The Indian Economy - Page 28

Fake fixed deposit receipts printed from Raju's PC The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), investigating the fraud at Satyam Computer Services Ltd, has found that investments shown as fixed deposit receipts (FDRs) worth crores of rupees were fake and printed from the personal computer of B. Ramalinga Raju, founder of the software services firm.This was found following a detailed analysis of Raju's computer by CBI. With Satyam safely sold and the nation's attention squarely on the slanging match that passes for an election campaign, it might seem like India's biggest corporate scandal will gently fade. In a way, it will. B. Ramalinga Raju, Satyam's founder and self-confessed fraudster, sits in a Hyderabad jail awaiting trial. And sits. And sits. And sits. Check back in 2020. But on another level, what Satyam represents continues to serve as a stinging and prescient reminder of what ails the nation as India prepares for its next government. It's tempting to ring-fence India's flagship industries in their gleaming skyscrapers from the grubby-handed politicians who lurk in decrepit government offices. It's tempting to view the corporate-governance failures at Satyam as confined to a swanky boardroom as the future leaders of the world's largest democracy mingle with the barefoot rural masses. It's tempting to think that Satyam was just one bad apple that ultimately was rescued by a surprisingly effective, and transparent, government fire drill. But it would be a mirage. One's not just talking about Mr. Raju's well-known connections with successive governments in Andhra Pradesh. Satyam, as much as anything else, was the product of an environment where corruption some petty, some massive pervades the entire relationship between Indian industry and its policymakers. Even as we talk about corporate governance, people feel they can get away with corruption at multiple levels, said Rajesh Jain, chief executive of Netcore Solutions.If the King is bad, the people think they can get away with it. Of course, not every Indian company is a Satyam-in-waiting. Probably just a few will implode so dramatically. Yet it is striking how often conversations about Satyam involve a rather light-footed minuet. No, Satyam shouldn't be used to tarnish all of Indian business. Yes, doing any business in India, from getting a land grant from the government to shipping liquor across state lines, naturally involves sizeable payoffs. No, Satyam is no worse than all the other, larger frauds that have rocked the world financial system in the past year, many of them in the U.S. Yes, it's easy to cover a bribe from the auditors when you receive just one invoice that you know but it doesn't say includes a big payoff as well as the price of the goods. No, India Inc. is rigorously scrutinizing its policies and procedures to ensure that its biggest companies are world-class in their transparency and accounting standards. Yes, one of the favored bribes for a bureaucrat is a one-lakh Louis Vuitton handbag for his wife. Ideally, the Satyam debacle would be front and center in this election OK, just somewhere in this election as politicians tried to outdo each other in convincing voters that it was time for a shakeup in the relation between India's two most powerful constituencies, business and the government. Instead, many businesspeople lament that the multitude of powerful regional parties that has characterized this year's vote has simply added to the number of politicians who need to be funded now for favors later. No, they don't like greasing palms. Yes, sadly it is the only way to get anything done.

. Anil Ambani addresses journalists during the launch of Reliance ADA Group's GSM telephone services in Mumbai on December 30, 2008.

