Coal mining was nationalised in two phases in 1973, which translated into the enactment of the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1973, the central legislation determining the eligibility of coal mining in India. The Act stated that all mines will be under the control of the state. Amendments to the Act in 1976, 1992, 1996 and so on allowed captive mines for industries like iron and steel, electricity and coal-washeries.

Should coal be denationalised?

Business Standard

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has stalled the monsoon session of Parliament over the Comptroller &amp; Auditor General&rsquo;s report criticising the government&rsquo;s allocations of captive coal mines to private companies. It remains unconvinced by the prime minister&rsquo;s 32-paragraph rebuttal to the CAG report in Parliament. But the prime minister could have silenced all opposition if his statement had included an important fact &mdash; that the predecessor BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had gone some distance towards pushing the same policy. Indeed, the CAG report says as much. As far back as 2000, the NDA introduced an amendment Bill to the coal nationalisation Act in the Rajya Sabha seeking to allocate coal blocks to Indian companies for commercial purposes. The Bill was strongly opposed by trade union leaders and, in fact, is pending in the upper House.

Coal calls

Abolishing the cash reserve ratio (CRR) will impact banks in two ways. One, it will generate additional liquidity to the extent that banks will not need to borrow in the market or from the Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s (RBI&rsquo;s) repo window. Two, they will be able to deploy the released amount profitably by lending to needy borrowers. This will either result in improved net interest income for banks or may allow them to marginally reduce interest rates to select borrowers. Obviously, even with the abolition of CRR, banks can&rsquo;t reduce base rates unless the cost of deposits or cost of borrowing comes down without diminishing the net interest margin. There is no merit in the case for abolishing CRR: (a) it is a kind of reserve &ndash; however small &ndash; that needs to be maintained as a prudential measure for an exigency; and (b) it is needed as a monetary tool for RBI to modulate liquidity in the system.

Letters: ...but we still need CRR

Following the Comptroller and Auditor General&rsquo;s report on coal alleging a loss of Rs 1,86,000 crore to the exchequer owing to the way private firms were allocated blocks, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sought the prime minister&rsquo;s resignation, saying it would not accept anything less. Sensing a political crisis, parties saw the possibility of mid-term polls and soon tempered the protest. When Finance Minister P Chidambaram was asked to comment on the BJP&rsquo;s demand, he said, &ldquo;A section of the BJP test-floated this balloon, but the rest of the BJP punctured it.

BJP's balloon

Surinder Sud&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Gel for all seasons&rdquo; (Farm View, August 28) is encouraging in the discouraging world of local and global news. A drop of water saved today is a drop available for the future. The transfer of this knowledge at the farm level through the widespread network of Krishi Vigyan Vikas Kendras should be instantaneous. Such small technological initiatives can collectively usher in the second Green Revolution faster than any &ldquo;quantum jumps&rdquo; with the help of a few privileged seeds. Leveraging technologies by involving private firms is another praiseworthy angle of this initiative.

Letters: Small steps to a revolution

That relations were strained between former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao was an open secret. The wide communication gap was evident even as late as two days before Mukherjee stepped down as finance minister to prepare for his Presidential campaign. On Saturday June 23, Mukherjee told reporters in Kolkata that the central bank would take steps to strengthen the rupee. This statement ran as headlines in most dailies, but it turned out to be news for RBI as well. What steps? Who had discussed them with the finance minister? No one among the top brass had a clue. To save face, some half-measures were hastily cobbled together but to little effect. The rupee, which had started strengthening ahead of an RBI announcement, quickly slumped back.

Out of step

&ldquo;Ranbaxy runs in my blood&rdquo; Malvinder Mohan Singh had said in 2008 while addressing a press conference immediately after announcing the &ldquo;transfer of ownership&rdquo; of the company to Japan&rsquo;s Daiichi Sankyo. Within a year, Singh quit as Chairman, CEO and MD of the company founded by his family. Various Singh loyalists followed him. Recently, that included two key corporate communication executives of the drug company who had worked with the Singh family for years. They not only exited the company but joined Fortis, the group Singh runs with his brother Shivinder.

Blood relations

India and Pakistan may not host each other&rsquo;s cricket teams for political reasons but Sohail Lashari, former senior vice-president of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, thinks there&rsquo;s a possibility of another high-scoring event. Lashari recently led a 23-strong delegation of Pakistani paper importers to India. He joked with the audience at a business meet in Delhi that the delegation was &ldquo;two times the force of a cricket team,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;we are not allowed to play cricket in India. But this team will play paper-paper with you.

Cricket on paper

A sudden spurt in the price of wheat in the past few weeks, even as the government is sitting on a virtual mountain of food, confirms fears that ill-advised grain procurement and stockholding policies are sucking the markets dry of supplies. Today, barely three months after the harvest of an exceptionally bountiful wheat crop &ndash; nearly 94 million tonnes &ndash; markets all over the country, including in the wheat-producing northern states, are facing an acute shortage of wheat.

Bizarre wheat policy

Cabotage refers to the transport of goods or passengers between two points in one country by a ship or aircraft registered in another country. Governments are often reluctant to relax cabotage rules for security reasons, including, say, the possibility of sabotage of critical installations. But it appears a current Rajya Sabha MP is a little hazy about the differences between the two words. He recently asked Shipping Minister G K Vasan (pictured) about the &ldquo;current sabotage policy for domestic and foreign vessels&rdquo;. Vasan and his bureaucrats &ndash; probably the latter since it is their job to frame replies to parliamentary questions &ndash; clearly have a sense of humour. The answer tabled in the upper House says the ministry of shipping has no sabotage policy for vessels. It added, &ldquo;However, there is a cabotage policy for foreign vessels,&rdquo; before explaining the nitty-gritty of the policy that restricts coastal waters for foreign flagged vessels.

