BELOW THE LINE. Doordarshan on nostalgia trip

Do words like Rangoli and Chitrahaar bring back memories of the days when DD was the only channel and primary source of entertainment for Indian viewers? Soon, fans will be able to buy DD-branded merchandise online.

India’s public service broadcaster Doordarshan plans to launch an online souvenir store on Amazon India to sell branded merchandise such as cups, T-shirts and bottles. On Saturday, in a tweet, Supriya Sahu, Director General of Doordarshan, announced: “You have loved Doordarshan. You have grown up with Doordarshan. Now you can own a piece of nostalgia. Coming soon the DD online Souvenir store at Amazon India...."

Those listening to US Secretary for Commerce Wilbur Ross’s recent address at an India-America trade event in New Delhi were all ears when he started talking about India’s market access barriers. Ross, applauding India’s commitment to address some of the market access barriers identified by the US, indicated the timeline when he said “once the government was ‘re-formed’ — probably starting in the month of June.”

This indicated that not only did the present government promise to take certain steps favouring the US once the elections were over, but also that the US may be counting on the present government getting re-elected.

Not surprisingly, this particular comment was deleted when the US Embassy circulated the Secretary’s speech copy to the media. But the journalists who had painstakingly taken notes of every word spoken already had their version.

Anand Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, was in a pleasant disposition last week at a brainstorming session he had called to discuss the issues facing the clean energy sector. At one point during the session, Kumar was accompanied by Anand Kumar, the Chairman of the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission. With both Anand Kumars on stage, MNRE’s Kumar quipped that there will be ‘ Anand hi Anand ’ (bountiful pleasure) now.

During the session, one of the industry representatives complained that the government machinery comes to a standstill during elections. To this MNRE’s Kumar exclaimed that he was conducting this brainstorming session and that is evidence of not all work ceasing.

By the looks of it, the next Managing Director and CEO of National Housing Bank (NHB) — the housing finance regulator — will be from the public sector. All the candidates who appeared for the interviews recently were from public sector backgrounds. The whispers are that the bureaucracy wants to play it safe and don’t want to be doing anything out-of-the-box — allowing a private sector personnel to run the show. Is this a classic case of once bitten twice shy, given the somewhat unpleasant experience around the previous NHB chief’s (who was from the private sector) exit?

If banking industry insiders are to believed, the Department of Financial Services-appointed task force is burning the midnight oil to identify the next set of banks that could be pushed into the consolidation bandwagon. The buzz in the corridors of power is that among the first reform steps the next government at the Centre will take is the announcement of the next set of consolidation candidates. Now that the three-way consolidation of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank has been done and dusted, don’t be surprised if an encore follows in the June/July Budget.

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