Last week, local police launched a criminal investigation after a mechanic found that gravel had been poured into the engine of a helicopter used by Mr. Ambani. A complaint filed with police by the helicopter's pilot said the mud and pebbles found in the engine would have caused a crash landing and are evidence that some persons, possible business rivals, were attempting to take away the life of Mr. Anil Ambani. Deven Bharti, an additional commissioner of the crime branch of the Mumbai Police said Wednesday that while they expect to find the people responsible for the tampering soon, they have yet to find any evidence linking the incident to Mr. Ambani's rivals. He cautioned: We don't want to draw conclusions at this stage, but said police were continuing to figure out who sabotaged the craft. He said the police were still interrogating two or three people from the Air Works Engineering Pvt. Ltd., the maintenance company that took care of the helicopter. Ravi S. Menon, the Mumbai-based director and group head of Air Works, said the company was cooperating with the investigation and has told 52 of its employees to stay home. Non-technical staff have been told to stay home until the police investigation has been completed, he said. We will await the investigation report by police before we give any statement. Bharat Borge, the mechanic who uncovered the attempt to tamper with the engine, was found dead Tuesday, run over by a commuter train. Police think it was suicide. Witnesses saw him step in front of the train and he was carrying a note. In the note Mr. Borge said he was under stress as police investigators as well as officials from Mr. Ambani's Reliance ADA Group were making him feel as if he might be the culprit in the case. I have not done this, his note said. I thought about it all night and realize it has boomeranged on me. Your investigation is going in the right direction and the truth will come out. Mr. Borge found the problem with the Bell 412 helicopter owned by a unit of Reliance ADA Thursday. The helicopter was scheduled to bring Mr. Ambani to work. A spokesman for Mr. Ambani declined to comment on the investigation. The incident has been making headlines in India because of the importance of Mr. Ambani, whose fortune is estimated at more than $10 billion. His flagship company Reliance Communications Ltd., is India's second largest cell phone company in terms of subscribers. He also has interest in power, finance, cinemas and movies. Bharti Airtel Ltd. posted a 21% rise in fiscal fourth-quarter net profit on record subscriber gains, but key indicators showed that stiff competition took a toll. Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile phone operator by subscribers, has been expanding aggressively into rural markets and lowering tariffs, leading to a decline in average revenue per user and minutes of usage. The company is trying to stay ahead of rivals in India, which with growth of about 10 million users a month is world's fastest-growing telecommunications market. Their focus on rural penetration and customer affordability has been instrumental in delivering this. Flights across India face widespread disruption as 15,000 airport employees nationwide have threatened to strike indefinitely starting Friday in protest against the transfer of workers from Delhi and Mumbai airports. The management is forcefully sending employees from Delhi and Mumbai airports to other centers like Kanpur, Jaipur, Khajuraho and Amritsar where there is already surplus staff, said Jaipal Singh, assistant general secretary of the Airports Authority Employees Union, which represents airport workers. The employees are employed by the government's Airport Authority of India although operation of Delhi and Mumbai, the country's two largest, has been privatized. Mumbai airport is operated by a consortium led by GVK Industries Ltd. Delhi's airport is run by a group led by GMR Infrastructure Ltd. Naveen Ramchandrani, the airport manager of the Mumbai airport consortium, Mumbai International Airport Ltd., said: We have no news of any strike so far, everything is working well. Airports Authority of India acknowledged receipt of a letter from the union threatening industrial action but declined further comment. Mr. Singh said the airport authority plans to move a total of about 4,000 employees from Delhi and Mumbai to other airports. There is no job security and safety guaranteed by the private operators; we are being forced to accept voluntary retirement or face transfers after both the airports were privatized, said Mr. Singh. He added that flight disruptions are likely to be widespread if the strike goes ahead but declined to provide an estimate. India's cricket board on Wednesday offered amnesty to players involved in the rival Indian Cricket League if they sever ties with the unsanctioned Twenty20 tournament by the end of next month. The players can participate in domestic cricket immediately, but will have to wait for a year before they are considered for selection for the Indian national team, Board of Control for Cricket in India president Shashank Manohar said Wednesday. Banks think small to achieve big; focus on microfinance ops Betting big on the fast-growing micro-finance sector, leading private and foreign banks are all set to scale up their MFI operations in the country. Apart from providing financial support to fund-starved microfinance institutions (MFIs), banks are also active in launching schemes to support the growth of tiny units by providing training in management skills. Indian bloggers and other online commentators are challenging the status quo in business and politics like never before. And they are redefining attitudes toward the media in a country whose celebrated protection of free speech has often been undermined by the libel laws of its common law legal system. Most Indian businesses are growing accustomed to criticism from bloggers. Yet there are still some that, instead of mounting a PR offensive, send in their lawyers and try to stifle speech on the Internet. What they're finding is that this approach is counterproductive they may succeed in silencing an individual blogger. Election scene: In an election with no prevailing national issue or clear leader, India's main political parties are thumbing through history books in the hopes of finding an edge with voters, as the third stage of the world's largest democratic election gets under way Thursday. India has had plenty of turbulence in the past year, from a rapidly slowing economy to a string of terrorist attacks culminating in November's assault on Mumbai. But the major national campaigns recently have given short shrift to any subject voters might find topical. Instead, they have shifted their focus to scandals of yesteryear, some covered in more than two decades of dust. These elections are not being fought on any policy platform at all, says Seema Desai, a London-based Asia analyst for the Eurasia Group. The scandals are not revelations. They're just going over old ground.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi is under investigation for his role in the 2002 riots.The reason, analysts say, is that the two largest political parties the ruling Indian National Congress party and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party have broadly similar policy platforms and neither has a charismatic leader who excites voters. