MUMBAI | 14 PAGES | .̀ 3.00 OR .̀ 6.00 ALONG WITH THE TIMES OF INDIA SATURDAY, 23 MARCH 2013

Dutt Gets Supportfrom Within & WithoutPURE POLITICS ��2

Maruti to Focus onUtility Vehicles CORPORATE �� 3

New Tech War: HowGreen is My Valley!GLOBAL BUSINESS��9

BENNETT, COLEMAN & CO. LTD.

THE ECONOMIC TIMESWWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM

Is India Inc right in criticisingimplementation of reforms?

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Are lower interest rates and not apartmentsize key to realty revival?

TODAY’S QUESTION

86%YES

8%NO

6%CAN’T SAY

SRUTHIJITH KKNEW DELHI

There comes an age in every-body’s life when you mustlock up your childhood fan-

tasies. Rahul Narayan is well pastthat age. He has a family to feed.He is 39. He has neither rich par-ents, nor indulgent benefactors.He has sunk all his savings andnearly two years into a hobbyistproject. He needs upwards of $20million to see it through. When hemeets potential funders with hisplan, it elicits looks of amuse-ment. Some people laugh, asking

metres and transmit back toearth, at a distance of nearly 4lakh km, pictures, video and data.

The competition was an-nounced in 2007. Registrationclosed in December 2010 and thetarget must be achieved beforeDecember 31, 2015. Of the 34teams that registered, 23 remainactive around the world. Manyare superbly funded and staffed.The US-based Astrobotic, for in-stance, is based out of CarnegieMellon University. Its lead, Wil-liam Red Whittaker, is a researchprofessor of robotics at the uni-versity and something of an au-thority in the field.

Narayan’s Venture Modest��3

him if his whole project is just anelaborate con.

For a year and a half now, Na-rayan has neglected the IT compa-ny he runs with partners — someare classmates from IIT-Delhi —to set up a ragtag team of dreamygraduates fresh out of engineer-ing college, trying to do what onlybig governments with classifiedbudgets have done before — land aspacecraft on the moon.

Narayan is the leader of TeamIndus, a Delhi-based startup thatis the lone entrant from India inthe Google Lunar X Prize compe-tition. With a purse of $30 million,the competition will reward thefirst privately funded team to soft-land on the moon, travel 500

A Ragtag Team Living a Once-in-a-Blue Moon Dream

A STARRY TREK: Rahul Narayan (6th from right) with his team of spacefarers

onNarayan’s Dream

Whether or not they

succeed eventually

will depend on wheth-

er they can marshal

the resources and sup-

port on time. But that

is immaterial to me.

What India needs are

teams like these doing

ambitious things.

K KASTURIRANGANFormer Chairman, ISRO

The tiny state of Cyprus racing to secure a bailout to stave

off bankruptcy may seem like a dot in the larger fi nancial picture. But look closer, you will see the elephant in the room: soaring global debt.

In the Long Term, We are All Debt

GWP, or total world GDP, is just 37% of total debt

Of total central-bank reserves (2011) equals 6% of total debt

Debt Woes: Beginning of Spending Cuts?

India: Slow and Steady

All The World’s Bank Deposits Can’t Pay Off Debt

Market capitalisation of companies is one-fourth of global debt

MOREOVER,the more debt a country holds, the less money it’s able to put away in savings and reinvest in the nation’s economy

AS A GOVT borrows more to bridge budget deficits, it leads to interest rates going up, affecting purchasing power of people

AS A RESULT,international organisations and bond investors pressurise governments to cut public debt through austerity measures

India’s GDP

US debt (public, private, retail)

US public debt

US bank deposit amount

US GDP

$56 tr

$16.7 tr

$9.3 tr

$15 tr

Biggest risk? The notional value of the global derivatives market is 9 to 17 times the world economy

$600trillion to

$1,500trillion

23

1

$70trillion

$50 trillion*

$47 trillion

cover only 26% of total debt

World's bank deposits of

* Estimates

$190TRILLION

Total World Debt

Public debt

Bank deposit amount

$749 b

$1.19 tr

$1.75 tr

$11.9trillion

Public Debt

$50 trillion

WHEN THE RATIOof a nation’s total debt to what it produces shoots up, the likelihood that the country as a whole will be able to repay its debt goes down

Source: Union Budget 2012-13, IMF, globalresearch.org

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF

DEBT

Page 14

OUR BUREAUNEW DELHI

Ahigh-powered panel set up by thegovernment has recommendedsplitting financial sector regula-tion between two watchdogs — theReserve Bank of India for bankingand monetary policy and anotherone for non-banking sectors.

In its report submitted to Fi-nance Minister P Chidambaramon Friday, the Justice BN Srik-rishna-headed Financial SectorLegislative Reforms Commis-sion (FSLRC), which was set up tosuggest changes in financial sec-tor laws, has also sought to re-place multiple regulations with asingle Indian Finance Code and acomplete clean-up of capital con-trols to attract foreign flows. Ithas further proposed a UnifiedFinancial Agency to subsume theSecurities and Exchange Boardof India, Insurance Regulatoryand Development Authority, Pen-sion Fund Regulatory and Devel-opment Authority, and ForwardMarkets Commission.

