips on DUSU poll

Apropos Surinder Sud&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Poison in your plate?&rdquo; (Farm View, September 11), we must not forget cases like Kasargod where the use of Endosulfan has crippled many and caused devastating health problems. It was only after a continuous fight for 30 years that the state government recognised the long-term harmful effects of Endosulfan and agreed to pay compensation to the victims.

Letters: Organic is the way to go

If Raisina Hill, seat of government in the capital, is plagued by monkeys, the Uttar Pradesh secretariat appears to have a problem with rats. Seen recently in the conference room adjoining the office of a senior bureaucrat in the state secretariat, popularly known as the Annexe, in Lucknow was an old-fashioned wooden mousetrap. The Annexe houses the offices of the chief minister, chief secretary and other top bureaucrats on separate floors.

Rat race

A man from an audience that Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s witty and outspoken Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty was addressing in Mumbai recently asked for his autograph. He would always treasure it, he told Chakrabarty, as the autograph of the future governor of RBI. To this Chakrabarty responded, &ldquo;The governor&rsquo;s office is not vacant, and I&rsquo;m a middle class person. By saying this you will take away even my existing job.

Signature comment

We are seeing a recent trend among independent directors and high court judges that is disturbing. Directors resign from boards and judges recuse themselves from cases without assigning any reason. In both cases, as the rules stand now, they are not obliged to give reasons, but it is absolutely unethical on their part to quit without giving reasons to the larger body of stakeholders and citizens.

Letters: Arbitrary discretion?

I already have a home insurance policy. It&rsquo;s a plan that covers most of the items including electrical appliances, too.

General Insurance: Bhargav Dasgupta

By successfully putting two foreign satellites into orbit on its 100th mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation, or Isro, may have shown its cost-effectiveness as a commercial satellite launcher &mdash; but has also revealed how far it must yet go to pose a real challenge to its competitors. Isro&rsquo;s satellite-launching cost per kg of satellite weight is reportedly around $20,000 (approximately Rs 11 lakh), on the low side of global average costs for commercial launches &mdash; which are between Rs 11 lakh and Rs 28 lakh a kg depending on the orbit location and other parameters. However, cost is just one of the many criteria for success in the multi-billion dollar international commercial space market. That market is dominated by launchers capable of handling satellites that are much heavier than the ones carried by Isro&rsquo;s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C21 on this 100th flight.

Premature congratulations?

The market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, or Sebi, has a key role to play in ensuring that a larger proportion of household savings are channelled into investments. Yet Sebi has taken only tentative steps in this regard. Household savings account for over 23 per cent of GDP and over 72 per cent of all national savings. But only five per cent of household savings (about 1.2 per cent of GDP) are in shares and debentures. And most of this is parked in low-yield assets like bank deposits, insurance and post office savings. Even at the bull market peak of 2007-08, households never held more than seven per cent of savings in equity. This must change if future growth and investment projections are to be met.

Wasted efforts

Steve Jobs created a fresh stir in early June when he announced that Apple would offer 5GB of storage free for Apple users who can store movies, music and files on the Apple Cloud. Windows also offers a free Cloud service called Sky Drive. What perhaps did not create a stir, but should have, is the Indian government&rsquo;s desire to monitor the Cloud.

Regulating the Cloud

The European Central Bank will become the main supervisor for Euro zone banks under plans for a banking union to be detailed on September 12. The European Commission's proposal is part of wider efforts to prevent problems at banks struggling with bad debts.

Pivotal framework

Forex derivatives protect individuals from fluctuations in the market because the exchange rate can be locked up to one year in advance, thereby knowing exactly what the currency will cost.

Banking: Prashant Joshi

A student at a finance conference organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade asked Goldman Sachs MD Bunty Bohra where the world would be if finance stopped being the prime mover for creating products and making profits.

Lessons in finance

India has again taken up the 1983 Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement with Mauritius to plug revenue leaks owing to foreign investors taking the Mauritius route to reduce tax liability.

Letters: FDI - Count your gains 

Real estate player Omaxe recently had an analyst call after its Q1 result that was over after just one question. Indicating the level to which analyst interest in the company, which recently completed a quarter century in the business, has dropped, no analyst attended the call or asked a question. After the first question, the moderator asked if there were any more. But there was nobody in the queue, so everyone was asked to disconnect.

Call drops

The proportion of deposits which banks need to keep with Reserve Bank of India as cash. It has been used for liquidity management and indicates the policy stance of the central bank.

A primer on cash reserve ratio

Mihir S Sharma in his column &ldquo;PPP nation&rdquo; (Policy Rules, September 8) relies on the well-known adage, &ldquo;set a thief to catch a thief,&rdquo; to suggest that we set the private sector to catch the private sector. I would like to remind him that private players may follow an entirely different adage and go on to become as &ldquo;thick as thieves.

Letters: Thief concerns

This refers to the report &ldquo;Father of &lsquo;white revolution&rsquo; Kurien dead&rdquo; (September 10). Kurien deserved a Nobel Prize for his achievements and his endeavour to bring economic and social prosperity to rural farmers. Kurien&rsquo;s accomplishment in the field of rural development is no less than that of Bangladesh&rsquo;s Muhammad Yunus who also worked tirelessly for the uplift of the poor. Kurien&rsquo;s co-operative movement gave farmers a predominant role and eliminated the need for middlemen to market dairy products. He proved that his model of dairy farming had the inherent strength to affect inclusive growth and compete with large corporate structures at the same time.

Letters: Kurien's Nobel efforts

The cash reserve ratio (CRR) is required to ensure and control liquidity in the banking system. However, it should be used sparingly and as a last resort. Banks earn no interest on the money locked up as CRR. Hence the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should not be reluctant to share with bankers at least 50 per cent of its potential earnings on CRR balances. It should not be forgotten that it is public money with banks that is being apportioned to be parked as CRR and it is the public that will suffer if banks earn no interest. If banks are allowed to earn interest on CRR, it will encourage them to price their products to the advantage of customers.

Letters: Banking on CRR

China&rsquo;s massive security build-up in Tibet, and the excellent road, rail and airfield infrastructure that it has created there would give it the edge in any future border conflict with India. Not surprisingly, India&rsquo;s security planners worry that Beijing could initiate a short, sharp war to grab a chunk of vital territory, such as Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. This would give Beijing the advantage of possession in negotiations with India; show the world that China can slap down India whenever it chooses; and send out a warning to Southeast Asian nations which dispute maritime boundaries with Beijing. India&rsquo;s attempts to match China in the frozen hills have struggled, with its plan to build road infrastructure mired in inter-agency confrontation.

India's ocean

In an important move towards transparency, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year reminded his council of ministers to declare their assets, movable and immovable, and said that the declarations would be put up online. Declarations for 2012 are now online and these should be welcome. But they also reveal that many lacunae remain in terms of full and clear disclosure.

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