As we struggle through nearly two months of intense summer before the monsoon arrives in right earnest and brings relief, an undercurrent of excitement is running through the family - hugely underplayed, totally unstated, but real nevertheless. No, we are not daft, getting excited over days of unalloyed heat and sweat. We are looking forward to meeting as a family again.The whole thing will be bounded by many limiting factors. The daughter will be home for a good two months - as long as Delhi University shuts down in summer. She has said she is coming primarily to rest and recover from the terrible strain of semester exams and the rigours of helping run their three-girl hostel. Rest means being mainly locked up in her room and running up an astronomical bill on the wife's cell phone talking to friends. The son will be home only for a week or so and has made it clear that he will not have any time to visit relatives, leaving it to us (the wife and I) to answer relatives who will aver th

The unbearable lightness of let-down

Business Standard

India's cities are in poor shape and it is axiomatic that unless you have proper systems of governance in place working through the right kind of institutions, there is no hope for their uplift. Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation that focuses on urban issues and has access to advice from global experts, has conducted a "city-systems" survey of 11 leading Indian cities.By rating cities on the basis of four attributes - planning, resources, empowerment and accountability - the survey hopes to tell us who is falling short where (or who scores where) so that we can have a logical action plan to make the cities livable and capable of growing healthily. This exercise has reinforced the consensus around a must-do list so that we can stop arguing and start working on it.To have a sort of "control" as in an experiment, the survey also asks citizens what they think of the quality of life in these cities and how they rate their systems. This yields some fascinating diverg

Know your city to set it right

Journeying across the country in search of livelihood, you take pleasure in the ability to integrate, assimilate. After a few years in Delhi, I thought I did quite well with my spoken Hindi, only to realise later the shopkeepers smiled not because they were impressed but because they were amused. So, in Bangalore I thought better not to murder Kannada but to get by with banking on most people having a bit of English.Although over time I have realised that linguistic divides are overrated, and it has become equally clear that festivals with strong local roots are difficult to fully embrace. The result is that in Delhi Baisakhi came and went without my noticing it overmuch and Ugadi in Bangalore was more of a holiday on the calendar than anything else.So when I approached Poila Baisakh, the Bengali new year, in Kolkata again after over a quarter century, I did it with a bit of curiosity. Will I be an outsider here too, because of unfamiliarity with current mores bred by my long absence?

Poila Baisakh is doing fine

The Supreme Court verdict denying a patent to Novartis for an updated version of the firm's anti-cancer drug Glivec may have a far greater impact in India and outside than was earlier realised, when India became TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) compliant by amending its patent Act in 2005. The judgment intellectually validates the Indian law and brings out its implications, offering leads to the global quest for a way to aid the discovery of new and better drugs while making them affordable.Interestingly, at precisely the time when India was seeking to strengthen its intellectual property rights (IPR) regime, then US President George W Bush's emergency plan for AIDS relief decided to procure and use generic antiretroviral drugs, something that was not done initially. According to a study, this saved over $323 million in five years (2004-08); and by 2008 in several African countries 99 per cent of antiretroviral drugs distributed were generic - and, in good

The Indian way in pharma regulation

It had been over 10 years since the waiter and I last set eyes on each other, and both of us had aged considerably. Yet neither had any difficulty in recognising a face from the past. As soon as he spotted me, he broke into a broad smile and came up to exchange pleasantries and take my order.Those over, he was embarrassed he could not remember my membership number. And when I helped him out, his instant reply was, "It is so rarely that we get a do hazari (2,000) these days." Time, to him, was measured both by the regular calendar and membership numbers. Today's greenhorns at Delhi Press Club carry tags pushing 7,000; those like me are almost at the other end of the numerical spectrum, in the low thousands.I looked around to find that the halls remained easily recognisable, despite the leftovers of periodic failed attempts at redoing and renovation. What had sadly changed was that the lawn outside was gone, giving way to a paved terrace. Our daughter, now pursuing her MA in Delhi and th

