The report on Telecom Regulatory Authority of India&rsquo;s proposal to reduce the duration and frequency of TV advertisements in TV programmes provided cheerful news to regular viewers (&ldquo;Ad brake for TV pay channels,&rdquo; March 21). In fact, no pay channel follows the present norm of limiting ads to 12 minutes per hour. Popular entertainment programmes like family serials with a duration of half an hour often have eight to 12 minutes of ads and three breaks instead of the prescribed two. Since almost all channels have the same clock time for the break, changing channels leads the viewer from one add to another and traps him completely.

Letters: 'Ad' nauseam

Business Standard

This refers to Ajit Balakrishnan&rsquo;s article &ldquo;Core competence and other tales&rdquo; (February 23). There have been many studies on conglomerates in India. In the industrial policy of the seventies, the &ldquo;big houses&rdquo; were allowed to invest in some critical areas under the joint sector. On this, H K Paranjpe, member of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission committee, had said there are businessmen with a trading attitude who concentrate on short gestation projects, diversifying into various businesses. A capitalist would have the long-term viewpoint to invest in long gestation projects and would have the commitment to develop that industry.

Letters: More to management

This refers to the news report &ldquo;Cane mills owe Rs 6,548 crore to farmers&rdquo; (March 21). The problem of cane arrears has persisted over several decades. In an econometric study of the demand for bank credit from sugar mills, conducted at the Reserve Bank of India, it was found that although the cane payments had a first charge on the cash credit limits sanctioned to them, there was no mechanism to ensure that stipulation (&ldquo;Reserve Bank of India Occasional Papers,&rdquo; June 1983). The law levied interest at 15 per cent for delays in payments beyond 14 days. This was not followed by any mill. This may be the situation even now.

Letters: Cane arrears

What is common to the ruling UPA government and the erstwhile NDA government? The NDA had the same two most difficult coalition partners, said Yashwant Sinha, BJP leader and former finance minister, hinting at the Trinamool Congress and DMK. The difference, he said, is that the NDA &ldquo;had a prime minister who could manage his coalition&rdquo; adding that Kolkata appears to have taken its &ldquo;revenge&rdquo;. After 100 years, the capital of national decision-making appears to have shifted back to that city, an oblique reference to the pressure exerted by Trinamool&rsquo;s Mamata Banerjee on a host of decisions, from FDI in multi-brand retail to railway fare increases.

Kolkata 'durbar'?

In his Budget speech last week, when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee quoted from Shakespeare&rsquo;s Hamlet &ldquo;I must be cruel only to be kind&rdquo;, some people wondered what he meant. At a post-Budget meeting between Confederation of Indian Industry members and Finance Secretary R S Gujral, tax expert Satya Poddar said he did not understand what was cruel in the Budget. Gujral replied it was the increase in service tax and the excise duty rate by two per cent.

Kind cruelty

Some weeks ago, the Karnataka government decided to give all MLAs in the state an iPad to increase their efficiency and chose the iPad2, the latest model available at that time. But the wheels of government move so slowly that by the time the iPad2s were delivered, the iPad3 had been launched. Never loath to forego a privilege, the legislators have now met the Speaker of the Assembly to explain why the latest iPad model is indispensable for them.

iDeprived

Transfer Pricing (TP) is an issue India Inc cannot ignore. According to experts, greater scrutiny by tax authorities over the years leading to increased adjustment orders, has resulted in numerous litigations.

Rising Transfer Pricing Disputes - Will Advance Pricing Agreements bring relief?

The first-ever Agricultural Survey tabled in Parliament, emulating the presentation of the Economic Survey, seems a well-meaning exercise in candid analysis of the factors that have constrained the sector&rsquo;s growth. Being an inaugural report card, it has done well not to confine itself to developments during 2011-12. The long-term trends do, indeed, provide the answers to some of the key questions as to why the green revolution, which peaked in the 1980s, flagged subsequently; and why the prices of farm commodities, other than staple cereals, have soared despite a substantial increase in their production.

Bedrock for reform

The Lok Sabha was adjourned for a short duration on Wednesday following an uproar over the government&rsquo;s latest figures for poverty. This follows widespread public outrage at those figures. A dispassionate observer of this discussion may be led to conclude that either poverty has risen dramatically or the government has somehow fudged the figures inexcusably and obviously. Elsewhere perhaps, but not in India. That neither of those statements is even close to being the truth reveals much about the economic illiteracy that cripples public debate in India. What can be said about the quality of the public sphere in a nation where the largest and fastest fall of poverty in its history is met with such widespread anger? A strange coalition of the political Opposition and professional poverty boosters has served to obscure the details of this achievement.

Facts, not outrage

Ask any distributor of financial products and he would affirm that selling life insurance is among the most challenging tasks. One of the key reasons it can be demanding is it requires convincing a policyholder to make regular premium payments over an extended period of time. The cumulative impact of policies, which pay renewal premiums, in your book is known as persistency.

Persistency is the name of the game: Jayant Dua

The penetration of general insurance, measured as a percentage of premiums to gross domestic product (GDP), has been low at 0.7 per cent in India. We feel as awareness grows, penetration of general insurance is also bound to grow. India&rsquo;s GDP has been projected to grow at more than seven per cent for the next several years and as a natural corollary, the general insurance industry is set to grow at the rate of 14- 18 per cent for the next decade.

