Roughly around 30 percent of the crowd in MBA batches are women. This shows a terrible imbalance in the field of management and leaves a vacuum in the field of women supervisors. The vacuum needs to be filled in, as balanced gender mix is a healthy prospect both in terms of business and the community alike.

Student's corner

Business Standard

India&rsquo;s dependence on external sources of energy has vastly complicated its foreign policy. Of late, one of the biggest flashpoints has been relations with Iran, which was India&rsquo;s second-biggest supplier of crude oil. As the relationship between Iran and the West broke down following concerns over Iran&rsquo;s nuclear programme, concerns began to be expressed that India and China would &ldquo;undermine&rdquo; Western sanctions on Iranian oil. The biggest achievement of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&rsquo;s trip to India seems to have been that this issue can no longer be seen as an irritant on Capitol Hill &mdash; where voices had been raised in anger at what was seen as a &ldquo;betrayal&rdquo;. Indeed, the dependence of some Indian refineries on Iranian oil seems to have been decreased.

Thinking about Teheran

With reference to the editorial &ldquo;Interpreting the law&rdquo; (May 9), fuel is the driving force of the economy so it is important to deal with price volatility. Sometime ago, the country's biggest private company closed all its fuel outlets after incurring heavy losses owing to government-mandated prices of petrol and diesel. The government should come to terms with the ground reality and take all possible steps to support the oil companies (public and private) by raising prices so that they can survive the spiraling crude prices and then pass the fuel to the consumer at whatever affordable rates.

Letters: Driving the fuel policy

This refers to Rajeev Malik&rsquo;s article titled &ldquo;Seeking divine intervention&rdquo; (May 9). Little will be achieved by repeatedly saying that our prime minister or his government is spineless. Our entire political class and the civil society are to be blamed for the current mess. Often we try to find escape routes and seeking divine intervention is just another way of not looking at ourselves with a clean pair of glasses. Our balance of payments and fiscal situation is far from satisfactory. Major surgery is needed to come out of very grim situation. Let us face it. It is just not United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government&rsquo;s responsibility to implement reforms by taking bold decisions like reducing unviable subsidies. All the state governments also have to do their bit to put the economy on the growth path.

Letters: Why blame UPA only?

A hospital based in south India has started offering stem cell and gene therapy for treating almost any ailment and it called a press conference to talk about its achievements, followed by lunch. On the assumption that the way to a journalist&rsquo;s mind is through the stomach, it decided to do things differently. Instead of the usual hotel-provided buffet, it served what it called ghar ka khaana (home-cooked food). In this case, though, it wasn&rsquo;t just lighter cuisine but food that was literally cooked in the home of the hospital&rsquo;s proprietor. The hospital is located right beside his house and the inside story is that the management wanted to do something novel and save money at the same time.

Home advantage?

Apropos the report &ldquo;AI sacks 10 pilots, derecognises union&rdquo; (May 9) why should we throw taxpayers&rsquo; money into this bottomless pit? This is probably the best opportunity to plan the privatisation or sale of Air India.

Letters: Sell Air India

Apropos the editorial &ldquo;Policy heats up&rdquo; (May 7), given the fact that climate change as an issue has been put on the backburner in most countries, it is heartening that India&rsquo;s Planning Commission is giving it due priority. Yet, we are not convinced that non-emitting and renewable sources of energy are sustainable on a commercial basis. Take the US. Solyndra, a solar module maker, has gone bust after taking around half a billion of money from the US treasury. The case is being highlighted as a precedent by the Republicans to discredit the entire policy of subsidising the manufacture of renewable energy sources. Why should the government hand over money to a manufacturer instead of doling it out straight to beneficiaries, the argument goes, especially when renewables are not known to be viable commercially? For India, the lesson is that subsidising an industry is, at best, a palliative, not a cure.

Letters: Green subsidies won't work

The postponement of General Anti-avoidance Rules (GAAR) by one year is being seen as a big relief for foreign institutional investors (FIIs). But that is not the full story. According to a senior finance ministry official, it&rsquo;s a bigger relief for the income tax department. In the absence of proper expertise and infrastructure for handling GAAR, field officials were apprehensive about its implementation from this year.

GAAR: Delayed reaction

In normal circumstances, no bureaucrat would appreciate not being in the loop when a decision is taken on an issue under his purview. But these are not normal times in government and many bureaucrats are wary of taking a decision that could be questioned tomorrow. As a result, there are some who are quite happy not to be involved in a controversial decision. In one such instance, the finance ministry recently issued some instructions to a company without informing the joint secretary concerned.

No need to know

On the heels of Standard &amp; Poor&rsquo;s decision to downgrade its India outlook, Morgan Stanley has issued a warning that India is vulnerable to a balance of payments shock. This cannot be a surprise to the Reserve Bank of India, since its governor has described the situation as &ldquo;disturbing&rdquo;. An unhealthy combination of a record trade gap and a record current account deficit (CAD) has left the central bank perched on a tightrope. The CAD may hit four per cent of GDP in 2011-12 (it exceeded 4.3 per cent in the third quarter). The trade deficit, at $185 billion, was about 10.5 per cent of GDP. External obligations, at $335 billion, also exceed reserves ($295 billion). The government hopes to reduce the CAD to below three per cent in 2012-13. That is still very high and not easy to achieve. The trade gap may widen. In March 2012, exports were down 5.7 per cent year-on-year. IT industry guidances suggest slow 2012-13 growth.