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress's prime ministerial candidate, is famously soft-spoken and 76 years old. The BJP's leader, L.K. Advani, is 81. The election also has been dominated by regional parties and regional issues that have made it hard for the national parties to connect with voters on anything but emotive issues. The BJP on Tuesday, for instance, pounced on news that the Central Bureau of Investigation India's equivalent of the FBI cleared Octavian Quattrocchi, an Italian middleman who was the last remaining suspect in the 1980s so-called Bofors scandal. Most of the main suspects in the scandal which revolved around kickbacks Swedish arms maker Bofors AB allegedly paid the then-Congress government to secure a $1.4 billion military contract in 1986 are dead. Mr. Advani blamed the Congress party for the most politically explosive corruption scandal in independent India's history, a singular distinction in a nation known for rampant corruption in public life. Mr. Advani then effectively accused the CBI of being manipulated by the government in power. It is not a question of Quattrocchi alone, but the entire role of the agency during the last five years which should be probed, he told reporters Tuesday. He was referring to another decades-old scandal, this time the 1984 riots in New Delhi that left about 3,000 Sikhs dead. Last month, the CBI cleared former government minister Jagdish Tytler from allegations of instigating the violence, sparking outrage among members of the Sikh religious community and inciting one Sikh journalist to throw his shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram. The CBI is ostensibly independent of the government. In reality, the agency often is used as a political tool to investigate enemies and drop charges against friends, observers say. Congress strategist Priyanka Gandhi denied Tuesday that the government had put any pressure on the CBI. Harsh Bhal, spokesman for the CBI, declined to comment on allegations of political pressure. He said: The [Bofors] case has been under trial in the courts since 1999. The CBI has taken action on the basis of legal advice of the highest order. Mr. Advani's accusations came a day after the country's highest court ordered an investigation into the role of Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state and a star BJP campaigner, for riots in Gujarat in 2002 that left 2,000 mostly Muslims dead. Congress, which led the governing coalition for the past five years, demanded that Mr. Modi resign as the state's chief minister while the investigation continued. Mr. Modi, and the BJP, balked. It's a conspiracy against me, Mr. Modi told the Web site of the Hindustan Times. I am ready to go to jail if so needed. He has denied any wrongdoing in the past. The investigation of Mr. Modi could prove the most damaging of the revisited national issues because of Mr. Modi's prominence and because Gujarat, home to 26 of India's 545 parliamentary seats, goes to the polls Thursday along with several other districts nationwide in the third of five voting days. All votes are counted nationally May 16. The BJP says it expects to win at least 20 of those Gujarat seats. Any less would be a setback and a damaging blow to Mr. Modi, who many expect could be the party's prime ministerial candidate in the next elections. His popularity banks on his economic record in Gujarat, whose economy has grown at an average of about 10% since Mr. Modi took power in 2001. But observers say his hard-line Hindu nationalist streak could unsettle voters outside Gujarat if he were to make a run for prime minister. This country is sharply divided on what happened in 2002 during the riots, says political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan. India has declared that the only surviving suspected gunman in last year's Mumbai terrorist attacks is more than 20 years old and therefore eligible for the death penalty. The suspect had claimed he was a minor at the time of the assault. A team of four government doctors and forensic experts had examined Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani charged with murder and waging war against India. Prosecutors say Mr. Kasab and nine gunmen who were killed during the siege are responsible for the deaths of more than 170 people and the injury of 304 more during the three-day siege in November. Ahead of his trial, which began earlier this month, Mr. Kasab's lawyer, Abbas Kazmi, had said his client was 17 at the time of the attacks and should be tried by a juvenile court. On Tuesday, the medical report said that all four doctors agreed that he must be more than 20-years-old. The doctors made their assessment based on a dental examination and x-rays of his elbow, chest, wrists, pelvis and shoulder. Judge M.L. Tahiliyani also heard evidence from the superintendent of the prison where Mr. Kasab is being held and the doctor who first attended to his injuries after the attacks. Both told the court that he had told them he was 21 years old. The public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam has also said Mr. Kasab had given his age as 21 in his confession and when he was hospitalized for injuries received during the attacks. Mr. Kazmi has asked the court to disregard the confession, saying it had been made under duress. The judge is expected to comment on the report Wednesday. Mr. Kasab would face a maximum of three years in prison if convicted as a minor, but could face the death penalty if convicted as an adult. Satyam-Tech Mahindra set to have $2.2 bn revenue. Satyam Computer Services and its new owner Tech Mahindra are set to have combined revenues in the range of around $ 2.2 billion. While an immediate merger is ruled out, the two companies may be integrated two or three years down the line to have one large Tech Mahindra. Indian jewelers' hopes that the Hindu holy day Akshaya Trithya would give a fillip to declining gold sales look to have been dashed, as many customers stayed away or scaled down purchases. India is the world's biggest gold buyer, but imports have fallen to negligible levels in recent months as the rupee has weakened, making dollar-denominated gold more expensive to local buyers. Akshaya Trithya, which fell on Monday this year, is considered an auspicious day to make long-term purchases or start new ventures Akshaya means the never diminishing in Sanskrit and has traditionally boosted gold demand. India's software, airline and travel companies said Tuesday they are carrying on with normal operations despite the spread of swine flu to the U.S., Canada and some other countries. Flag carrier Air India continues to fly 35 times per week to North America, while Jet Airways (India) Ltd. is operating all its 21 weekly flights across the Atlantic. The Sri Lanka government said it backed off an offensive Monday that has devastated the separatist Tamil Tigers but forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee what is Asia's longest-running civil war. President Mahinda Rajapaksa said combat operations have reached their conclusion and security forces would no longer use heavy-caliber guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons that might injure or kill civilians. The president's statement, however, said troops will continue their attempts to rescue civilians held hostage, an indication that hostilities aren't over. The plight of unarmed civilians has assumed a central role in the 26-year-old conflict. Both sides have sought to deflect criticism by accusing the other of endangering civilians. The Tamil Tigers say Sri Lankan troops and artillery have killed thousands; the government says the rebels are holding thousands as hostages to delay the war's end.

