Read on twitter. &ldquo;My dogs Tito and Tango make it so enjoyable to come home each evening. They wait for me and give me their undivided affection. Tito and Tango seek nothing in return for their affection other than love and attention. I miss them terribly when I am away.&rdquo; The tweets come from Ratan Tata, a recent entrant to the world of 140-character communication. Tito and Tango are German Shepherds.

Dogged loyalty

Business Standard

Harish Salve, the counsel for Vodafone, took time to explain what the judgment means for business. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s most positive about the verdict is the rule of law would prevail, irrespective of the zeroes involved,&rdquo; he said.

This is a first: Harish Salve

Apropos the edit &ldquo;Dating a birth&rdquo; (January 19), General V K Singh&rsquo;s filing of a writ petition in the Supreme Court is simply an exercise of his fundamental right under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution. However, his bona fide arguments come under a cloud when one considers the fact that he has swung into action only in the last year of his service, when the issue gained prominence as far back as 2006. En route to his ascent in the command hierarchy, the army chief had had ample opportunity to seek redressal at every instance of promotion. Intuitively, this late no-holds-barred showdown can only be construed as a reluctance to relinquish power. A legal verdict would not be such a bad thing after all, because it embodies faith in the due process of law. But the politicisation of the debate might set an unwarranted precedent of insubordination.

Letters: A question of timing

At the recently concluded annual general meeting of Ficci, Swami Tejomayananda, the global head of Chinmaya Mission, took a dig at politicians and the current political situation. Addressing a session titled &ldquo;Expectations from corporate leadership in today's environment&quot;, he drew on medicine to describe the human personality. People were either anti-biotic or pro-biotic, he said. But in India, he added, &quot;we have several personalities who are chaotic.

Indian tics

JLR&rsquo;s December volumes, 30,981 units, were significantly ahead of expectations, with the impact of the new Evoque. While its launch did shore up volumes, the strong numbers &mdash; especially for the Land Rover range &mdash; suggest a healthy momentum for incumbent brands as well. Luxury majors, too, closed CY11 with healthy growth rates; these remain optimistic, with most expecting new launches to propel volumes in CY12. With higher-than-estimated volumes for over a quarter now, coupled with tailwinds from favourable currencies, JLR is set to deliver a strong operational performance in the near term. Concerns over the euro zone, however, blur visibility over the long-term. Hold.

Analysts' corner

A minister has described the army chief&rsquo;s decision to approach the Supreme Court as an &ldquo;unfortunate development&rdquo; and &ldquo;not a healthy precedent&rdquo;. It is certainly unfortunate, but the government has only itself to blame for dragging the issue on for so long. Also, why is the chief&rsquo;s move being considered a precedent? A number of employees at all levels have approached the courts against the government from time to time seeking justice, exercising the fundamental right assured in the Constitution.

Letters: ...and a general right

Like all pre-Budget discussions, the recent meeting between Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and state finance ministers was held behind closed doors at Vigyan Bhavan. But for some unaccountable reason the organisers chose to relay proceedings &ndash; live &ndash; on one of the big screens in the auditorium. Naturally, that provided a perfect opportunity for reporters to watch, until someone discovered the &ldquo;leak&rdquo; and abruptly turned it off.

Pre-Budget 'leak'

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh announced on Tuesday that a consensus had been reached to allow foreign airlines to invest in the Indian aviation sector. Foreign carriers would be allowed to buy up to 49 per cent of India&rsquo;s airlines, he said, adding that this consensus would soon be taken to the Union Cabinet for approval. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India&rsquo;s aviation sector is long overdue; the Cabinet should back Mr Singh&rsquo;s decision &mdash; which was taken following a meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Petroleum Minister Jaipal Reddy and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma. Given the uproar over FDI in retail recently, it is worthwhile to restate how foreign investment can help domestic sectors. It reduces the cost of capital to domestic firms, allowing them to undertake necessary investment. It eases the process of the transfer of cutting-edge technology and global best practices.

Time to take off

The same week that Wikipedia and several other highly trafficked websites went dark to protest legislation in the United States that would severely curtail their operations, the Delhi High Court was hearing an attempt by the Indian government to take on 21 social networking sites (owned by 10 overseas companies) for &ldquo;promoting enmity between classes, causing prejudice to national integration and insulting religion or religious belief of any class&rdquo; under various sections of the

Licence-permit web

I have a personal loan of Rs 1 lakh and a car loan of Rs 3.2 lakh, which will continue till November 2013. I don't want my wife to repay if something happens to me.

General Insurance: Bhargav Dasgupta

This refers to A K Bhattacharya&rsquo;s column &ldquo;North Block&rsquo;s talent hunt&rdquo; (Raisina Hill, January 17). The finance ministry&rsquo;s internship programme to get young scholars to work with its experienced and senior officers can have a positive impact. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of ego clashes between interns and ministry officials. Young interns are usually full of ideas and may want to give their own inputs or comments on the workings of the ministry. However, officers who have practical knowledge and consider themselves veterans of the field, may not always be open to accepting new ideas especially when they are coming from younger, less experienced interns. So if we want to make this programme a success, it is important to facilitate a healthy &ldquo;exchange&rdquo; of ideas and opinions. This can happen in due course of time through continued interactions.