Sabotage cabotaged

The 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), it was widely reported, could shift the emphasis of the state&rsquo;s role in healthcare provision to a &ldquo;managed network approach&rdquo;, wherein the government would provide funding to a system of private providers, who would have their costs per patient partially or wholly reimbursed. The idea of such a shift in approach met with considerable criticism, including from members of the high-level expert committee on healthcare reform whose report was supposed to serve as the basis for the Plan. The health ministry, too, had objected, citing an insufficient commitment of funds &mdash; 1.5 per cent of GDP, reportedly, as opposed to the 2.5 per cent of GDP that the ministry would prefer and was suggested in the Budget. Following sustained criticism, the Planning Commission is in the process of revising its approach.

No short cuts to health

Almost all human development indicator data nowadays provide a gender break-up. So why not on the data on open defecation? Two members of Parliament (MPs) stumped Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh by asking for the number of women who defecate in the open. The question was whether a large number of people including women practise open defecation and, if so, the MPs wanted details indicating gender-wise percentage. Although the minister could provide the former statistics, he admitted that his ministry did not maintain gender-wise data on the subject. What the ministry did not add in its written reply was that the numbers it had were based on the funds given to various state governments to build toilets under its sanitation programme &mdash; and individuals don&rsquo;t figure in this data. By its own admission, the other, more reliable data is provided by the Census that goes by the number of households that have a toilet rather than a strict head, or butt, count.

Squat analysis

This refers to &ldquo;DTC likely to miss April 2013 deadline&rdquo; (August 27). At a time when the economy needs urgent reforms, the government is continuously postponing the implementation of the Direct Tax Code (DTC). The DTC draft that was first formulated under Finance Minister P Chidambaram was completely different from the Bill that was finalised under Pranab Mukherjee. And, now, again the current finance minister is looking at making significant changes to the Bill. When will this flip-flopping on policy end? This shows the complete lack of congruence between UPA leaders. The delay has not only worried foreign players, but has got even Indian players confused. With such differences in political ideologies of leaders on DTC, let&rsquo;s hope we get a strong Bill at least before the next general elections.

Letter: The long wait to DTC

My wife (58) got both her knees operated. She is covered under a comprehensive health policy. While I was in the process of buying this policy, my agent did a lot of rounds to my residence for documentation work. But, today when I wish to file a claim, the agent said I will have to go to their office myself to submit the required documents.

General Insurance: Bhargav Dasgupta

This refers to Surinder Sud&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Gel for all seasons&rdquo; (Farm view, August 28). It is indeed great news that farmers can benefit from the hydrogel developed by the Pusa Institute. The use of the gel will reduce farmers&rsquo; dependency on the vagaries of monsoon rains. Though the gel is a commendable innovation, we must not forget that it is still a synthetic solution to the problem of water shortage. We need to focus more on natural and environmental-friendly solutions of rainwater harvesting and afforestation.

Letter: A synthetic solution

A K Bhattacharya&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Air India&rsquo;s political baggage&rdquo; (Raisina Hill, August 27) highlights the significant symptoms that denote the malaise from which Air India suffers &mdash; ministers focusing on trivial issues at the cost of vital ones. At a time when the company is facing heavy losses, the liberal grant of free excess baggage by the higher-ups betrays an utter disregard for the health of the organisation and sends a wrong message down the line.

Letter: And Air India bleeds

My daughter will get married next year. We need to buy jewellery for her wedding. Given the price of gold, we wish to delay the purchase. However, the funds (Rs 4 lakh) are lying idle in my account.

Investing: Paras Adenwala

Over the past couple of years, Apple and Samsung have been embroiled in an epic global dispute over a large number of smartphone and tablet patents. This has indeed been the courtroom equivalent of the &ldquo;thermonuclear war&rdquo; the late Steve Jobs promised, with lawsuits filed in South Korea, Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Australia and the US.

After Apple's victory

The government has again resumed clearing proposals for foreign direct investment in the pharmaceutical sector, after it was taken off the automatic route and the government figured out how exactly to go about the task. At a time when the balance of payments situation and the need to revive foreign investor confidence are paramount, this is to be welcomed.

FDI in pharma resumes

Why did Kiran Bedi criticise so strongly India Against Corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal&rsquo;s protest in front of BJP President Nitin Gadkari&rsquo;s residence? The buzz is that this is part of her effort to have herself declared BJP&rsquo;s Delhi chief ministerial candidate for the 2013 Assembly election. Bedi fancies her chances because one lobby in the BJP is not averse to the idea but the opposers are the powerful Vijay Goyal and Harsh Vardhan. These are not new political ambitions, either. In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, Bedi had expressed an interest in contesting from the New Delhi constituency on a Congress ticket and Chief Minister Sheila Dixit was keen to push her name just to counter her (Dixit&rsquo;s) b&ecirc;te noire Ajay Maken. BJP thinks Bedi is quite popular in Delhi, so the next Assembly elections may see an all-woman fight for the chief minister&rsquo;s post.

Kamal Bedi?

The tyres of Karnataka Deputy CM K S Eswarappa&rsquo;s SUV sustained a puncture on Sunday just as he arrived at the &ldquo;ashram&rdquo; of a saadhu in a village to see a unique cattle-shed set up there. The police officials escorting the deputy chief minister frantically searched for a tyre repair shop but all of them were closed. After some harrowing hours, they finally managed to get the tyre replaced. But how did the SUV get a puncture in the first place? Officials blamed it on the bad roads in the district. But since the rural development and panchayat raj portfolio was earlier held by the current chief minister, Jagadish Shettar, they had no alternative but to focus their ire solely on the MLA representing the constituency.

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