Children displaced by fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists at a displacement camp in northern Sri Lanka, Monday. The U.N. said 250,000 people in the area were in need of urgent assistance. They are now being used as a bargaining chip, said Foreign Secretary Palitha T.B. Kohona. They must let the civilians go. Foreign-aid groups worry the war has unleashed a torrent of refugees that has overstretched the government and jeopardized the potential for a durable peace. Unicef estimates that fighting has caused 100,000 people to flee over the past week, and that a quarter of a million are now in need of urgent assistance. The U.N. also estimates the fighting has killed about 6,500 civilians since the start of the year, adding to a death toll of 70,000 from the start of the war in 1983. Those who arrive at overcrowded camps are battling dysentery and malnutrition while medical personnel have been coping with inadequate supplies, according to a U.N. official involved in the relief effort. Part of the reason the camps are so crowded, he added, is that the government is attempting to screen out rebels before the refugees can be released and resettled. Their focus has been on national security. That's no way to prepare for a humanitarian operation.An elderly woman awaited evacuation Friday near Puthukkudiyiruppu in Sri Lanka.

The resettlement of refugees represents an urgent task for the government. Officials estimate that rebuilding the strife-torn eastern part of the country has cost $1 billion, and reconstruction in the north, where fighting continues, will total five times that amount. The government is seeking aid to rebuild roads and revive industry; it has applied for $1.9 billion from the International Monetary Fund. The humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka has drawn the attention of foreign governments, including the U.S. and neighbor India. India home to a sizeable Tamil population also has urged an end to hostilities. Officials have streamed in to Colombo, the capital, in recent weeks in an effort to cool tensions. Mr. Kohona, the foreign secretary, said the role of other countries in ending hostilities has been exaggerated. He also said Monday's statement from the government that it would tone down its offensive was unrelated to an earlier call by the Tamil Tigers for a unilateral ceasefire. They are down on their backs and getting their heads kicked in, said Mr. Kohona. To ask for a cease-fire is a bit humorous. The Tamil Tigers arose from Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority, which has been fighting for an independent state country against the government, largely controlled by the majority Sinhalese. Velupillai Prabhakaran formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, in the late 1970s, building it into a formidable fighting force. It was later branded a terrorist organization by the U.S. and other countries, but continued to find support and funding among the Tamil diaspora. A senior Sri Lankan military official said the government believed the rebel chief is still in the country, trapped in a tiny wedge of territory along the northeast coastline. The military officer said there wasn't any information to suggest Mr. Prabhakaran had been able to flee Sri Lanka using one of the submarines or planes the Tigers had built. On Monday, Sri Lanka's navy said it destroyed one Tamil Tiger boat and damaged another after they attempted to attack ground troops. The military statement said four sea tigers had been killed, while government forces escaped causalities.

