The Hindu Business Line : Business class privilege

The expression “Some people are more equal than others” has taken on a whole new meaning at the Mumbai airport. The sole person exempted from the new strict security rules is not some well-protected neta but one individual — the younger son of a large industrial house in Mumbai. The new security rules stipulate that no vehicle, irrespective of whether it has a red light security beacon or who it is carrying, be allowed up to the passenger entrance, to either pick up or drop the traveller. Irrespective of who you are, the last few meters up to the passenger entrance had to be covered by foot.

Recently, on a visit to Mumbai, a senior bureaucrat from Delhi got a taste of the new rule. While he walked to his car, the industrialist son, who is among the 10 richest men globally, stepped into his car the second he was out of the airport terminal building and sped off. This is one rags to privileges story that almost every one in the bustling metropolis would like to emulate.

Whoa! Arvind

Arvind Virmani, the Chief Economic Advisor, is a highly regarded economist. He also has a reputation for impeccable propriety. But, of late, he has been departing from his own high standards. He states the government’s position at public meetings, and then adds a rider that these are his private views. This would not matter much except when he goes hammer and tongs after other institutions, such as the RBI or SEBI. He has been creating an impression of a house divided over policy, which certainly could not be what his current boss wants and which is, in fact, not the case. Most recently, Dr Virmani suggested that the RBI wasn’t being aggressive enough with monetary policy to overcome the industrial slowdown. Or, is it that the prospect of imminent super-annuation has made young Arvind carefree and careless?

Talk of taste

Should the Prime Minister have cited Henry Kissinger’s famous put down of academics at the function held to felicitate Dr Amartya Sen at his 75 birthday. In his speech, the PM said, “Henry Kissinger is reported to have once observed that academic squabbles are as vicious as they are because the stakes are so low!”

Not sold on the idea

Ahead of the industry’s crucial meeting with the Planning Commission this week, a prominent Delhi-based real estate company, in all seriousness, mooted that the wish-list include a proposal that the Government buy out the unsold apartments at the present market price. However, the ‘suggestion’ did not even pass the National Real Estate Development Council’s (NAREDCO, the apex body of real estate developers) own muster. “It got an immediate thumbs-down from all other members. And, rightly so, as the suggestion was so impractical,” claims a member who was present at the meeting. The result: The “idea” did not make it to the final cut. So, when the developers finally made their presentation to the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, they stuck to less dramatic recommendations such as a further reduction in home loan rates, raising the bracket for the package beyond the Rs 20 lakh limit, and doubling income-tax rebate on home loans.

OUR DELHI BUREAU