Before we laud ourselves for a decade and a half of public-private partnership (PPP), we should wait for the Comptroller Auditor General&rsquo;s (CAG&rsquo;s) report on how these infrastructure projects have fared in terms of final costs, revenues, environmental effects and so on. Special purpose vehicles created under PPP, too, need to be audited by the CAG. There is a lot of potential danger if these are not brought under the CAG&rsquo;s ambit. Britain&rsquo;s auditor had stated that PPP works well when it is conceived properly, evolved clearly and implemented well. It is training its civil servants on how to deal with the private sector on projects by sending them to the Said School of Business at Oxford University. We need not send our civil servants to Oxford but our Indian Institutes of Management along with auditing bodies and the Planning Commission could tailor suitable training programmes to ensure a smooth implementation of PPPs.

Letters: And why it's too soon to cheer

Business Standard

Apropos the editorial &ldquo;The anti-reform Congress&rdquo; (May 14),&nbsp;it is true that the Lok Sabha witnesses much pandemonium when MPs disrupt the Question Hour and parliamentary proceedings. In this context, all the concerns raised by the Speaker over the misbehaviour of the elected representatives in the House should be taken into consideration. Also, honest efforts are needed to discipline the erring elected members.

Letters: Order! Order!

The editorial &ldquo;Destroying farm exports&rdquo; (May 15) has pointed out how government policy on farm export hurts producers as well as consumers. Delay destroys. Whether it is foodgrain or other commodities like sugar, onion, etc, unnecessary and untimely bans are imposed and even the decision to lift the ban or allow exports is taken by a group of ministers (GoM). This results in market distortions. Moreover, given this scenario, farmers suffer as a result of increased production; the consumer is not benefitted, either.

Letters: Give food some thought

In the edit &ldquo;Destroying farm exports&rdquo; (May 15), your suggestion to implement a sensible, market-based export policy for farm produce is timely. Reading reports about record production of wheat, basmati rice, cotton, onions or milk causes mixed feelings. On the one hand, one feels proud of the record output; on the other, it reminds one of inadequate and poor-quality warehousing or storage facilities and haphazard action on the export front. During the last 20 years, since economic liberalisation, the country has failed to take steps to substantially augment storage capacity or revamp the existing facilities. This scenario underscores the importance of a sensible export policy, which would protect the interests of all: farmers, consumers and the state.

Letters: The great Indian rot

Reform in India does not move quickly. Sometimes, however, any movement is so slow as to hardly be discernible at all. One senior officer in the Ministry of Labour and Employment makes the point that a decade ago &ndash; as a relatively junior officer &ndash; he had drafted an amendment to some legislation that the government of the day and its officers were very upbeat about. Shortly thereafter, the officer was transferred, as is routine. He did not return to his old stamping grounds at the labour ministry for 10 whole years. Now at a much more senior position, he familiarised himself with the ministry&rsquo;s business. And he was surprised to discover that the labour ministry was still working on his 10-year-old draft. Incredibly, the officer added, officialdom even managed to still appear excited about amending the law. The more things try to change in India, the officer concluded, the more they remain the same.

Ten years later

The granting of bail in the 2G case to former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja, who had been kept in jail for 15 months, was accompanied by much drama. His lips were seen to be moving in prayer as the decision was being read out. The dozens of DMK men in crisp white veshtis who thronged the court let out a cheer. And when Mr Raja himself finally walked out, he was seen blowing kisses to his dancing supporters. Public reaction was not quite as friendly. Twitter and the airwaves bubbled with predictable outrage. Unusually enough, one of the few sensible voices was that of Subramanian Swamy, not otherwise known for restraint and calm &mdash; on 2G, among other things. &ldquo;Our legal perspective is still tribal,&rdquo; he wrote on Twitter. &ldquo;The surprise is not that Raja is out on bail, but that he was in jail for so long without bail.

