Below the line

Think about this

Taking a dig at banks for their reluctance to extend crop loans to small farmers, Sandeep Sabharwal, Group CEO, Sohan Lal Commodity Management, pointed out that one can get an auto or gold loan from banks in less than a day, but availing of a crop loan for small farmers is a Herculean task: “Just imagine banks are willing to lend against depreciating assets such as cars and bikes, but not against a crop which would only grow in value over time.”

Slogan vs slogan

The ongoing debate over net neutrality has pushed telecom operators into a corner. Popular slogans such as ‘savetheinternet’ and ‘freeinternet’ on social media have ensured that whatever they say, even if factual, is countered with allegations of them being evil and driven by greed. While discussing their future course of strategy, the former CEO of a mobile company quipped that in a debate driven by slogans, there was no room for facts. Slogans must be countered with slogans. He reminded the operators how in 2001, when CDMA operators had sought to enter the mobile services space on the slogan ‘march of technology’, the GSM lobby had fought with a counter slogan, ‘backdoor entry’. His suggestion to counter ‘net neutrality’? ‘Ticketless travel’!

Flying start

Sumit Mazumder has started his term on a strong note. Just before he got into business at his first press conference as CII president, he made some opening remarks about his recent Hannover visit. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “wove his magic” on foreign investors in Hannover and that India was the star attraction in the eyes of the global investing community. Murmured a cynical hack: “Mazumder knows which side of his bread is buttered!”

Better late than never? Never!

While Narendra Modi is keeping strict tabs on latecomers in government offices, one wishes he did so on BJP leaders as well. At a farmers’ rally called by the party last week, former party president and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari landed up three hours late. Understandably, the small crowd that had gathered had thinned out by the time he arrived, leaving rows of empty chairs. But what takes the cake is MP Meenakshi Lekhi keeping the first lady of Afghanistan, Rula Ghani, waiting for half-an-hour at an event, with only a vacant chair next to her for company!

Lending a hand

A small cooperative bank near Kochi, the Elookkara Service Cooperative Bank, has launched a ‘moneylender-free village’ project which aims to provide interest-free loans to deserving people and eliminate loan sharks from the two village panchayats it serves. The project had begun informally in January and was successful. The bank authorities are now formalising it by extending the coverage and giving it a name: Kubera Rahitha Gramam. Farmers, artisans and small traders in the two village panchayat areas used to take loans from travelling moneylenders, mainly from Tamil Nadu, as well as local gold loan firms referred to as ‘blade companies’ at cut-throat interest rates. The funds for the interest-free and low-interest loans come from the interest-free deposits made by people. The first interest-free deposit was made by the well-known Malayalam filmmaker, Sibi Malayil. Surely a scheme worth emulating.

Mounting worries

Known for plainspeaking, Naveen Jindal, Managing Director of Jindal Steel and Power and former MP from Kurukshetra, was at his best at a recent Ficci conference on steel. He said that from exporting 100 million tonnes of iron ore annually, steel companies are now importing into Karnataka and Odisha. “For me, bringing iron ore into Odisha is a joke, like they say carrying coal to Newcastle. With such huge reserves of iron ore in India, we are like beggars sitting on sack of gold,” he said. Indeed.

COMMENT NOW