Profitability remains a challenge: Hemant Kaul

Former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi deserves to be congratulated for his splendid professional approach to presenting a bold Railway Budget. He is particularly worthy of appreciation for not toeing the party line and letting Trinamool Congress&rsquo; ideology interfere with his job at the Centre. Trivedi has set an example for others to emulate. Today, the nation needs more leaders and statesmen like him.

Letters: ...and a reformer

Apropos the debate &ldquo;Is it fair to frame tax laws on overseas buys of Indian assets retrospectively?&rdquo; (March 21), I completely agree with Shyamal Mukherjee. As a businessman, I believe that retrospective changes in tax law will create an uncertain business environment and hamper foreign investment inflows. The vagueness in tax policy will force foreign investors to think twice before investing despite the huge scope that business in India offers. This is specially damaging because what the country really needs today is more investment and inflow of foreign currency, and we certainly can&rsquo;t afford to lose any of it.

Letters: Taxing on business

I cannot thank you enough for managing to get former CBDT Chairman Sudhir Chandra to give his views on the issue of retrospective amendments in tax law and giving us both sides of the story. I would like to share my views on two points that he makes. First, that all income made from India must be taxed whether the law says so or not. The implication seems to be that it&rsquo;s good if this is law, but if it isn&rsquo;t then we must change the law with backdated effect. I am not really sure what this says about the relevance of the rule of law. Second, that businessmen make huge sums of money and evade taxes with mere paperwork, thus, leaving the middle class to bear the burden. This point may be fair but the underlying tone is that &ldquo;we are the law&rdquo; and courts be damned, this view is especially underlined when Chandra says &ldquo;powerful people pardon&rdquo;.

Letters: ...and on rule of law

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh announced a scheme to provide health insurance to everyone living in the state via a smart card for free medical care up to Rs 30,000. At a press conference announcing this, the chief minister was asked whether the sum assured would be valid for only the head of the family or the whole family. Singh looked up, smiled broadly and indicated that it covered the family. When, however, he was asked how the state government would manage the additional revenues to finance this largesse, he looked the other way.

The stretch principle

Sometimes common eating habits also lead to common ground. The Union food ministry and the state of West Bengal might have disagreements over many issues, none of that was visible during the recent meeting between Food Minister K V Thomas and a delegation of Trinamool Congress leaders from West Bengal. As a senior leader of the West Bengal delegation later disclosed, the food minister understood West Bengal&rsquo;s problems because he also comes from a rice-eating state, Kerala. More importantly, both regions have a fancy for fish. So, who says disputes can&rsquo;t be solved over a good meal.

Table for two

Numbers in Parliament matter for the government in power and it matters more when the ruling government is a coalition. So how do you ensure that you have sufficient MPs present and voting on vital issues? The government has found the easiest solution in the humble text message or SMS. Starting this session, every MP of the ruling coalition is sent an SMS informing him of the issues discussed in Parliament that day. When the issue under debate is as serious as the National Counter Terrorism Centre, a separate SMS is sent to each MP requesting attendance. Maybe this is a sign that, despite the detractors, the government should widen the use of technology in other significant ways, such as smart cards to target poverty schemes.

Sign language

With the ever increasing awareness about GMAT among the Indian students, more number of institutes are beginning to accept GMAT scores. Moreover GMAT's popularity among Indian students is growing thanks to the flexibility of choosing to take GMAT around the year and its scores being accepted around the world.

Student's corner

Back when the India growth story was unblemished and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had emerged unscathed from the bruising nuclear deal confirmation and the elections that followed, there was an almost palpable sense that India had arrived as a major global player. It demanded as its right a larger share of responsibilities at international fora such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Group of Twenty.

Retreating India

Last week&rsquo;s Budget came at a time when higher government borrowing had already seriously hurt corporate investment and thus growth. Unable to sufficiently minimise the Centre&rsquo;s borrowing next year, the government has tried to open up various routes by which foreign money can help plug the gap for Indian companies. Qualified foreign investors are, for example, to be allowed to participate in the corporate bond market, though that, in the absence of a vibrant secondary market, is unlikely to be enough to invigorate the corporate debt market. It has also opened up a route for borrowing working capital overseas. Airlines will be allowed to borrow up to $1 billion worth of working capital strictly within the time frame of 2012-13. It is questionable if companies with balance sheets as damaged as those of Air India and Kingfisher Airlines will find overseas lenders even if they agreed to huge premiums. However, there could be serious long-term implications of this relaxation.

Banking on hot money

Apropos the edit &ldquo;Keep Mr Trivedi&rsquo;s reforms&rdquo; (March 20), I agree with your suggestion that the Trinamool Congress should let the government proceed with reforms initiated in the Railway Budget. But this may be wishful thinking because if Mamata Banerjee didn&rsquo;t have a problem with reforms suggested by Dinesh Trivedi, she would not have sought his removal from the Cabinet in the first place. So, how so ever good these reforms may be for the Railways, I am sure these will not be carried out by the new railway minister who will only act as Banerjee&rsquo;s puppet. Trivedi had presented a bold Budget that was praised not only by the Congress, the Janata Dal (United) and certain other parties, but by railway unions too. He had presented changes in the system that are pivotal to the modernisation of the Railways. It is certain that railway unions will protest in case the increase in passenger fares is rolled back under pressure from Banerjee.

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