Touching 54

German pharma major Bayer is contemplating challenging a government order allowing Hyderbad-based manufacturer Natco Pharma to sell the generic version of its anti-cancer drug, Nexavar, for about Rs 8,880 a month, or roughly 3% of the price tag of Rs 2.8 lakh that the MNC put on its own product.

Should MNCs be allowed to sell life-saving drugs at market driven prices?

The fall in the rupee&rsquo;s value is in line with the weakness in the overall economy&mdash;the high current account deficit and the European crisis jolting the BSE Sensex.

Southward spiral

The investor relations team at one of the top five IT services firms headquartered in Bangalore had unexpected callers during a recent analysts&rsquo; call after its fourth quarter results. It found that other than the usual analysts on the call, some employees from a competitor firm had also logged in. These unusual suspects were employees of its Bangalore-based peer, headquartered just 30 km away, which has been in the news for its slow growth and for not giving increments. Sources in the company that held the analysts&rsquo; call said these employees could be from the mid-management level of the competitor&rsquo;s finance team.

Peer review

Holding parties to celebrate the success of a company's debut on the stock market has become common practice. But a newly listed gold jewellery retailer went one step ahead and hosted a &quot;successful listing party&quot; even though the company's share price ended nearly 10 per cent lower on debut. But so what if shares of the company didn't sparkle on listing, the logic went, given the strong surge in gold prices and their expected strong showing in the year ahead, its bottom-line can be expected to shine in the future.

Golden outlook

A consultancy firm that&rsquo;s into safety and security in office buildings saw all that it preaches going up in smoke during a recent earth tremor that hit parts of south India on April 11. Many experts in the consultancy, who use quantitative techniques to advise their clients on security and safety for both natural or man-made disasters, lost their heads the day the tremors hit. As the first tremors struck, most of them promptly grabbed their most precious belongings, mostly laptops, and began to run down the stairs without bothering to check who was in front or behind them. &ldquo;Many of them are Six Sigma,&rdquo; said their frustrated CEO, referring to the stringent quality metric.

Teachable moments

This refers to the report &ldquo;Govt prepares Vodafone tax notice, legal reply&rdquo; (May 10). Despite the vigorous defence put up by the finance minister, introducing retrospective changes in law amounts to bad public policy. Once the highest court in a country pronounces its interpretation on a piece of legislation, the government should honour it and change the law prospectively if it believes it was poorly written. Unfortunately, most political parties are supporting the government because the case involves a multinational company; to do the contrary would have meant being branded anti-national. Even if the government&rsquo;s current amendments are upheld by the Supreme Court on the grounds of the parliamentary prerogative to legislate, two questions would still need to be addressed.

Letters: A bad call

Apropos A K Bhattacharya&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Public sector&rsquo;s unsung hero&rdquo; (Raisina Hill, May 8), it was sad to learn of the death of M S Gujral. Immediately after his stint with Coal India, a leading weekly had published an interview with him. If I recall correctly, Gujral had said in the interview that the implementation of law involves some violence, and only those who can face this violence can implement the law. These words remained with us as the essence of management. A few more Gujrals would have certainly changed the face of the public sector in India. The nation has lost a true public servant.

Letters: A tribute to M S Gujral

This refers to the report &ldquo;Little room to cut interest rates: RBI&rdquo; (May 9). The economy seems to be facing a new impossible trinity of money supply, inflation and growth. In its Monetary Policy Statement for 2012-13, the Reserve Bank of India slashed the short-term lending rate by 0.5 per cent to eight per cent. This was done with the avowed objective of boosting liquidity and growth. However, neither liquidity nor growth has improved since then.

Letters: Big rate cuts of little help

A few proposals from overseas companies to invest in Indian drug makers are stuck with the government, although 100 per cent foreign direct investment is allowed in the sector under the automatic route. That&rsquo;s because domestic producers have argued that multinational pharmaceutical corporations are buying local companies only to stifle competition. The day is not distant, they say, when the Indian market will be controlled by multinationals, and medicine will become prohibitively expensive for the aam admi. So, guidelines are being framed that will enable the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to vet all cases of acquisition of an Indian drug maker by an overseas company. And permission will come with stringent riders: the acquired company will have to take the CCI&rsquo;s permission before discontinuing production of an essential drug.

Bitterest pill

In her speech to the Congress Parliamentary Party on Wednesday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that the party and its government were &ldquo;fully committed&rdquo; to strengthening federalism. This comes after the United Progressive Alliance-controlled government organised a meeting with state chief ministers on May 5 that saw CM after CM berating the Centre for the design of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, or NCTC.

Failing on federalism

Dynamic bond funds generally invest in fixed-income instruments of various maturities and seek to actively manage such investments by playing on the yield curve, based on the fund manager&rsquo;s expectation of interest rate movements. Given that the interest rate cycle has peaked, one could look at investing in such funds with at least a year&rsquo;s time horizon for suitable returns and possibly some capital appreciation in case interest rates come down.

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