In 2008, Bajaj Auto faced one of its worst crises &mdash; sales volumes nosedived, dealers and vendors began to complain that their operations had become unviable and a couple of its new launches failed. It hurt even more because the company had always prided itself as a market leader.

When less is more

Business Standard

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

Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party colleagues are not battling the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) only on the issue of Railway fare rises. A parallel confrontation is brewing between the Union food ministry and the West Bengal government over foodgrain allocation for the public distribution system (PDS) in the state. The day Dinesh Trivedi kept everyone guessing about his resignation as railway minister from the UPA Cabinet and Banerjee breathed fire in Kolkata, her minister for civil supplies held a press conference blaming the Centre for allocating less grain to the state PDS. The Centre argues that the state does not have a structure for procurement and distribution of grain (paddy, in this case) and relies on central allocations despite being the country&rsquo;s largest paddy producer. Given this, it will have to put up with whatever the Centre supplies.

Trinamool's grains of discontent

Women in homes and the fields usually do the hardest, most labour-consuming work, yet mechanisation rarely helps even the most sophisticated among them. Driving home this point, Uttarakhand Governor Margaret Alva (pictured), who was participating in a conference on women and farm labour, recalled how as a young housewife, she had to do a lot of housework and was pleasantly relieved at the arrival of the washing machine. But the moment it was bought, she said her husband asked her not to mess with the new gadget and took over the task of washing clothes. Alva joked that women are given the most tedious tasks but the moment mechanisation is introduced and the task becomes less daunting, men take charge.

Men and machines

The value of the three passes and six privileged travel orders that serving and retired railwaymen enjoy &ndash; not only for themselves but for their extended families including parents (and possibly in-laws) &ndash; form a high percentage of the passenger earnings of the Railways.

Letters: Too much to ask for?

This refers to Parthasarathi Shome&rsquo;s article &ldquo;The Budget&rsquo;s massive tax effort&rdquo; (March 19). The goods and services tax (GST) regime has become central to discussions on this year&rsquo;s Budget. GST will certainly benefit industry and its successful implementation will go a long way in addressing all tax-related issues. The aim of GST is to simplify the present indirect tax structure that is not only full of anomalies but also attracts multiplicity of taxes.

Letters: Bring in the GST regime

Recently, a newspaper reported former Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel saying he had written to current incumbent Ajit Singh requesting a full investigation into the allegation that he (Patel) had commandeered Air India aircraft to fly his close relatives Male-Bangalore-Male when he headed the ministry. Now it seems Patel may have mis-spoken, to put it politely. At least according to the civil aviation ministry. In a response to a Right to Information (RTI) application by an activist asking whether it had received a copy of the letter, whether a copy could be furnished and what action had been taken, the ministry&rsquo;s response was a bland: &ldquo;No information available.

Flight check

I am holding some shares and want to gift these to my mother.

Taxation: Homi Mistry

The retrospective amendments in the Finance Bill, 2012, to handle taxation of international transactions associated with Indian assets are steps in the right direction.

Is it fair to frame tax laws on overseas buys of Indian assets retrospectively?

Lafarge, the world&rsquo;s largest building materials company, is saddled with high debt and is going through a global restructuring. Its production has been hit in Europe amidst the euro zone crisis, resulting in layoffs and shutdowns. For its Global Chairman and CEO, Bruno Lafont, these are challenging times in which he has initiated a global divestment exercise. But India is still a growth market, he told Business Standard.

In India, M&A is not a focus area: Bruno Lafont

Mamata Banerjee, mercurial chief minister of West Bengal and head of the Trinamool Congress, talks to CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai on the recent row over former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi and the strained relationship with the Congress party.

Will not leave UPA unless humiliated: Mamata Banerjee 

From individual investors' perspective, the Budget may not be as lacklustre as it is on the macroeconomic front. The direct benefits include higher exemption limit in personal tax, exemption up to Rs 10,000 for interest on savings and 50 per cent exemption on investments of up to Rs 50,000 in equities. There could be a minor impact with the 20 per cent reduction in STT.

More unto the individual: Rajesh Saluja

The time to recognise the scriptwriters of the India story was near-perfect. On a day the Sensex rallied past the 18,000 mark, a power-packed jury comprising six of India Inc&rsquo;s leading decision-makers met in mid-February in Mumbai to select the winners of Business Standard&rsquo;s annual awards for corporate excellence.

