A real star

Sridevi’s stellar performance in the 1977 Tamil movie, Pathinaaru Vayathinilae, arguably one of her best, alongside Kamal Haasan and directed by Bharathiraja, is still considered to be the bellwether of films depicting rural life. The film was critically acclaimed and went on to be a huge commercial success; it is part of the curriculum in film institutes.

Besides bagging the national award, the film was also the springboard for Rajnikanth, Bharathiraja and Illayaraja in the entertainment industry. It’s sad to note that none of the obituaries, by way of tweets or otherwise, have mentioned this movie.

Melbourne

By blaming the regulator, banks and auditors for the banking frauds, Arun Jaitley has only tried to abdicate the Government’s responsibility. If the Government has no control over banks, how is it going to ensure the funds infused by recapitalisation are going to be utilised for the purpose for which they are meant? Honest taxpayers’ money cannot be frittered away without having an action plan regarding its utilisation.

If a railway minister can be faulted for an accident, the finance minister should also a share part of the responsibility when the finances of the country are mismanaged. It has taken four years to see the writing on the wall and think about tightening laws. The recent events show that there is little coordination between the Government, RBI and banks.

Chennai

The Government seems to be keeping all its cards close to its chest. It’s worrisome to observe that its various plans to improve the financial health of PSBs have failed to deliver. Perhaps its biggest failure could be attributed to the inept performance of the Banks Board Bureau. Government interference only makes it worse.

What else could explain the unimaginable rise in NPAs and most bank managements not being technically ‘free’ to decide their own policy/internal matters? The PNB fraud that reportedly took place with the active ‘connivance’ of a powerful business lobbyhas exposed the vulnerability. Sadly, this may not be the end of road.

New Delhi

It is more than a week since the PNB LOU fraud surfaced and government, bankers and other experts continue sharing their viewpoints on the reasons for the fraud and the control measures that are required to avert such frauds in future. This may prove good for an academic discussion. A similar approach was adopted after other scams involving Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh and others. But nothing on ground has changed.

This is also not going to be the last time something like this happens. Unless we get to the bottom of the issue, things are going to remain the same. Frauds have always occurred due to a strong politician-banker-bureaucrat nexus. Whatever risk control measures one might put in place, unless this link is broken, and political and personal corruption are eliminated, such things will continue to happen. There needs to be a change in the mindset.

Chennai

The revision of H1-B visa norms can impact business revenues for firms in the IT sector — a 3-year visa almost being a guarantee to charge higher billing rates for personnel deputed overseas. At the time of application, mandating a detailed description of the roles and responsibilities, qualifications, project tenure, salary details, billable hours, benefits and supervision norms would ensure that only relevant visa applications are processed and a lower headcount is retained at client locations.

While the administrative overhead due to the regulation can increase expenses for servicing firms/vendors and also make it difficult to rotate/switch employees on account of one-on-one mapping between the professional and the role, it would build goodwill as actual costs for business clients will remain in line with estimates.

Delhi

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