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Showing posts from August, 2012

Inheritance of Loss

This article by Namita Devidayal published in TOI Crest Edition, August 25, 2012 is a must read for youngsters of all ages! Times of India Crest Edition, August 25, 2012 RICH BLUES The inheritance of loss Namita Devidayal August 25, 2012 There is a curious pandemic that is infecting India's rich - 'affluenza'. Ennui, desperation and alienation are the symptoms, and all the money in the world cannot cure it. The young girl had just finished her tuition when the doorbell rang. Her teacher casually requested her to open the door, but the girl looked at her in horror and said, "What? I'm not a servant!" The 14-year-old was not being arrogant. She was merely reflecting her background - a hyper-affluent home crawling with domestic helpers, where her mother scarcely lifted a finger except perhaps to have a manicure and her father lived mostly on an airplane. Not surprisingly, a few years later, she had joined one of her parents in an ugly legal battle

Performance Audit Authority

The following letter was published in Business Standard on August 3, 2012. Also read 'Tail Piece' and comments in Moneylife down below. M G Warrier Business Standard, August 31, 2012 Letters: A new authority, if not CAG Business Standard / New Delhi Aug 31, 2012, 00:20 IST This refers to the report “ONGC rapped for exploration delay” (August 28). Performance audit was introduced as part of commercial audit that was carried out by the Indian Audit and Accounts Department in the late sixties. The purpose was to go beyond the mere checking of accounts and ensure that each item of expenditure was backed by a “voucher” and find out whether the expenditure from public funds actually served the purpose envisaged when the outlay of expenditure was planned. In the years that followed, the scope of audit has expanded along with the growth in public expenditure, multiplicity of sectors and ever-growing size of projects and extending geographies. Since the funding comes ult

Corruption: A challenge for managers - Moneylife

Corruption: A challenge for managers - Moneylife

The Hindu : Opinion / Letters : Coalgate

The Hindu : Opinion / Letters : Coalgate  Please read my letter also. Let us use zero to our advantage. No one will question, zero is India's contribution to mathematics. Multiply all losses by zero, divide all gains by zero to make them infinite!

Where's IAC headed?

TOI commentlive email alert The Times Of India Dear Reader, Your comment on the article ''Kiran Bedi skips Arvind Kejriwal-led protest, frowns upon attacking BJP'' is now displayed on timesofindia.com. ''As a legacy from the freedom movement we have been carrying a thought that ideally, our political leadership shold be a continuation of Indian National Congress which Gandhiji, left to himself would have dissolved in the last quarter of 1947. Recalled this to emphasise the need to come to terms with the present day reality that today our political leadership is an assortment of all sorts of people who are rich and powerful and expecting too much from them will disappoint us. To a certain degree those who went along with the IAC movement, including people like Bedi are facing a dilemma of sorts.We cannot blame them. Each of them were doing what they thought was right at a given time.Their efforts to reduce corruption in high places should be taken forward

The missing Krishnamani*

THE MISSING KRISHNAMANI* M G WARRIER As modern sources of transport, communication and entertainment were yet to arrive, in retrospect, I feel, we who are senior citizens now, enjoyed our childhood better. Social relationships, mutual help and celebrations were all interlinked in such a way that individual, family, neighborhood, village and community were smooth and seamless progressions from one to the other and everyone experienced the joy of existence as society respected and took care of each of its members. Social customs ensured resources mobilization and linkages for every event from delivery of a child to a funeral, sowing to reaping crops and daily offerings to annual festivals in places of worship. There were not many picnics arranged by schools or visits to tourist spots for enjoying vacations. Our outings during my school days were limited to more frequent visits to relatives who stayed within short distances (any distance reachable by starting early morning a

My Page September 2012

M G Warrier’s My Page A monthly bulletin from M G Warrier incorporating select published letters/articles (and some stray thoughts based on what he read/saw and wrote during the month). Mailed during the last week of every month. Please send your responses and views to mgwarrier@rediffmail.com Vol II, No 9, September 2012 HAPPY ONAM M G Warrier, 2005/1-D, DREAMS, Bhandup(West), Mumbai-400078 (9349319479) Dear Reader From now on, My Page will be posted on Warrier’s Blog accessible at mgwarrier.blogspot.com Regards M G Warrier Online comments at VITALINFO That Dr Subbarao has been able to convince North Block and the opinion-makers in New Delhi that, after all, RBI is doing the best within the given constraints to support economic development gives some comfort. Dr Subbarao cannot do what GOI has to do and this RBI Governors have told in unambiguous language several times. This time around, RBI has been more specific by saying that the central bank had expected more a

Business Line : Opinion / Editorial : Against public interest

Business Line : Opinion / Editorial : Against public interest  Disclosure of quantifiable losses and gains by PSUs arising from Govt directions is in public interest. Read my comments also.

Business Line : News / Politics : No mining, no loss: Chidambaram

Business Line : News / Politics : No mining, no loss: Chidambaram PC's Zero Loss Theory If this was known a week earlier disruption of Parliament could have been avoided.

