“The credibility of our markets is at stake. I-bankers need to introspect whether their behaviour challenges the entire merit-based versus price discovery mechanism or not. We need some amount of sanity in pricing and IPO disclosures… There is something wrong if two-thirds of the issues between 2009 and 2012 are trading below market decline levels. Call auction data shows that volatility on opening day has reduced considerably… SEBI has noticed in some IPOs that due diligence wasn’t done properly. Assets mentioned were missing or weren’t even mentioned.”

SEBI Chairman U. K. Sinha

“There is no point going on producing unless we can ensure timely delivery of what we produce at the doorsteps of our customers… Holding huge pithead stocks is no fun.”

CIL Chairman and Managing Director S. Narsing Rao

“Knowingly you give money to some unviable projects. That is a governance issue... In many cases, our public sector bankers have forgotten to say ‘no’, except to small borrowers. A banker’s first characteristic should be to say no.”

RBI Deputy Governor K. C. Chakrabarty

“There had been cases of financial frauds in States such as West Bengal where some companies, chit funds and ponzi schemes have taken away the hard-earned money of small investors. Our primary objective is to protect small investors… Centre is looking into the issue. We would also encourage State Governments in taking necessary action against these firms, which are currently misusing the loopholes in the law.”

Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Sachin Pilot

“It is good that the RBI sees there is room to ease policy rates going forward… I think it is good news they see the possibility of cutting interest rates going forward. I look forward to the goods news in the policy.”

Raghuram Rajan, Chief Economic Advisor to the Finance Ministry

“Because we do not have scale of manufacturing here, we are selling about a 1,000 Jaguars a year and you would need to be at least four to five times that in order to justify the investment that you would make... So unfortunately, the assembly here is turning out to be more costly than importing the cars because of some silly taxes that they have been imposed on companies.”

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata

“If commodity prices soften and rupee appreciation continues we will be more comfortable. This also increases the space for us to reduce rates... Inflation would go up in near-term. Though the latest inflation numbers are below our projection, we still think there may be some rise in inflation in the near-term as there are differences between headline (WPI) and consumer (CPI) inflation.”

RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn

“Over a longer period of time, steps are needed to bring down the interest rate. RBI looks at these things independently and we should give them freedom to decide (about interest rates)… They (RBI) have decided to take no action. The economy is beginning to turn around. Everybody should support the revival of growth.’’

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia

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