The financial services secretary recently said the government needs to consider closing down loss-making branches of state-owned banks and insurance companies. The industry should look at redefining what a bank branch can do before considering such hard options. We may shortly see a wider availability of broadband services that can facilitate video-conferencing. A lightly-staffed bank branch can be linked by video-conferencing to the nearest larger branch from where senior employees can provide more complex services for the linked branch cluster.

Letters: Give PSU banks a chance

Business Standard

It&rsquo;s not just industrialists who pay the price of Mukherjee&rsquo;s role as the UPA&rsquo;s chief crisis manager, journalists found themselves at the receiving end too. Several journalists were interviewing senior bureaucrats when a phone call came through from Mukherjee. The journalists were asked to leave the room while he took the call and return when he finished. What he realised when the journalists returned was that they had left their recorder behind and it was still switched on. As a result, he made them delete the entire recording, which included the first part of the interview.

Off the record

During the chief ministers&rsquo; conference on internal security, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa held closed-door meetings with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Media representatives circled around senior AIADMK leader M Thambidurai to know what was going on and what the issues discussed at the meetings between the three chief ministers were. While trying not to reveal the details of the meetings, Thambidurai said, &ldquo;My duty is only to receive the guests and take them to the door. That is why I am standing at the gate to accompany the chief ministers who are coming. I am not supposed to be present at the meetings.

Top secret

At the Confederation of Indian Industry&rsquo;s Annual General Meeting and National Conference 2012, representatives of the industry body asked Arun Jaitley, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, the reason of the Opposition for not supporting the United Progressive Alliance-led government on major economic reforms. The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader quipped, &ldquo;We had decided to support the government during the introduction of the pension Bill, though our own allies were against it. We have good floor coordination with several parties, yet we decided to support the government. But, the BJP had to pay the price for its support, as the leaders were later told there was no consensus within the government itself.

Policy paralysis?

Somewhat offbeat advice has come in from that storehouse of unusual ideas, India&rsquo;s ministry of environment and forests. It has counselled the building of bamboo-based houses in earthquake-prone areas. This might, at first glance, sound odd. This is the 21st century, after all, and many technologies are now available for quake-proofing concrete structures. However, the advice is fundamentally sound. Bamboo is already used to construct houses, and with good results, in several countries in seismically active zones. Japan, which has recently had a series of ruinous tremors, is generally believed to have escaped with a relatively minor human toll thanks to its perfection of quake-resistant construction technologies, some of them decidedly low-tech. Even more quake-susceptible countries like Costa Rica and Colombia have traditionally relied on bamboo to keep the devastation to the minimum.

The strength of bamboo

It felt less like a communication workshop and more a session on psychoanalysis. &ldquo;DISC,&rdquo; said the India head of the recruitment firm for which I work, &ldquo;is a model of behaviour that divides the human population into four distinct types &mdash; Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.&rdquo; We, the trainees, were transfixed. This was going to be exciting. After pulling our hair out mugging up the IT tools, now came the part when we&rsquo;d try and locate ourselves along various axes and cock a snook at the behaviourally challenged.

Communication break-down

Industrialists are normally careful not to be too critical of the government since it still exerts considerable control over the economy. But G V Sanjay Reddy, vice-chairman, GVK Industries, did not seem to have such reservations. Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry&rsquo;s (CII&rsquo;s) annual general meeting and national conference in Delhi, he bluntly said he wanted the government to get out of the way of business and industry and narrated an issue to strengthen his case. GVK has a road project in Rajasthan that has been delayed by nine months because it lacks environmental clearance. Obtaining this clearance is not the result of a genuine ecological problem, he added, but because some official in the ministry in Delhi and people on the ground in Rajasthan &ldquo;do not agree on the language in the letter&rdquo;, as a result of which his project has been in limbo.

Unfinished business 

Shashi Tharoor, who was filling in for the controversy-struck Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi at a session at the Confederation of Indian Industry&rsquo;s annual general meeting and national conference, rarely finds himself at a loss for words. But he was bested by former bureaucrat N K Singh. In the course of his speech, Tharoor virtuously added that he was the only elected MP in the gathering that included Singh and Ravi Shankar Prasad, who are both Rajya Sabha MPs from the BJP. Singh&rsquo;s riposte was that they, too, were elected but by other legislators and not directly by the people but he did wonder how an elected MP could consent to work under an &ldquo;unelected&rdquo; prime minister.

Upper cut

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who was on a two-day visit to Karnataka, joked that he got to be on dry land on one day and wet land the next. The first was Gulbarga, a district in north Karnataka that is in the throes of a drought-like situation where temperatures touched 44 degrees Celsius. The &ldquo;wet land&rdquo; to which he referred was Bangalore. Not that it was raining in the city; Ahluwalia was talking about the highly visible banners and hoardings of Kingfisher beer across the city, thanks to the Indian Premier League that is in full flow.

Dry land, wet land

T N Ninan&rsquo;s suggestions for reform should be welcomed by those who are seeking solutions to the problems of governance (&ldquo;Change is possible,&rdquo; April 18). The ones with the optimistic &ldquo;glass-half-full&rdquo; attitude are content with the macro index of GDP growth, whether it is 6.9 per cent or 8.7 per cent. They believe no change is possible because of coalition partners like the DMK and the Trinamool Congress. But we need to think of positive measures to increase the GDP and clear the obvious growth hurdles enumerated so ably and unambiguously by the author. Such micro-level analysis is no less significant than a mere macro study.

Letters: Who's listening?