Strengthen technical education in Kerala

Strengthen technical education in the stateBy Dr Sobha M - THIRUVANANTHAPURAM 20th August 2012 11:53 AM The technical education in Kerala has taken a new shape from the context of education and trade with the dawn and multiplication of engineering colleges in our state. The first self-financing professional institution in Kerala run by the Muslim Education Society set its mark in 1994 and by 2012 with a rapid fashion of increase, there are now nearly 100 colleges with approval from AICTE and the government. In the wake of this situation a general concern had arisen with adverse criticism from various quarters. This had perhaps compelled the government to fix conditions for sanctioning of new courses and extension of approval of existing course in these institutions. The conditions laid out vide a Government Order seen published in the official website of DTE specify a fixed minimum running average pass percentage (full pass) on first appearance for students of self- financing

Good auditing by CAG

Letters: Good auditing Business Standard / New Delhi Aug 21, 2012, 00:15 IST Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai has certainly sharpened the tools of auditing by infusing expertise in his team and training cadres, making it possible to set priorities, ensure perfection and bring professionalism in auditing. If similar initiatives had come from heads of departments in the government and from CEOs in the public sector and statutory organisations, the agony that the current government is now going through would have been lesser. Rai’s approach to auditing is consistent with the changes that have occurred in the law and practice of accounting and auditing. The reforms in the CAG’s office brought about by him and his predecessor, who understood the post-LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation) situation better, have started paying dividends. The present political leadership is the “who’s who” of the rich and influential class that has its own constituency

Human Resources: Price of inequity - Moneylife

Human Resources: Price of inequity - Moneylife Please read my comments on the article also.

Leadership vacuum

Business Line, August 18, 2012 Letters Leadership vacuum This refers to “India at 65, a rudderless ship” (Business Line, August 15). On the occasion of Independence Day, the feelings of a right-thinking Indian would not have found better expression. The absence of governance; refusal by a person, to whom circumstances provided the PM’s position on a platter, to rise to the occasion; and the bankruptcy of the political class have been brought out well. UPA-2 by design had a one-item agenda of remaining in power for five full years. Manmohan Singh was entrusted with the task of ensuring this. CAG may write any report; the PM will not move a finger until forced by the benevolent employer. Time was when people waited in small groups around radios with anticipation and hope to listen to the PM’s speech on every Independence Day. Now, it is difficult to find a single soul who has anything positive to say about the PM or the government he leads. As stated in the article, any cha

Business Line : Columns / B S Raghavan : India at 65, a rudderless ship

Business Line : Columns / B S Raghavan : India at 65, a rudderless ship

What ails the New Pension Scheme? - Moneylife

What ails the New Pension Scheme? - Moneylife

Sucheta Dalal :What ails the New Pension Scheme?

Sucheta Dalal :What ails the New Pension Scheme?

Open letter on NPS in Kerala

M G Warrier August 14, 2012 The Editor Mathrubhumi Daily Opinion Dear Editor Participatory Pension and Development This refers to the article ‘Participatory Pension and Development’ (August 14). I am aware that your paper has reservations about publishing any view opposing New Pension Scheme. For that matter, another editor from Kerala while regretting his inability to use an article on the subject even mentioned, ‘you will understand our position’. Still, may I request you to forward this letter to Dr Mary George so that she can continue her support of NPS from a better informed platform? Regards Yours Sincerely M G Warrier Dear Dr Mary George Participatory Pension and Development Read with interest your article on the captioned subject published in Mathrubhumi daily today (August 14, 2012) with great interest. For Mathrubhumi, this is continuation of a campaign, the earlier part of which appeared as an ‘innocent’ letter from one Shri K R

NPS should be more credible and transparent

Economic Times Wealth, August 13-19, 2012: Readers’ response: NPS should be more credible and transparent The story ‘The best pension plan’ was highly informative and helpful. Considering the innumerable pension plans in the country, it is good to see one that is relatively simple and not prone to mis-selling. However a few problems have continued to plague NPS since its launch. Both the introduction and implementation of the scheme have been faulty. The NPS was started for the new central government recruits (excluding defence employees) at the beginning of 2004 even before the supporting legislation was in place. The NPS was kept outside the purview of the Sixth Pay Commission, even as the fund managers were made to agree to ridiculously low charges of 0.0009% for handling the funds, against the prevailing 2% for mutual funds. There seems to be an inordinate hurry to push through the scheme rather than introduce a reasonably reliable and credible social security plan. As th

Welfare State

Top story in a mainstream financial daily today (August 11) had this headline: ‘Finmin Puts its Foot Down on Free Mobile Scheme’. Hopefully, sooner than later, the present FM, being a BPL(Businessman-Politician-Lawyer) 3-in-One PC, will relent, if the service providers would agree to supply mobile handsets and first sim cards ‘free’ to every citizen of India. Now with promises of AADHAAR card during the current century, a ‘zero’ balance bank account as part of ‘Financial Inclusion’ for all, hope of getting all government benefits credited to these ‘zero balance’ accounts which can be withdrawn with the help of AADHAAR-enabled White Label ATM cards, an NPS account into which GOI will credit Rs1000 every year (initially for the first five years) as matching contribution, several benefits like bagfuls of rice at Re1 a kilogram, free TVs, sewing machines and bicycles and what not from state governments, the common man is going to be pushed into a lifestyle from which he may find it dif

Poor HR management in public sector

August 1, 2012 Last update 2 minutes ago SUBSCRIBE NOW! Magazine Stockletter Renew Digital Hello M G WARRIER Sign Out M G WARRIER mgwarrier@rediffmail.com Profile Join Privacy Policy Help Feedback We are listening! Name:* Email: * Feedback About:* Please select Complaint Suggestion Compliment Concerned:* Please select area of concern Login Design Editorial Email delivery Data error Other Page Url: Message:* Security Code:* Change code Please login or register Member Login Email: Password: Not a member ? Sign up now Name: Email: Password: Member Benefits Recieve our daily and weekly newsletters for news and views with a difference Stay informed of our initatives, local events and discounts Read unbiased reviews of our latest financial products Express yourself in forum, comment on articles Your own membership page gets created Moneylife » Companies