The unchanging Delhi Press Club

China's decision to abolish its railway ministry - transfer operations and staff to a company, China Railway Corporation, and regulatory functions to the ministry of transport - inevitably raises questions over what India is doing with its own railways. Since the 1990s, China's railway system has seen stupendous growth, becoming in some ways the foremost railway system in the world. This has left India's railway system, which was ahead of China's at the time of Independence, far behind.Through the 1990s, China added over 1,000 kilometres of new track every year, whereas India added 661 km in the entire decade. Massive investment and spectacular growth made the Chinese railways a power centre and gave rise to enormous corruption. The recent drastic overhaul, in response to this, has also led to the dismissal of the railway minister and start of investigations.Â There is wide agreement that the Indian Railways also needs a drastic overhaul at the top so as to grow sustainably in tandem w

Follow China, transform railways

Haridwar keeps sprawling out, but lives round its core - the Ganga. Ringed by green hills, the river's light blue waters keep racing night and day so as not to be late for their appointment with mortals after having risen from amidst the gods.Little has changed at this core around Har ki Pauri in the four decades since I first visited as a college student along with my parents. This time, the peace is broken by the clanging of heavy machinery, deployed after an administrative order, demolishing the ashram of a land-grabbing mahant. Greed and its consequences are very much present in today's "gateway to the gods". Â Â The two kilometre-odd promenade on the eastern bank of the river should take pride of place among the key spots in this pilgrim town. But it stops short. Wide and evenly paved, with mountain-fresh water flowing rapidly on one side, it is peopled by all manner of dropouts. They are mostly men, usually thin (the ganja has taken its toll), bearded and wrapped in evil-smelling

In heaven's gateway

With inflation running high, many people are seeking to maximise their returns by turning to gold, chit funds and real estate

How to make people save right

There was a twinge within when I read the news that the Fiat or Premier Padmini taxis of Mumbai were almost on the way out. How could the cluster of sight (black and yellow), sound (defiant burr of the poorly silenced engine on quick acceleration) and smell (merry, pre-global-warming-fear exhaust) from those defiant sturdy little bugs by which you knew the great city be gone? It is like London without its black cabs or Kolkata without its Ambassador taxis; you cannot have one without the other.The few that still plied the roads will soon cross 25 and so are to be put to sleep mandatorily; and they don't make them any more. Change, progress and new technology have left their manufacturers behind. All good things must someday be deemed to have lived their time and be passed on, even if it is something like your 20-year-old shoes, which were as comfortable as, well, an old pair             of shoes.But what put my back up was the information further down in the piece that the new replacem

What price progress?

The whole process by which the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is close to issuing fresh banking licences offers a glimpse into how India is being governed. Though there is no real need for more banks since so many banks already exist and there is enough competition, in his Budget speech of 2010 the then Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that the RBI was going to issue new banking licences for two reasons. One, the banking system had to grow in "size and sophistication to meet the needs of a modern economy". And two, there was a need to "extend the geographic coverage of banks and improve access to banking services". Innocents assumed that the aim was to take financial inclusion forward.But they were soon disabused of any such notion when the RBI brought out a discussion paper later in the year to evolve the norms for granting licences. It weighed the criteria for granting licences for the sort of banks already there and discussed issues such as minimum capital requirements

Subir Roy: The charm of owning a trophy bank

There may not be any sharp deterioration in operating ratio in revised estimates for FY13, compared to Budget estimates

'More of the same' type Railway Budget expected

My copy of Sources and Methods, which held the key to how the countryâ€™s national accounts were compiled, was decades old. Time to get up-to-date, I thought, and turned to the same person whoâ€™d sent me my current copy, when he had been in the finance ministry. Helpful as ever, he got onto the job and came back with the classical modern-day solution: Itâ€™s there on the CSO website, download it!But an official website often promises more than it delivers, and so there we were, trying to figure out a solution. He could get a copy for me or photocopy his. But the problem was in finding a logistical solution to ship it to Kolkata. I balked at the thought of asking him to send it through a private courier. It would blow a tiny hole in his pocket as he wouldnâ€™t let me reimburse him.The real problem, we both realised, was the post office and the way its great service, Speed Post, remained out of reach for many. The thought of going to his local Punjabi Bagh post o