Letters: A two-way exchange

Wikipedia, the internet-based encyclopaedia, was supposed to go offline on Wednesday to protest anti-piracy legislation being discussed in the US Congress. Heated internal debate on whether that was a decision logged 90,000 words just in the 24 hours before the website went dark. Once it was decided that the most dramatic of the various protests would be the one undertaken, the website&rsquo;s programmers arranged it so that all visitors to site were presented with a dark screen that asked them to &ldquo;imagine a world without free knowledge&rdquo;. Unfortunately, Wikipedia being user-designed, nothing quite works as intended. Visitors to the website soon discovered that by pressing the &ldquo;escape&rdquo; key for five seconds, the dark screen disappeared. As always, on the internet, life went on.

Wiki leak

My son took an education loan two and a half years ago. I stood as guarantor for it. Its moratorium period ended last month and my son has started servicing it.

Debt counselling: Sanjay Agarwal

With RIL announcing a buyback after seven years, a primer on how it impacts shareholders.

Understanding share buybacks

The army chief, General Vijay Kumar Singh, has taken the government to the Supreme Court after it insisted that his date of birth in its relevant records was May 10, 1950 &mdash; and not May 10, 1951, as he has claimed, and in support of which he has extensive documentation. Accepting the later date would mean that the army chief will stay in office for almost a year more than was originally intended. Gen Singh, meanwhile, has said that he is not fighting for another year in office, but to save his &ldquo;honour&rdquo;, which he claims has been affected by the government&rsquo;s stance since he is being portrayed in effect as a liar. Defence Secretary Shashikant Sharma has been recalled from an official visit to Malaysia, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has held consultations with Defence Minister A K Antony and Law Minister Salman Khurshid.

Dating a birth

The Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s next review of monetary policy is scheduled for Tuesday, when it will announce whether it is cutting rates or holding them steady. This comes after a sequence of 13 increases, during which the central bank raised the policy rate from 3.25 per cent to 8.5 per cent. Last month, as signs that the economy was slowing became unmistakable, the RBI indicated a shift in its stance, saying that future changes in the policy rate would likely be downwards.

Addressing the slowdown

The findings of OECD&rsquo;s Programme for International Student Assessment are shameful (&ldquo;Learning disabilities,&rdquo; January 17). What is the use of achieving high enrolments under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan if the quality of education and students&rsquo; learning abilities remain low? We need to stop fixating on the &ldquo;number&rdquo; of children we are able to enroll and reconsider our education system. Time and again, we&rsquo;ve heard India Inc lament the unemployability of our graduates. And, now, after this finding, we can easily conclude that there are major flaws in our education system, starting right from the primary level. If anything, this must serve as a wake-up call for the authorities concerned, especially when we know that in a few years a majority of our population will be young.

Letters: Quality not quantity

With low consumption and other recessionary conditions, there is already pressure on retail sales and retailers. Opening up the market to foreign direct investment (FDI) would exert further pressure. In the past, the government invited foreign investment in cases where local markets were underdeveloped or where large amounts of capital were needed, like in infrastructure development.

Letters: Do we need FDI in retail?

This refers to Shine Jacob&rsquo;s report &ldquo;US hotel chain to enter education&rdquo; (January 17). The entry of Best Western International into India&rsquo;s education sector will increase competition among existing players and ultimately benefit consumers. Indeed our impressive GDP growth, sizeable population and fairly educated workforce are playing a significant role in attracting international investments. But the fact that India has remained largely unaffected by the global slowdown makes it a more attractive investment destination. Best Western&rsquo;s foray into the country&rsquo;s booming hospitality industry will not only reap profits for the company but will also go a long way in providing better services and more options to consumers.

Letters: Winning entry

West Bengal Chief Minister&rsquo;s Mamata Banerjee&rsquo;s obsession with Bengal&rsquo;s famous sons Rabindra Nath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda came to life - literally - during the inauguration of the Beach Festival at Digha. So much so that she took time out from governing her bankrupt state to get two people to dress up as Tagore and Vivekananda and have them walk down the beach. The spectacle overwhelmed her so much that she then announced, &ldquo;Now Mother Sea will follow the footsteps of Tagore and Swamiji to walk along the beaches.

All dressed up

Ministers are not always keen to brief the media after key Cabinet meetings but Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh showed that he has a realistic view of his position. Singh recently joined the ruling United Progressive Alliance as part of poll alliances ahead of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and was inducted as civil aviation minister. Coming out of North Block after the meeting that discussed the issue of allowing foreign airlines to invest in Indian ones, he was caught between a noisy media demanding a comment and his staff and security officials exhorting him to get into a waiting car. It took him no time to decide that addressing the media was the better option. As he explained to his irate staff in Hindi, &ldquo;How can I make them angry? The elections are round the corner.

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