A planned nationwide strike by 15,000 Indian airport employees from Friday has been deferred following a court order that referred the workers' grievances to a committee, one of the union leaders said. The strike has been postponed following a Delhi high court order stating the issue should be discussed in the tripartite committee meet comprising the employee union, management and aviation ministry, said Jaipal Singh, assistant general secretary of the Airports Authority Employees Union, which represents airport workers. The meeting will be held in New Delhi on June 15. The tripartite committee was formed under the civil aviation ministry in 2006 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve any disputes between the management and employees. The proposed strike was in protest against the forceful transfer of 4,000 airport employees from Delhi and Mumbai airports to other smaller airports. The employees are employed by the government's Airport Authority of India although operation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the country's two largest, has been privatized. Mumbai airport is operated by a consortium led by GVK Industries Ltd. Delhi's airport is run by a group led by GMR Infrastructure Ltd. Stimulus packages to show results in April-May: Montek Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said the stimulus packages to revive the economy would start showing results in the data for April-May and definite signs of recovery would become manifest in the second half of the fiscal. Bharati Shipyard Ltd. is looking for more orders from India's defense sector to maintain its revenue growth, the privately operated ship builder's managing director said. At the moment we have defense orders for small patrol vessels worth about 3 billion rupees ($60.1 million), P. C. Kapoor told after the company released its results Wednesday. We are negotiating for more such orders totaling about 4 billion rupees to 5 billion rupees. India's weekly inflation rate rose for the second successive week on higher prices of food and minerals, but analysts say the trend is temporary and will reverse in coming weeks due to comparison with last year's high readings. The inflation rate as measured by the wholesale price index rose to 0.57% in the week ended April 18, compared with 0.26% in the previous week, data issued Thursday by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed.

Two under observation in Kochi for H1N1 flu

Two persons, who arrived here early today from UK and Austria, are being examined by doctors for suspected H1N1 flu. Both passengers a 11-year-old boy and a 27-year-old woman have stated that they had fever 10 days back which is why they are being examined, airport sources said. Tata Motors Ltd. said Monday it has received bookings from more than 203,000 customers totaling nearly 25 billion rupees ($503 million) for its Nano minicar, which with a basic price of about $2,500 has been called the world's cheapest car. Tata Motors offered the Nano for bookings from April 9-April 25 at all its dealerships as well as outlets of Tata Group's retail chains. India imported around 30 metric tons of gold in April, up 25% on year as dealers hoped a Hindu religious festival would spur consumer demand, a top industry official said Monday. Sales during the Akshaya Trithya festival, marked in the last week of the month, didn't match expectations.