Honouring excellence

The annual Budget was presented with the customary fanfare, but the government inexplicably chose to hide its light under a bushel just two days before that. That was when it presented the Agricultural Survey, the first-ever, on the lines of the annual Economic Survey. The government clearly underestimated the interest in this because there were not enough copies to go around in Parliament on the day and MPs were heard demanding copies of the survey on the Budget day as well.

Grassroots support

That the life of India&rsquo;s finance minister isn&rsquo;t easy is now a truism, thanks to Pranab Mukherjee&rsquo;s memorable mention while presenting his seventh Budget. But on the sidelines of a post-Budget interview, Mukherjee also recalled how life was less difficult for a Congress finance minister some 30 years ago, which was when he had presented his first Budget. &ldquo;What was the size of the economy then,&rdquo; he reflected, before adding that at least running Parliament then was easier. &ldquo;We had 353 members in the Lok Sabha and 165 in the Rajya Sabha. We used to call it brute majority.&rdquo; The majority has remained, but the brute is now replaced by a factor that he might have called coalition politics.

An FM's lament

Apropos the edit &ldquo;Not-backward looking&rdquo; (March 18), the issue of retrospective legislation needs to be viewed from a contextual perspective. The legislature&rsquo;s sovereign right to make statutory amendments with retrospective effect going back to five decades cannot be questioned. What assumes significance is the context in which such an attempt is made. Here it is important to stress that when it comes to fiscal laws, the executive often finds it hard to digest the judiciary&rsquo;s negative view on a particular piece of law . Law-making is, to be fair, not the function of the legislature alone, unless the proposed law is brought to it by the executive. Thus, it is initiated by the executive wing of the government (that comprises babus) and formalised by the legislative wing. There&rsquo;s nothing surprising or wrong in that. But problem arises when babus in the executive wing try to get even with the judiciary in the name of law making.

Letters: A case of getting even?

Speaking at a global conference on women farm labour, agriculture scientist and MP M S Swaminathan recalled how Rajiv Gandhi at a similar conference in the eighties looked at the speakers and found just one woman, Margaret Alva, on stage amid seven or eight male speakers. He commented: Why have you let men outnumber you? Swaminathan remarked at the coincidence that Uttarakhand Governor Margaret Alva was on stage as a speaker and that too at an agriculture conference organised by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The only difference, he said, was that there were as many female speakers as male ones this time.

Gender balanced

The defence allocation of 1.9 per cent of the GDP is well below the accepted safe level of three per cent. Given the instability in our neighbourhood and the fact that our seas are no longer safe, we need to be stronger to contain the nibbling of our land around unmarked borders.

Letters: Poor allocation

No one talks about the slowdown as a temporary blip anymore, as political gridlock, the central bank&rsquo;s growth versus inflation dilemma and gloom in the Euro zone have conspired to dampen corporate sentiment in Asia&rsquo;s third largest economy. The ability of India&rsquo;s top 1000 companies to service debt has also dipped to a five-year low due to high interest rates and a drop in operating profits. Predictably, companies are delaying big investments that would add much-needed industrial and infrastructure capacity. And it&rsquo;s become quite common to hear Indian companies blaming a lack of action from a government distracted by corruption scandals and adverse court judgments as key reasons for the cloudy business outlook.

That the government has shown a determination to widen the tax net is commendable. Reform of certain aspects of the Direct Taxes Code is overdue. Often, lack of clarity in the law allows companies to cling to debatable interpretations that cause the intent of the legislation to remain unfulfilled. Many of the current requirements are incapable of dealing with a vastly more complex, globalised economy. In addition, there is a climate abroad against widespread tax evasion.

Taxman's joy 

Now that Dinesh Trivedi has resigned as railway minister, the fate of the fare increases he proposed is uncertain. His successor, also from the Trinamool Congress, may well roll back the increases, especially in second-class fares, which will be unfortunate. Mr Trivedi had shown the courage to stem the rot in the finances of the Indian Railways. His departure and the fear of an imminent fare rollback serve as a sad reminder that populism rules the roost and prudent management has few takers. If Mr Trivedi had indeed kept his party leader, Mamata Banerjee, in the dark about the fare increases then there is ground to seek his replacement. But it will be unwise to throw the baby out with the bathwater; let the reforms initiated by Mr Trivedi proceed.

Business Standard

Business Standard

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