This refers to your edit &ldquo;No excuses left for Centre&rdquo; (April 18). The Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s (RBI&rsquo;s) monetary policy measure of effecting a sharp reduction in the repo rate by 50 basis points sends out a clear message to the government that it has to initiate action on several fronts to stimulate growth and give the much-needed sentiment boost to the investor community. No doubt, RBI has surprised the market and shocked theorists by demonstrating that monetary policy can deviate from fundamental requirements and adopt a different approach if the situation demands it. The economy has been lagging for the past three years and the government has failed to show any fiscal discipline despite several bold measures from the central bank. Though the rate cut may have an adverse impact on inflation, if RBI&rsquo;s gamble pays off, renewed economic growth may have some softening effect on prices.

Letters: Gamble on growth

If B-schools produce only 25,000 employable MBAs against the 200,000 required, the critical issue is how to increase the number of institutes without sacrificing quality. To begin with, permission to open new management colleges should be given only to educationist-entrepreneurs &mdash; those who have knowledge, experience and passion for quality education. If funded by business houses or politicians, the appointment of a well-known educationist as director with full autonomy should be a pre-condition. More weight should be given to the quality of faculty rather than the physical infrastructure. Also, there should be a prescribed minimum to be reached by a management institute within, say, four years.

Letters: Get quality faculty

Agni-V, an intercontinental ballistic missile indigenously developed by Indian scientists, was successfully test-fired on Thursday. It was launched from Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast, and took 15 to 20 minutes to reach its designated target in the southern Indian Ocean, over 5,000 kilometres away. The missile has taken four years to develop; this success follows closely on that of Agni-IV last year, which tested many of the mechanisms that are integral to its longer-range sibling.

Reaching ever further

At the recently concluded London Book Fair, the chief subject of discussion wasn&rsquo;t celebrity book advances &mdash; it was the US Department of Justice (DoJ) antitrust suit against Apple and five major book publishers. The DoJ lawsuit alleges restraint of trade and collusion among five publishers and the computer giant after Apple introduced what it called &ldquo;the agency e-Book model&rdquo;, in effect allowing publishers to set e-book prices higher than many sellers (including Amazon and Barnes &amp; Noble) might have liked. Three publishers settled almost immediately; two, Macmillan and Penguin, are exploring their legal options, and opinion is divided on whether Apple will go the legal distance or try to settle. Some industry experts think the lawsuit will be settled soon; a few think that Apple might be able to successfully fight the charges of collusion.

The iGrab effect

The award winners have shown us that if you work with dedication, it is possible to do well despite external uncertainties. Some of you have given us hope and have shown us how leaders play a great role in turning around companies and take them to greater heights. Obviously, you have discovered the success formula through sheer hard work, single-mindedness and focus. While there are threats, I see opportunities before us.

Voters are appreciating the dangers of fractured mandates: Prithviraj Chavan

The economic mood may be sombre, but the Who&rsquo;s Who of India Inc, who assembled at the glittering Crystal Room at the Taj Mahal Hotel, didn&rsquo;t let that spoil their mood to celebrate the achievements of nine people and companies who managed to buck the trend.

Winning against all odds

Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai and Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi took part in a panel discussion at the Business Standard Awards ceremony.

You can't love democracy and hate politicians: Vinod Rai & SY Quraishi

A person&rsquo;s birth year can be a sensitive issue these days, as the army chief demonstrated. Tarun Das, chief mentor of industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is 73 years old but he surprised everyone listening to him at CII&rsquo;s annual general meeting and national conference by saying the visibly younger Cabinet minister Praful Patel was born a day later than him. Then he quickly clarified that Patel&rsquo;s birthday came 18 years after Das was born. Fifty-five-year-old Patel, who was briefly in shock at Das&rsquo; observation, started his speech by saying that he felt younger after he heard that his date of birth came 18 years after Das.

Born again

Infosys always equates acquisitions with falling in love. When asked why the company is not going in for big acquisitions despite sitting on a huge pile of cash, a senior executive explained, &ldquo;We are waiting for the moment to fall in love,&rdquo; though the company is dating a few. To define this &ldquo;moment&rdquo; the executive went on to say he once asked Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist why he retired.

Infosys&#39; long wait for love

The report regarding the decline in B-School admissions misses the point (&ldquo;Management education sees a meltdown,&rdquo; April 18). B-Schools are synonymous with business and placements, especially in India, where we are still in the early stages of business evolution and are copying or serving western models rather than creating any worthwhile impact. So, an MBA translates into a job and money and career. Even B-School professors exult at those among their alumni who have made it to executive-level positions, never mind the methods adopted in reaching the top or the exact impact of their careers. Hence, an HR head is successful even if he is unprofessional and nothing but a shoulder on which a CEO fires his or her gun.

Letters: Too good for an MBA

Chairman of Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) Gourishankar Agrawal, a powerful local BJP leader close to Chief Minister Raman Singh, conspicuously avoided meeting the media these past five years. This changed when the corporation came under fire from the opposition Congress over a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report highlighting serious irregularities in the allotment of a coal block. Agrawal hurriedly convened a press conference, prompting a journalist to comment that the CAG should be thanked for propelling him into meeting reporters. But the press conference was so badly organised that it was a fiasco. Agrawal was later heard remarking acerbically to one of his assistants that his team clearly had no experience in organising press meets.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 899 - Business Standard

Letters: Give PSU banks a chance

Off the record

Top secret

Policy paralysis?

The strength of bamboo

Communication break-down

Unfinished business

Upper cut

Dry land, wet land

Letters: Who's listening?

Letters: Gamble on growth

Letters: Get quality faculty

Reaching ever further

The iGrab effect

Voters are appreciating the dangers of fractured mandates: Prithviraj Chavan

Winning against all odds

You can't love democracy and hate politicians: Vinod Rai & SY Quraishi

Born again

Infosys' long wait for love

Letters: Too good for an MBA