The government decided not tomake the report public immedi-ately. “I intend to brief the primeminister either today (Friday) ortomorrow (Saturday) and placethe report in the public domain inthe next 3-4 days,” the financeminister said.

Code to be Legible to Consumer ��3

Panel Moots2 FinancialRegulators

BANKING & NON-BANKING

New IdeasSingle Finance Code for entire financial sector

Unified Financial Agency for regulating other financial sectors

Clean-up of capital controls to attract foreign flows

Independent office for managing govt debt

Statutory status to FSDC

Special monitoring ofsystemically importantfinancial institutions

Regulation to be split between two regulatory bodies

RBI to oversee banking and monetary policy

GULVEEN AULAKHNEW DELHI

It is an iPhone 5 – or is it? It has thesame iconic design. It almost feels aslight. But then you look at the price tag— and here’s something even Applehas never managed to achieve —.̀ 8,999. It is a “true iPhone clone”, as ithas been helpfully named in shoppingportals and comes for less than one-fourth the price of the original.

It’s not just Apple products that havebeen ingeniously ‘cloned’. Reproduc-tions of the in-demand Samsung Gal-axy line are also at hand. Made in Chi-na, websites ranging from thesomewhat cheekily named Kaunsa-.com to popular B2N site Indiamart-.com are offering them, with a ship-ping period of only a few days.

The iPhone 5 32GB clone is Apple on-ly on the surface. The screen of the“true clone” is a 4-inch OLED capaci-tive touchscreen that runs on iOS 5while the Cupertino-based company’sfastest-selling phone runs on the su-perior iOS 6 and has an LED-backlit

LCD screen with retina display.The true clone of the Samsung Gal-

axy S3 is more expensive than the trueclone of iPhone 5 — .̀ 11,999, less thanhalf the price of the original.

A Mockery of IPR Laws?��3

Four robots to help market regulator scan truckloads of Sahara papers stored in a warehouse

REENA ZACHARIAHMUMBAI

Athird kind of player is about to join thebitter battle between market regulatorSebi and Sahara Group. Robots.

In a forgotten warehouse, built in anotherera for another purpose, robots will trundlealong to fish out papers from a mountain ofdocuments Sahara has dumped on Sebi.

In defending the stand that it has to pay onlya fraction of what Sebi has ordered it to,Lucknow-based Sahara Group has des-patched millions of documents, packed in31,000 cartons loaded in 128 trucks, to the Sebiheadquarters at Bandra Kurla, which simplylacks the space to store the papers.

A flummoxed market watchdog, which forweeks tried to figure out how best to handlethe situation, has now hit upon a remedy. Theregulator has now moved the documents to awarehouse in Navi Mumbai, in the outskirtsof the city.

Built in the early ’90s to store share certif-icates, the warehouse belongs to Stock Hold-ing Corporation of India (SHCIL), a custodialand depository services firm. At the time, thegovernment was unsure whether it couldtransform the stock markets to introduce de-materialised (demat) shares. But with the ad-vent of the paperless era in ’94, the 80,000-

square-foot facility with 40-foot high wallswas left largely unused.

After two decades, it has now come handy.SHCIL has installed one robot and is in theprocess of placing three more to quicken Se-bi’s humongous job of scanning millions ofdocuments to verify Sahara’s claim. This isthe first time that a regulatory authority inIndia is banking on robotics to prove itself in

what has become a high-decibel tussle.Ashok Motwani, managing director and

chief executive of SHCIL, refused to discussclient-specific details. But he confirmed theuse of robots by the custodian. “…there willbe faster retrieval of documents. Also, weeliminate human errors associated with stor-age of documents,” he said.

Among other things, robots have been typ-ically used by automobile and aerospace com-panies on shop floors to perform hazardoustasks, but rarely in record-keeping.

“When we tell the robot to get a particularfile, it gets it, relieving the pain to search for itamong the cluster,” Motwani said.

Two companies owned by the Subrata Roy-led Sahara Group have been asked by Sebi torefund more than .̀ 20,000 crore to three croreinvestors who had put money in convertibledebentures issued by the entities concerned.According to Sahara, less than .̀ 3,000 crorehas to be refunded as most of the money hasalready been repaid. But, the regulatorthinks otherwise.

Sebi has set up a ‘Sahara Enforcement Cell’to fast-track the document verification andrefund process. In the course of the exercise,it sought the services of SHCIL, which offersservices like collecting documents from cli-ents’ offices, scanning and storing them indigital form.

Now, Robots Come to Sebi’s Sahara Can’t Afford an iPhone?Get a True Copy for .̀ 9kWebsites hawking dirt cheap made-in-China clones

PUT TO GOOD USE: SHCIL warehouse in NaviMumbai where the documents are housed

Hailed as a game changer,

the $35 Aakash tablet now

faces an uncertain future,

reports Our Delhi Bureau.