Raja's long walk

Should policy focus on growth or inflation?

Low-cost carriers may have begun to dominate Indian skies, but it seems that international travel might be a tougher nut to crack. On one Singapore-bound flight of a major Indian low-cost airline, hungry passengers complained bitterly that the airline expected to be paid for its sandwiches in Singaporean dollars. The air hostess on duty was not impressed by their pleas; she had problems of her own, she explained. For one thing, there was so little food on the plane that she was forced to sell her own lunch to starving passengers.

Not the very model

The robustness of an economy is partly reflected in the health and standing of its multinational or transnational companies. This, in turn, reveals the relative strength of its different industries and the prowess of leading corporate entities. The Indian School of Business, in co-operation with a Brazilian counterpart, has constructed a transnational index to rank Indian multinationals and thereby gain available insights.

Indian MNCs get robust

There are considerable implications for corporate governance in the structure of the initial public offering (IPO) of&nbsp;Facebook. The equity of the eight-year-old social media platform is divided into Class A and Class B shares. Class A shares control one vote each, while Class B shares control 10 votes each. A Class B share sold to the general public is transformed into a Class A share. This enables the founders, who own Class B shares, to keep control &mdash; while raising large sums without debt service obligations. Mark Zuckerberg will control over 57 per cent of voting rights while owning about 28 per cent of Class B equity. Further dilutions by Class B shareholders may actually lead to greater concentration of voting control as the sold shares convert to Class A.

Trusting Zuckerberg

Apropos Vinayak Chatterjee&rsquo;s column &ldquo;PPP in India: The story so far&rdquo; (Infratalk, May 14), the author presents an over-optimistic picture of the history of public-private partnership (PPP) in India. His assertion that the PPP movement started in 1997 is somewhat misplaced. India was struggling with disinvestment in the late nineties and Arun Shourie, as the disinvestment minister, was trying hard to sell off sick public sector units back then. Hence, disinvestment, and not PPP, was the flavour of the season. We can, at best, trace the start of PPP to 2005 and review the seven years since then. Incidentally, this was the year when the Committee on Infrastructure was set up under the chairmanship of the prime minister to formally adopt and execute a PPP policy framework for the country.

Letters: The real PPP picture...

The UPA might be regretful of the scope of the right to information (RTI) it introduced, but at least one government agency - and the country&rsquo;s premier investigating agency, no less - apparently is quite thankful for its existence on occasion. In Chhattisgarh, the Central of Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is arming itself with the RTI to extract documents from Chhattisgarh&rsquo;s health department. The CBI is probing a case of alleged financial irregularities in the purchase of medical equipment for prevention of malaria. Despite repeated demands, the investigating officials have failed to get the documents they needed from Chhattisgarh&rsquo;s health department officials, and eventually filed an RTI application.

RTI's unusual fans

According to a recent study in the&nbsp;Lancet Infectious Diseases&nbsp;journal, the drug-resistant bacterial strain known as New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1, or NDM-1, has spread to 40 countries. This is quite remarkable, given that it was only discovered in 2008 in the UK, among patients who had recently been hospitalised in India. The &ldquo;superbug&rdquo;, as it is commonly known, is feared for its ability to cause many types of bacteria to become resistant to most antibiotics. This could turn previously incurable diseases fatal. It is, of course, important to both control its spread and look urgently for alternative antibiotics that are more effective against it. If not, the consequences could be catastrophic &mdash; a health hazard more formidable than any encountered in the recent past.

The spreading superbug

If you watched just news channels, you would have been thoroughly confused as to whether the Insurance Bill was cleared by the Cabinet or not. Several television channels flashed across their on-screen tickers the welcome words: &ldquo;Insurance Bill cleared.&rdquo; Flush with excitement, they handed out details about the Bill and summoned experts, who duly shared their views with the camera.

Which Bill?

