The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority has asked life insurers to follow a standard format for application forms, also known as proposal form. The intent is to curb misselling of products and make buyers aware of what they are buying. Once these changes are rolled out, buyers will be required to give more information about their lifestyle and needs. The regulator has asked insurers to include two categories &mdash; customer needs and recommendations .

Another step to curb misselling of insurance, albeit with lacunae

Business Standard

From the dangerous, wooded districts of south Chhattisgarh to the roomy, wood-panelled offices at the secretariat in Raipur, there is one technological wonder that binds the state's administrators together &mdash; the Apple iPhone. District collectors, senior police officers, the state's top bureaucrats and even Chief Minister Raman Singh are sticklers for the world's most famous smartphone. So Chhattisgarh's heavy-hitters certainly get to communicate in style &mdash; despite the lack of roads and other basic amenities for the masses.

Apple of their eye

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), a leading consultancy, released a report on spending trend at duty-free stores at Indian airports, surveying 7,000 passengers across 12 airports. CAPA estimates airport-based duty free sales in India in 2010/11 at $215 million, in comparison to Dubai duty-free, which reported sales of $1.46 billion, while revenue across all Chinese airports combined was $1.9 billion (source: The Moodie Report).

Airport retail

Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has used the market fall as an opportunity to increase holding in his portfolio companies. He raised his stake in four of his portfolio companies this month. At a recent public outing, he said, &ldquo;This is a good time to invest as the market is depressed.

Buy mode

Your leader &ldquo;Time for change&rdquo; (May 22) was very forcefully and cogently argued. What I found most impressive was the argument that backed up your conclusion. It was very convincing. The government must be shaken &mdash; and deservedly so.

Letters: A good jolt

I read your edit with great interest. Even though the country is facing tough times, all is not gloom and doom. It is quite obvious that we have been giving subsidies at unsustainable levels owing to which we now have a ballooning subsidy bill. To correct this, we need not bring changes in leadership. Instead, we need to take some decisive steps towards increasing prices, especially fuel prices. Even a small course correction such as this will boost the country&rsquo;s confidence. Indeed, it&rsquo;s not wise to change horses in midstream since that may cause more chaos and result in even bigger problems. Finally, despite the financial turmoil, we must give credit to the government for all the other efforts it has made, especially in the domain of human rights.

Letters: ...but do we need a change?

The United Progressive Alliance, it appears, did not consider it important to do its homework before releasing its report card. According to the report, India received foreign direct investment worth $28.4 billion in the April-February period. If the report writers had checked their numbers, they would have discovered that the actual figure was almost double that at $42 billion and the full-year figure was about $47 billion.

Foreign direct confusion

You have argued well for a change in government under a new prime minister. But your suggestion that Sonia Gandhi should take over as the prime minister came as an anticlimax. The populist, no-brainer policies that have strained the fiscal system and will continue to do so are the result of the recommendations of the National Advisory Council that Ms Gandhi chairs. Her lack of mass appeal has been proved more than once in elections. Thus, she is not even an asset to the Congress Party. Would you want a person with limited education and knowledge to head the government of a country that has had men and women of great intellect and integrity as leaders, and is facing myriad problems? Is it not humiliating? Ms Gandhi herself must be wondering why Indians have put her on a pedestal when she hasn&rsquo;t done much for the country except for marrying Indira Gandhi&rsquo;s son.

Letters: Ms Gandhi for the top job?

Ever wonder what the initials CGP, the Hutchison-owned Cayman Island entity that sold its majority share in Hutchison Essar to Vodafone, stood for? Vodafone has insisted that the Cayman tax haven route was adopted at Hutch&rsquo;s insistence and tax avoidance was never an objective. Perhaps, but its negotiators must have been aware of the full form of the entity with which they were transacting: it stood for Capital Gains Protected.

A capital gain

Sonia Gandhi may have put paid to MPs&rsquo; hopes of acquiring the ultimate status symbol in the capital, the red beacon on the car, but this was only one of the privileges to which they consider themselves entitled. For instance, even as the citizens they represent bear the brunt of rising food prices, MPs continue to avail themselves of subsidised food in the Parliament canteen. But they still want more. So much so that Rajya Sabha MP Rama Chandra Khuntia thought it fit to raise the issue in the House of how MPs were being forced to pay up Rs 22 at a toll plaza. The MP identity card is not being respected, he alleged, and demanded that exemptions from toll tax on highways across India be ensured. This obviously struck a chord; MPs cutting across party lines jumped up from their benches and supported his demand. Khuntia also demanded that public sector officers from companies like BSNL and MTNL should speak to them respectfully, befitting their status as MPs.

For whom the boons toll

The second edition of the United Progressive Alliance, or UPA, may have chosen to celebrate its third anniversary in power with a certain degree of spurious self-congratulation, but it was the dining arrangements at the celebration dinner that should have prompted much greater optimism, at least for the coalition&rsquo;s remaining two years in government. Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav&rsquo;s place at the high table and brief but conspicuous conversation with UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi suggest that the government may finally be in a position to shake off the policy paralysis inflicted by coalition partners. The renewed Samajwadi Party-Congress bonhomie underlined the truism that politics is the art of the possible, and the numbers that Mr Yadav can deliver in the Lok Sabha could ease the passage of politically tough reforms, much of it glossed over in the &ldquo;report card&rdquo;.

Back to business?