Ajay Goyal is a serious, independent candidate contesting for a Lok Sabha seat in Chandigarh. Never heard of him? Neither, probably, have a lot of people in Chandigarh because when it came to getting press coverage for his campaign he was faced with a simple message: If you want press, you have to pay. So far, he says, he's been approached by about 10 people some brokers and public relations managers acting on behalf of newspaper owners, some reporters and editors with the message that he'll only get written about in the news pages for a fee. We're not talking advertising; we're talking news. One broker offered three weeks of coverage in four newspapers for 10 lakh rupees ($20,000). A reporter and a photographer from a Chandigarh newspaper told him that for 1.5 lakh rupees ($3,000) for them and a further 3 lakh rupees ($6,000) for other reporters, they could guarantee coverage in up to five newspapers for two weeks. We would do good coverage for you, he says they told him. All of those who approached him either were from national Hindi language papers or regional papers, Mr. Goyal says. In one case, he went along to see what would happen: a press release he submitted full of falsehoods claiming he had campaigned in places he had never been, for instance ran verbatim. One thing he has never seen on his real campaign: a reporter there to cover the story. It's disappointing, Mr. Goyal says. What good is literacy and education if people have no access to real news, investigation, skepticism or a questioning reporter. At the nexus of corruption in India, the nation's newspapers usually play either vigilante cop exposing wrongdoing in the public interest on a good day, at a few publications or spineless patsy killing stories on the orders of powerful advertisers. Many papers also engage in practices that cross the ethical line between advertising and editorial in a way that is opaque, if not downright obscure, to readers. But it is of another order of magnitude to see reporters, editors and newspaper owners holding the democratic process to ransom. A free (in every sense) press is an integral part of a vibrant democracy. A corrupt press is both symptom and perpetrator of a rotten democracy. "I'm not saying all media is biased but there is a growing sense in people's minds that a lot of the media is biased, says Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of National Election Watch. Some do it in a sublime manner and some do it openly. So why are we surprised when the voter turnout is so low, despite the much-touted surge of political awareness among the young and post-Mumbai? It's all part and parcel of the public disgust with the political system and the pillars of the Establishment that support that system as well. For every newly-minted reform-minded, politically aware voter, there are probably hundreds of jaded citizens who just decide the heck with it. How widespread is the practice of pay per say? The best-known English-language dailies typically don't do it so blatantly, candidates and others involved in the elections say. Rather, those papers are more likely to hue closely to one major party or the other, making it tough for candidates who don't fit the papers' view of the world to be heard. But in the Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati media, to name a few, the practice is widespread, candidates say. N. Gopalaswami, retired Chief Election Commissioner, says This is not something that can be ignored. It is not just a few apparent cases, it is much more than that. He has heard of newspapers proferring a rate card - one price for positive coverage, another for not negative coverage. The commission heard complaints in both 2007 and 2008 about candidates being charged for coverage. Among them, the national Communist parties who don't have the deep coffers to spend on campaigns. In Mumbai, a city appropriately geared to commerce, politicians are faced with multiple payment options. Consider these phrases from newspaper editors and brokers: You want a front page photo for free? This is something people pay for. If you want a picture in there or if you want a story, we have to be paid. We're going to publish the interview, but you need to buy 5,000 copies of our paper. 1.2 lakhs ($2,400) for the next two weeks and I will take care of all that coverage.

Indian voters in Patna, capital of the state of Bihar, will face a stark choice for the national Parliament: Will it be Shotgun or Shaker? The two aren't local toughs. They're Bollywood stars. Shekhar Shaker Suman, an actor and TV talk-show host who models himself on Jay Leno, is running for the Indian National Congress, the party that now runs the ruling coalition. His rival from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is Shatrughan Shotgun Sinha, a movie star and a judge on one of the country's most-watched TV talent shows. The two men are part of a surge of Indian celebrities throwing their hats in the ring this year. Bollywood actors turned politicians have been around almost as long as Indian democracy. But this year, in a race with hundreds of competitors, parties are relying more on celebrity power than ever before, with at least a dozen movie stars and entertainers in the mix. Stars Seek Office

Congress party candidate and Indian television actor Shekhar Suman played the drums during a campaign rally in Patna April 25.