As every newspaper reader in the country knows, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa carpet-bombed the national press with advertising supplements celebrating her first anniversary in office. The advertisements, which celebrated various ways in which her debt-ridden government has given away taxpayers&rsquo; money, were dotted with various photographs of a beaming chief minister. Of course, it was just a coincidence that Ms Jayalalithaa&rsquo;s advertisements replaced the front page on a day it would otherwise have carried a cheerful Andimuthu Raja being released from jail after being granted bail. Some in Mr Raja&rsquo;s DMK, apparently, aren&rsquo;t so convinced it&rsquo;s such a coincidence.

Photo opportunity

The legendary Italian scooter maker Vespa is deeply concerned about how its product will be viewed in India. The Piaggio-owned brand (the name of which is Italian for &ldquo;wasp&rdquo;) may have been designed in hardscrabble post-War Italy to be the preferred transport of blue-collar Italian workers, but in India, it wants a very different image &mdash; one that fits the price tag of about Rs 80,000. It is toying with the tag line: &ldquo;it&rsquo;s not a scooter, it&rsquo;s a Vespa.&rdquo;. All very well, but here&rsquo;s the sting in the wasp&rsquo;s tail for the Italians: in many parts of small-town North India, the company&rsquo;s brand recognition is such that all scooters, no matter how downmarket, are called Vespas.

Buzz about the wasp

This refers to the editorial &ldquo;Your move, Mr Singh&rdquo; (May 15). Air India needs a professional management to run itself profitably. In spite of the heavy rush, the airline suffers losses. It is no longer a luxury even for the middle class to travel by Air India.

Letters: Time for departure

The successful spread of Indian companies abroad &ndash; measured on the parameters of total revenue, assets and workforce &ndash; deserves cheers (&ldquo;Indian MNCs get robust&rdquo;, May 16). Since ours is a nation confronted with gross unemployment and uneven economic growth, the ramifications of this phenomenon are worth studying. One, a company invests in foreign lands when the domestic market is saturated or indigenous investment is beset with many constraints such as legal hurdles and populist pressures. If the subject companies sought distant pastures for the latter set of factors, it is a signal to the government to improve the playing field &mdash; more so when it is finding it difficult to rope in foreign investors on a long-term basis.

Letters: The truth about MNCs

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) intervenes in the foreign exchange market through the medium of commercial banks to stabilise rates. We are living in times of instant communication and real-time processing of information.

Letters: Watch out for insider trading

Funding is a government contribution to help universities impart better education without making the education costlier for the&nbsp;students. These funds are the reason that universities are building themselves better in terms of infrastructure, faculties, technology and so on.&nbsp; If the government begins to funds the students instead, the result will be rise in student fees and less development of the universities on the whole.

Student&#8217s corner

In a set of misguided restrictions, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai, has ordered all television channels to ensure that advertisements do not exceed 12 minutes in any given hour. These 12 minutes cannot be carried over onto later hours. Advertisements should be at least 15 minutes apart &mdash; except on movie channels, when they should be at least 30 minutes apart. There are a number of other, related proscriptions &mdash; banning drop-down advertisements, for example, and saying the average volume level of advertisements should not be greater than that of the programme they are sponsoring. Broadcasters, understandably, are up in arms: they have claimed this could impact their advertising revenues by as much as 40 per cent in some cases. Spot rates for television advertising have already fallen considerably, reflecting the weak economy and competition among channels.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 890 - Business Standard

Letters: And why it's too soon to cheer

Letters: Order! Order!

Letters: Give food some thought

Letters: The great Indian rot

Ten years later

Raja's long walk

Should policy focus on growth or inflation?

Not the very model

Indian MNCs get robust

Trusting Zuckerberg

Letters: The real PPP picture...

RTI's unusual fans

The spreading superbug

Which Bill?

Photo opportunity

Buzz about the wasp

Letters: Time for departure

Letters: The truth about MNCs

Letters: Watch out for insider trading

Student’s corner