| Business Standard: Opinion & Analysis |
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Neha Chowdhry: That sinking feeling: As IMF meets to give Pakistan another loan, the countrys economy remains in deep trouble.
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Tough call: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has stepped in to restore balance to the sharing of the humungous revenue stream flowing from the private marketing of public spectrum, nudging telecom companies to widen their network and tap new customers. The phenomenal growth of value-added services over and above voice telephony has opened the governments eyes to the untapped revenue potential in this vital infrastructure sector. Equally, having witnessed the decline of the public sector, for which the government has no one else but itself to blame, there is now an attempt to get private companies to discharge their social obligations. Trai has made some excellent recommendations while dealing with the benefits that those firms which got licences/spectrum at bargain-basement prices in 2008 stand to make when they sell/transfer these.
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G V Ramakrishna: The gas in the Reliance case: The first successful round of bidding for exploration and production of oil and natural gas in all the offshore areas of the country was conducted in 1985, when I was petroleum secretary. As many as seven international oil companies had bid for about 10 oil blocks, but none of them found any oil or gas.
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Will the crisis in Europe spread?: The euro 750-bn package shows the will to protect the EU, but yoking structurally surplus nations to deficit ones makes the euros survival risky - more capital flows to the US and emerging markets will hurt them.
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M J Antony: Benevolent interventions: Jurists never tire of an old chicken-or-egg wrangle: Whether judges should merely declare law or make law. The question has become momentous in this country as lawmakers are found more in the well of Parliament shouting at each other than debating Bills to catch up with the times. This definitely leaves large gaps between the ageing laws and the new problems faced by society, which has to run fast, like Alice in Wonderland, to remain where it is.
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Speeding up justice: Supreme Court lawyers on the front row got a taste of things to come on day one of new Chief Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia on Wednesday: No interruptions; only one will speak at a time. This will be all the more so on the forest bench, he said. Another indicator of the new era of discipline: In two cases, he warned that frivolous public interest petitions will invite cost. Yet another tip for lawyers appearing before him: Come well prepared and on time. He disposed of all the 40 matters listed in 28 minutes. This is a record for the court, spoken of with shock and awe by the bar.
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Kanika Datta: Steel and power: Businessmen and society have a strangely contradictory relationship. The economic activity they generate can be an agent of social transformation and progress a quick look at the changes in Indian society in the last two decades would be one indicator. Yet, businessmen in themselves are rarely conscious promoters of social progress.
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Latha Jishnu: The Roche test: Patent challenges may be routine and as frequent as milestones in the legal highways of the developed world. In India, where the patent laws are just being tested, lawsuits are significant because almost every case that is being fought by different players drug multinationals, generics manufacturers and patient groups raises questions of a fundamental nature.
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Bajaj Auto: Comeback established: Better product mix, cost control and strong revenue growth have seen the company increase market share.
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Telecom sector: Unrelenting call drops: Lower margins, caused by substantial cash outflows and increasing competition, are seen as negatives for the sector.
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Folding (government) paper: Japanese deficit: Japan is flirting with becoming the Greece of the East. Even Naoto Kan, the finance minister, only aspires to hold borrowing next year at this years level of 44.3 trillion ($475 billion). But Japans legendary household and corporate savings are on a downward trend. Domestic savers have always been forgiving of the governments overspending. But when savings become inadequate to fund the governments drain, other investors will be much less sympathetic.
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Letters: More than mail: In See you at the post office (May 12), Subir Roy has explained how our post offices, which have a network covering the entire country, remain under-utilised. IT revolution and banking are the two engines that can make post offices serve the country better.
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Coalition game: UK election: The new UK coalition deserves 7/10. The pact between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, led by David Cameron as the new prime minister, seems determined to address the country's most important problem the deficit. This is vital given that the euro zone debt crisis could still prove contagious. It should also be positive for sterling. Some good ideas are also emerging on tax and spending. But other plans for tax and banks look odd and there are doubts about whether these bedfellows will be able to work together. After all, Britain has not had a coalition government since World War Two.
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Problem of plenty: With many predicting the United Democratic Front (UDF) will win the assembly polls in Kerala next year, several Opposition parties are making a beeline for joining it. The Kerala Congress (Secular), led by P C George, got a backdoor entry into the UDF by merging with the UDFs main constituent, the Kerala Congress (Mani). The Janata Dal led by M P Veerendrakumar was the next to enter the UDF; the Indian National League (INL), which is also a part of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), has now decided to quit the front to join the UDF. The latest to join the UDF is likely to be the Kerala Congress (Joseph). Though its leader P J Joseph is a minister in the LDF ministry, it is also toying with the idea of associating with the UDF and plans to merge with the Kerala Congress (Mani).
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Shankar Acharya: Grecian summer of discontent: Back in January, during a discussion with this papers editorial brains trust, I had mildly suggested an edit on the emerging Greek budget problems and its wider consequences. This was greeted with indulgent smiles and suppressed mirth of the kind usually reserved for doddering uncles. Which reader would be interested in the fiscal predicament of a small and distant European nation? Some four months later, I confess to a feeling of vindication.
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Nascent recovery: The index of industrial production (IIP) is still on a winning streak. The index for March 2010, released yesterday, grew by a robust 13.5 per cent over the previous year. While it was a tad lower than the 15 per cent that financial market economists had predicted, there is little reason to question the sustainability of the industrial recovery that set in about eight months ago. The March print takes the growth in the last quarter of 2009-10 to a solid 15.1 per cent and to a respectable 10.4 per cent for the financial year as a whole. With this rate of growth in industry, growth in aggregate GDP seems all set to clock 7.5 per cent for 2009-10. This is a shade higher than the advance estimate of 7.2 that still constitutes the governments official estimate for the year.
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Prematurely downgraded?: Moodys: Moodys shareholders panicked after the company said the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the credit rating firm. Its easy to see why: the probe centers on whether Moody]s misled regulators in its last application as a NRSRO (nationally recognized statistical rating organization), rekindling concerns about its future as one of the top two credit raters.
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Opportunity cost: Bailouts: Elections have taught a US senator from Utah and Angela Merkels political party in Germany the same harsh lesson: Taxpayers loathe bailouts, whether of banks or nations. But opponents of such rescues need instruction, too in the costs of the panic and destruction that would otherwise have ensued.
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Letters: How small made it big: This refers to Prahalads pyramid (April 21). As you have pointed out, C K Prahlad was not the father of the one-rupee shampoo sachet, a product that was aimed for the bottom of the pyramid population. Brooke Bond India and small-time shopkeepers, spread all across India, both rural and urban, were the actual pioneers and initiators of small pack-sizes. Brooke Bond produced and marketed very small packets of Putali (doll) Brand dust tea through retailers, while the shopkeepers sold loose tea and other products.
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Letters: Curbing cannons: It is worrying that the ministers of the Union Cabinet feel free to say and do what they like and the PM is a helpless spectator (Loose cannons, May 12). Shashi Tharoor had no business to talk about Saudi Arabia as a mediator between India and Pakistan; Jairam Ramesh had no business to speak on government policy on Chinese investment in India; Navin Jindal had no business to speak for khap panchayats that are challenging the law of the land and the Constitution of India.
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