Discussions on the issue of disinvestment may loom large in the corridors of power, but in the corridors of a large public sector company, executives clearly don't think highly of their organisation. Discussing the upcoming annual appraisal exercise, a group of senior officials ended up making fun of themselves. One official told the others, &quot;I think we should make Mr Gupta the GM for HR this time.

Same difference

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This refers to the edit &ldquo;Improvident Fund&rdquo; (January 31). The fund contains the savings of the working class and its objective is to provide for a time when the worker is unable to earn an income. As such it is necessary to keep it safe and also not erode its worth by protecting it from inflation.

Letters: In provident fund we trust

Selling toothpaste, shampoo is one thing and selling insurance, pensions policies another. Lately, players from the banking and finance industry have tried to emulate the success of their FMCG friends by hiring Bollywood icons to endorse their products. For instance, IndusInd Bank on Monday announced that Neetu Kapoor and Jimmy Shergill will be starring in its new advertising campaign. Not long ago, Ranvir Shorey was endorsing the brand.

Tough acts to follow?

It was heartening to read your report &ldquo;India ramps up ties with Myanmar, Thailand&rdquo; (January 31). There&rsquo;s no better way to &ldquo;commemorate&rdquo; our Look East policy than to get involved in the Italian-Thai venture on Dawei port development; our shipping services from Kolkata and Chennai to Yangon must also start. Industry bodies should arrange seminars in Yangon to indicate Indian business&rsquo; serious interest in investing in Myanmar.

Letters: Myanmar calling

Its guarantee of non-duplication can have far-reaching cost benefits but it has deep design flaws that can be compromised.

Do we need the Aadhar scheme?

This refers to the report &ldquo;Babus in poll fray, EC asks govt to bar them&rdquo; (January 29). It is good to know that the Election Commission has taken cognisance of the increasing number of babus entering politics immediately after retirement.

Letters: Ensuring impartiality

By juxtaposing T N Ninan&rsquo;s column &ldquo;The right to offend&rdquo; (Weekend ruminations, January 28) with the edit &ldquo;Intolerant India&rdquo; (January 26), some surmises can be made. The oft-quoted Article 19 of the Constitution says freedom is subject to reasonable restrictions. So, when a person offends others overlooking these constraints, he or she should be prepared to face the consequences. But the right of the people offended is also not an unbridled right and does not include coercive threats, violence and so on.

Letters: Who's being hurt? 

I own a prepaid forex card, loaded with $150. I had bought foreign currency when the rupee was 47 for a dollar.

Banking: Prashant Joshi

Apropos T N Ninan&rsquo;s column &ldquo;The right to offend&rdquo; (Weekend ruminations, January 28), how can French Parliament&rsquo;s decision to criminalise denial of the Armenian genocide be deemed as suppression or an abridgement of freedom of expression? If anything, such a law will serve as an enabling provision for those who dare to speak the truth. Similarly, laws in European countries against Holocaust denial empower their citizens against conspiracy theorists who would rather have them believe that the event was a figment of Jewish imagination to usurp Palestine. Thus, these laws are not the result of Europe&rsquo;s fear of violence but a robust response against sophistry and calumny.

Letters: Freedom from fallacy

Disinvestment targets and achievements always make news. That was quite apparent at the lunch hosted by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently. When a finance ministry official was confronted with a question on which public sector unit could be divested next, he was quick to say, &ldquo;I could line them all up, if I could...&rdquo; When journalists started taking notes on that comment, the official demurred that it was all said in light humour. What he left unsaid was, not everything can be headline news. Indeed, at the same lunch, the finance minister was more forthright. He told reporters and editors to focus on hard food rather than hard news.

Food over news

In the context of France&rsquo;s law against denying the Armenian genocide, The Los Angeles Times published an edit on 21 December, 2011 that said the Bill goes against the spirit of free speech rights.

Letters: ...and the paradox of it

Who is a renewable energy consumer? Former power secretary Anil Razdan offered a new meaning at a recent conference. The issue came up when a member of an audience asked Ajoy Mehta, managing director of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company, about its renewable purchase obligation (RPO). Mehta replied that a poor man with one bulb connection cannot be asked to pay more for renewable energy. But Razdan turned the issue into a joke, saying the man uses solar energy when his child studies in the daylight hours and wind energy when the family is cooled by the breeze instead of an air conditioner.