The human resource de-

velopment ministry has

put on hold its plans to ten-

der its biggest order till

date for 50 million tablets.

It says many inexpensive

tablets are available in the

market now.

FULL REPORT��5

Aakash Tab Under a Cloud

Rajat Gupta Sues New Silk Route

Chief for Contract BreachFormer Goldman Sachs group director Rajat

Gupta, convicted last year on insider-trading

charges, filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit

against Parag Saxena, CEO of New Silk Route.

Corporate��4

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Third Hike Since Jan: Diesel PriceIncreased by 57 Paise/Litre

Diesel price has been hiked by 57 paise per litre

from Saturday. This is the third increase since

the January 17 Cabinet decision empowering oil

firms to raise diesel rates in small dozes every

month till all revenue losses are eliminated.

Corporate��5

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Retail Investors Dump EquityFunds, Flock to Debt Schemes

Domestic retail investors have moved away

from equity funds and towards debt, exiting

4.49 million equity and equity-linked saving

scheme accounts over the year to end-February.

Markets + Finance��6

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Exports May Not Even Match 2012Numbers, Warns Anand Sharma

India’s exports may not be able to reach even

last year’s level of about $306 billion, and the

trade deficit is likely to widen to $193-196 bil-

lion in the current fiscal, Commerce and Industry

Minister Anand Sharma said on Friday.

Economy��13

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Railways to Hike Freight Rate by 5.7% from April 1

The transportation of goods, including food

grains, edible oil, cement, coal and iron ore will

be costlier from April 1 as the railways has de-

cided to hike the freight rate by about 5.7% to

absorb the rising fuel costs.

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A Clarification

In response to an article titled ‘Bumper Bonuses

for HUL Execs This Year’, published in ET on Fri-

day, the company has said the report mentions

exaggerated and incorrect average annual per-

formance bonus paid by HUL to its employees

across work levels. The error is regretted.

Inside story

GULVEEN AULAKHNEW DELHI

In a major setback to Vodafone India,the telecom department has denied itsrequest for extension of licences inMumbai, Delhi and Kolkata that arecoming up for renewal in late 2014. Atop communications ministry officialsaid a similar request from Bharti Air-tel has been rejected as well.

In a communication to Vodafone, ac-cessed by ET, the telecom department(DoT) has said under the new policy onspectrum allocation, airwaves havebeen delinked from licence. There-fore, the firm must participate in theauctions to be held later this year to ac-cess airwaves at market price.

“Unless you participate in auctionsand get your bid confirmed, you wouldnot be entitled to wireless licence,which is a requisite,” DoT said. It add-ed that Vodafone was given a chance toparticipate in auctions, concludedearly this month, but it stayed away.

“In the circumstances, we find noreason to grant you an extension con-templated by Clause 4.1. It is also notexpedient to do so as there is no incli-

nation shown by you to come to settlenew terms and conditions in pursu-ance of and in conformities of the ex-tant policies...Consequently, your re-quest for an extension for 10 years onthe same terms and conditions standsrejected,” the DoT notice said.

DoT’s Refusal to Prolong Legal Battle��4

OUR POLITICAL BUREAUNEW DELHI

The 12-day-old row between India andItaly ended on Friday when two Ital-ian marines returned to face murdertrial here, allowing the government toclaim a major diplomatic victory.

Officials from both countriesclaimed there was no back-channeldeal behind Italy’s decision to changeits stance and return the marines toface trial on India’s assurance thatthey will not be arrested and theircase does not merit the death penaltyunder Indian jurisprudence.

“A potential diplomatic crisis has def-initely been avoided… The situationhas been defused,” said Italy’s Minis-ter of State for Foreign Affairs, Staffande Mistura.

Mistura said Italy had decided tokeep the marines back due to extraor-dinary concern in his country thatthey could face the death penalty.

Marines Returned after Assurance��4

Govt Claims Victory asItalian Marines Return

NO DEATH PENALTY, NO ARREST

Vodafone, Bharti Airtel can approach Delhi High Court again as per court’s order

Legal recourse may further push back possibility of holding 900 Mhz band auction

May put more hurdles in the government’s plan to refarm the 900 Mhz spectrum band

A Missed Call?

Entitled to fair and reasonable extension of licence as per mutually agreeable terms

Policy and licence agreement provide for continuity

DoT arbitrarily withdrawing 900Mhz spectrum is against policy and licence provisions

BHARTI, VODAFONE SAY

NEXT COURSE OF ACTION

IMPACT

DoT Refuses toExtend Licencesof Voda & Bharti Rejects request for auto

renewal in Mumbai, Delhi

and Kolkata; says telcos

will’ve to win spectrum

Lone Indian in Google Lunar X Prize competition, Rahul Narayan is fighting to raise resources

SA

LAM

SUNIL

� CBI Director OkayedCar Case on February 12

On Edit Page

CBI with Real TeethBar Council President Anil Divan on

how to make CBI independent.

PURE POLITICS��PAGE 2

India Inc & PoliticsEntrepreneur Jaithirth Rao on why

politicians outsmart CEOs.

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