Subir Roy: We all need the post office

Achieving high growth is meaningless if it doesn't translate into better human development outcomes

Subir Roy: Do more with less GDP

My friend Deepak has been round the world in a lifetime of service for a leading MNC, sampling an incredible array of cultures. But wherever he has been, from his days as an articled clerk eking out an existence in London bedsitters, he has cooked with passion Indian meals for friends. Now as he divides his post-retirement days between Dubai, Brussels, London and Kolkata, he cooks virtually all his meals, no matter how minimal.On his last visit â€œhomeâ€, he shared a grouse with me: you people have almost stopped entertaining at home. Whenever one of us invites a group of close friends over, it is at one of Kolkataâ€™s clubs; even if it is at home, the food is catered out. The food is always excellent and the liquor superior, but still. The latest instance was of Swapan arranging an elaborate do at the Bengal Club to meet his granddaughter, all of a few months old. My wife, who couldnâ€™t make it, kept repeating with unashamed regret: Oh, the Bengal Club food is so good. A

Subir Roy: The lost art of entertaining at home

Eastern India is suffering from a serious affliction, which in West Bengal is heading for a crisis. Ponzi schemes that come under the rubric of &ldquo;collective investment schemes&rdquo; and are variously known &ndash; chit funds, multi-level marketing companies, commodity schemes &ndash; are mushrooming and garnering large parts of the savings of ordinary people, especially in rural areas. As these schemes eventually fail &ndash; some have already collapsed &ndash; and set off, perhaps, a domino effect, the social tension that can follow is too scary to imagine.

<B>Subir Roy:</B> Bengal on a Ponzi scheme powder keg

The grounds of Victoria Memorial Hall have seen a remarkable makeover in the last few years. In winter, things get even better with flower beds in bloom dotting the greens. A key attraction of spending a weekend in our ancestral home in south Kolkata is to go for a brisk early morning walk there and, should it be as bracingly chilly as it is now, the cup of good feeling runs over.

<B>Subir Roy:</B> The state of the republic

The country now has a national water policy. As happens with all such policy documents, this one also is full of unexceptionable &ldquo;motherhood statements&rdquo;. What matters is how it will be used. The policy will have served its purpose if it is able to concentrate minds on, in its own words, &ldquo;basic concerns and principles as also a unified national perspective&rdquo;. For this the states may have to draft or revise their own water policies so as to bring them into line.

Subir Roy: Vote banks and politics of water

Gujarat is vibrant and shining, so say the hoardings and statistics. I have had a chance to check this out after a fashion on periodic visits to places like Anand and Baroda but, strangely, missed out on Ahmedabad. Still, a drive down a shining new highway from a shining new airport terminal to a permanent showpiece like the National Dairy Development Board campus tells you no more than what prospective in-laws see in a girl decked out by her parents to impress. A quick visit to the state&rsquo;s capital after decades finally gave an idea of how things have changed and yet remain anchored in the odd critical way.

Subir Roy: Vibrant and shining - for some

India&rsquo;s banks are at the turnstiles. They can go out, graduating to greater strength and playing a more useful role in the economy; or they can go round in circles without changing much. The current juncture is important for several reasons. One, new banking licences are to be issued, focusing attention on the intrinsic health of the sector.

Subir Roy: The next step for Indian banking

At a time when the government is setting great store by distributing various subsidies through direct cash transfers, there is no reason why the subsidy on diesel cannot be better targeted through the use of the latest technologies available. If diesel subsidy can be confined to the running of public transport vehicles and agricultural pump sets, then it will stop benefiting private car owners and sundry other unintended recipients.

Subir Roy: How technology can help diesel subsidy

It was pleasantly cold, but no more, when I set out around a week ago for my usual early morning walk. But back home when I sat down to enjoy the day&rsquo;s second mug of tea, which went down well with the view through the bay windows, the fog arrived suddenly. It came from the east Kolkata wetlands nearby, in tentatively outlined waves, until all was enveloped in a frost-coloured morning from which the sun appeared to have been totally banished.

Subir Roy