One wonders how making Sonia Gandhi the new prime minister will solve governance issues. Would it change the stance of the United Progressive Alliance&rsquo;s allies like Mamata Banerjee and the DMK? Would they support the government&rsquo;s policy decisions on multi-brand foreign direct investment and various reforms just because Gandhi, and not Manmohan Singh, is the prime minister? Certainly not. Singh has openly admitted that his hands are tied owing to &ldquo;coalition compulsions&rdquo; and this problem is likely to remain irrespective of who the prime minister is. The government&rsquo;s topmost concern at this point in time should perhaps be its own survival for the next two years. The real solution to the current policy paralysis lies in fresh elections. But the era of fractured mandates and coalition governments has come to stay and no single party is expected to get a clear majority.

Letters: And why it won't help

Should the government reduce taxes on petroleum products?

The rupee cracked 56 against the dollar on Wednesday, following a steady fall over the past few weeks. One of the basic facts about international currency dynamics is that foreign exchange markets first exhibit delayed reactions and then tend to overshoot the true, rational value of the exchange rate. It appears now that the rupee is undervalued &mdash; judging, at least, by various trade-weighted estimates of the real exchange rate.

Currency trouble

In his interview with Akshat Kaushal, scientist-turned-bureaucrat Thirumalachari Ramasami makes thought-provoking observations about the state of innovation in India (&ldquo;We need a system that rewards, not punishes, failure,&rdquo; May 20). Though our Constitution advocates original and free thinking, we are still a risk-averse country in which failure in innovation is looked down on. That&rsquo;s why smaller countries like Israel have produced more Nobel Prize winners than India. But should we not change this culture so that we stop exporting our creative minds to other countries only to import the products and services invented by them? It could be possible if we inculcate the spirit of creative thinking from childhood by making it a goal of our education system.

Letters: Encouraging innovation

The goof-up in industrial output numbers and other official data in the recent past have made some government officials hopeful about the prospects for the economy. The index of industrial production (IIP) for March declined 3.5 per cent, but indirect tax collections grew over 10 per cent in March and April. Asked why the data for IIP and tax collections were diverging, an official said if the IIP for January could be revised downward from 6.8 per cent to 1.14 per cent, it was possible to hope for an upward revision in the future, too.

Faith in errors

Apropos Vanita Kohli-Khandekar&rsquo;s column &ldquo;India&rsquo;s TV viewers grow up&rdquo; (Media Scope, May 22), I feel it is unfair to say TV viewers were immature earlier. For one, there is no mechanism to fairly assess viewers&rsquo; preferences and tastes given the variety of TV programmes aired by so many different channels. The TRP mechanism relies on too small a sample to be credible. It may be a good idea to conduct periodic, door-to-door surveys to get an idea of what viewers like. I also feel that the medium of television should be used more for educating and inculcating the right values in society. After all, laws cannot achieve much, especially on the social front. The mindset of the people has to change and that is where a powerful medium like the television can play an effective role.

Letters: The big picture

After Rahul Gandhi&rsquo;s May 18 visit to Chhattisgarh where a nominated Lok Sabha MP from the state, Ingrid Mcleod, sought to share the dais with him and was asked to get off the stage, state Congress leaders are planning another visit by him. Apparently being gluttons for punishment, the Pradesh Congress Committee is making plans to invite Gandhi sometime in September. During his last visit, Gandhi had roundly criticised the senior leadership of the party and said it was because of them that the Congress was unable to represent any challenge to the ruling BJP. He had asked senior leaders to stop infighting. In the next round, however, Gandhi is likely to go to the tribal-dominated Janjgir and Bastar areas where he is expected to meet tribals. This time, instead of criticising the Congress, he is expected to train his guns on the BJP.

Second time lucky?

Apropos the report &ldquo;White Paper blank on black money size, moots immunity&rdquo; (May 22), it is disappointing that the White Paper on black money doesn&rsquo;t mention the names of money hoarders or the exact amount of money stashed in foreign shores. The obvious and first step that should be taken to tackle this problem is to plug the loopholes in the system that facilitate the generation of black money. And if the introduction of immunity schemes helps us bring back some of the money, then so be it.

Letters: Bring back black money

Most finance ministers leaven their lengthy and often boring Budget speeches with mild jokes and couplets from their favourite poet or author. Now it appears many other members of Parliament (apart from the irrepressible Lalu Prasad, of course) indulge in literary or humorous diversions in the House. What is more, the Lok Sabha has compiled these into a book and has devoted a section to them on its website. In true government style, these extras are carefully classified and tabulated. For instance, a table titled &ldquo;Wit and Humour, Poetry And Couplets. Seventh Session of 15th Lok Sabha&rdquo; provides a serial number, date, subject, the name of the member or minister and the nature of the interjection (&ldquo;Poetry/humour/couplet/repartee&rdquo;). Most of the members in this list (covering February and March 2011) have recited Urdu, Hindi or Tamil couplets, though Mamata Banerjee sang a song.

Creative MPs

State Bank of India&rsquo;s results for the last quarter of 2011-12 and the whole financial year have provided a much-needed pick-me-up, no matter how fleeting, to the gloomy mood in the financial sector. On Monday, SBI&rsquo;s share price saw substantial upward movement after major foreign brokerages, including CLSA and Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, upgraded it to a &ldquo;buy&rdquo; rating. This comes after a massive rise in net margin for the quarter from virtually zero a year ago to a respectable 11.9 per cent, explained by the huge provisioning that was made, along with a change of guard at the top, last year. This was necessary to make up for arrears in provisioning, not just in terms of regulatory norms, but also for income tax. On a more comparable basis, net margins have also improved sequentially, in relation to the previous quarter, by 100 basis points. Thus, the results are not a statistical blip; they have substance.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 887 - Business Standard