Back to nature?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may be roundly criticised in India for playing second fiddle to Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Soft-spoken and non-confrontational, he is often perceived as a &ldquo;weak&rdquo; prime minister by the Indian polity. But global opinion may differ. If US president Barack Obama calls him &ldquo;guru&rdquo;, the latest issue of Time magazine has listed him among eight introverts who have made history. According to a longish article by the magazine&rsquo;s Tokyo correspondent, introverts have their advantages too. The only other Indian on the Time list of eight introverts is Gandhi, though there is an India-related personality in Mother Teresa. Among the other introverted giants listed are Gates, Buffet, Clinton (Hillary) and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. The strangest entry of all, however, is Moses, the biblical figure.

The silent history maker

Air India, which is in desperate need of funds to stay afloat, proposed to banks that they should hypothecate its aircraft. Though privately-owned Indian airlines have signed such agreements with foreign banks, Indian banks are yet to enter the uncharted territory of lending against aircraft as security. Since the banks could not turn down Air India's proposal outright, they offered an innovative scheme in return. Instead of direct hypothecation, they asked Air India to sign agreements with its competitors, so that the banks could sell the aircraft to them if the state-owned airline defaults.

Up in the air

The punitive action on January 13 against four scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in connection with the Antrix-Devas deal leaves many questions unanswered. It does however make it apparent that there have been lacunae in the functioning of one of India&rsquo;s premier scientific institutions, its commercial arm, and the overseeing body. The order from the Department of Space (DoS runs directly under the PMO) states that former Isro head Madhavan Nair, former Isro Scientific Secretary A Bhaskarnarayana, former Antrix Managing Director K R Sridharamurthi and former Isro Satellite Centre Director K N Shankara &ldquo;shall be excluded from re-employment, committee roles or any other important roles under the government&rdquo;.

Space evaders

The 48-odd million employees covered by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) may be touched that the finance ministry is actually considering a proposal to extend the organisation a fiscal helping hand to offer a rate of interest comparable with other savings instruments. That the stretched fisc should subsidise the relatively more affluent subscribers of the scheme is questionable politically.

Improvident fund

Is there any monetary limit in a comprehensive shop insurance policy? Please advise.

Personal finance: You ask, we answer

The government&rsquo;s decision to geographically split India between two contending registry projects &mdash; the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the National Population Register (NPR) &mdash; is intended to save on the wastage that would result from duplicate data collection. Now they will use each other&rsquo;s data, though duplication cannot be entirely avoided &ndash; as P Chidambaram, the Union home minister, has pointed out. He has, however, backed the new turf-sharing arrangement by arguing that 5-6 per cent duplication &mdash; 60-75 million people &mdash; is not high for a country as big as India. What is sensible is the adoption, conscious or otherwise, of the Chinese practice of allowing different parts of the country to pursue different initiatives. Then, as emerging models or programmes get their act together, in time the Central authorities have no difficulty in adopting for the whole country the ones that deliver better.

Breather for Aadhaar

An examination of the results of 417 companies (excluding those in the financial sector) that have declared their results for the third quarter (Q3) of the current financial year suggests that the slowdown apparent in the second quarter became even more pronounced between October and December 2011. The impact of inflation on raw material inputs, of high interest costs and of rising crude and gas prices is clear. Compared to the corresponding quarter of 2010-11, profit after tax (PAT) has fallen marginally, by 1.7 per cent, for this whole sample. Matters would have been worse except for the weak rupee, which had a positive impact on the sales and bottom-lines of the information technology industry. Across the board, sales growth has been good, with a 25 per cent rise over the corresponding period in 2010-11. However, interest costs have risen 40 per cent and ordinary expenses are up 31 per cent. Profit margins show significant contraction for most industries.

Expenses expanding

The finance minister's lunch with media editors is rarely expected to yield a feast of news so those who are invited look forward to a feast of Bengali food instead. This year, too, the usual sumptuous spread was on offer, yet the gourmands came away disappointed. Their grouse: the much-anticipated hilsa fish curry was served not with plain rice, which is supposed to enhance the delicate flavour of the fish, but with a wholly inappropriate biryani. That might just be the Bengali equivalent of, say, the culinary faux pas of serving red wine with fish.

Food faux pas

A senior official of an airline that is not exactly known for its good financial health has gotten so used to answering questions on its fate on a daily basis that he now fields calls from reporters with whom he is familiar with a stock answer.

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