Chiranjeevi, a superstar from Tollywood, south India's film industry, started his own party in Andhra Pradesh state and recruited fellow actors to campaign for him. At rallies attended by more than a million people, he plays clips from his top dance scenes, often featuring him without a shirt on. BJP leader L.K. Advani's strongest rival for his seat in Gujarat state is a professional dancer named Mallika Sarabhai, who elicits louder cheers for her occasional dancing than her stump speeches. In Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, Bollywood actress Nafisa Ali, fresh from a blockbuster movie in which she played a spinster pining for her lover to return, is running for a seat on behalf of the Samajwadi Party. Some stars say the terrorist attacks last year in Mumbai, seat of India's entertainment industry, spurred them to public service. Mr. Sinha, in Patna, offers a simpler explanation: Glamour has limited power, whereas power has unlimited glamour. Patna has the rare distinction of having two Bollywood actors going head to head, as if Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger were competing in the same election. Mr. Sinha, 63 years old, rose to fame in the 1970s playing the villain in hit movies with convoluted plots. In one, Mr. Sinha's character goes from homeless urchin to heading Mumbai's most-feared criminal gang. He frames for murder the best friend of his long-lost brother, who arrives in the city to find out who was really behind the crime. Mr. Sinha's 49-year-old opponent, Mr. Suman, has spent most of his career on TV. As a late-night talk-show host, he interviewed public figures. Caricaturing politicians was one of his most popular gags. He later was a judge on a talent show for comedians, before ceding the spot to Mr. Sinha. Bollywood celebreties are running for office throughout India. Although some actor-politicians have since embarrassed their parties, another celebrity showdown is in the offing.

The two men live less than a mile apart in Patna and call each other brother. But people in the entertainment industry say that by entering the race against Mr. Sinha, Mr. Suman broke one of the entertainment industry's unwritten codes: Don't run against one of Bollywood's own. Mr. Suman dismisses the claims, saying there's no morality attached to this. Patna is 900 miles northeast of Mumbai, the glitzy entertainment and financial capital. Its facilities are among India's most dilapidated. Despite such economic concerns, for Messrs. Sinha and Suman, who've both spent more of their lives in Mumbai than Bihar, the campaign has come down to a war of words over this: Who's more of a native son? When he came to file his nomination papers here, Mr. Suman ditched his luxury car for a cart pulled by a man on a bicycle. In a speech under the noon sun last week, the sweating actor berated his opponent for joining a right-of-center party that supported a campaign to kick migrants from Bihar out of Mumbai. The whole of Bihar felt he did precious little to stop it, says Mr. Suman. He didn't fight for us. Mr. Suman also sprinkled promises of new hospitals and less trash on the streets. But the 50 or so people gathered to hear him from the back of a truck last week weren't there for the serious talk. They wanted some of Mr. Suman's trademark jokes. They got at least one. While Mr. Suman spoke of Patna reaching the freeway of development in less than a year, an aide wiped sweat from Mr. Suman's face with a towel. Wow, wow, Mr. Suman said as the towel muffled his voice. He's been with me just eight months and look how far he's reached. The crowd silent until then burst into laughter.

Shatrughan 'Shotgun' Sinha

Mr. Sinha of the BJP, who's running in his first popular election after serving two terms in the upper house of Parliament, ridicules his opponent's shaky command of Bhojpuri, the local language. He points out that he's the one called Bihari babu: babu is a title of respect in Hindi. I go to my birthplace in Patna 30 times a year, he says. My opponent seems to have dropped from the sky. For voters, the candidates' celebrity often outweighs their appeal as politicians. I go to rallies because I want to see them up close, says Mathresh Pandey, 41, a taxi driver in Patna. But I don't trust them. They're actors. One of the biggest stars, Govinda, who goes by just one name, won parliamentary elections from Mumbai in 2004. Over the past five years, he rarely showed up in Parliament, was accused of doling out cash to voters and got caught in a number of gaffes, including supporting a fellow actor who had been caught on videotape soliciting sexual favors. Govinda says he isn't running this year. He denies making the cash handouts. And last month, five of Bollywood's most famous starlets appeared in a TV ad encouraging Indians to take matters into your hands and vote. But when Mumbai went to the polls last Thursday, four of the five themselves didn't vote, citing work or personal commitments that kept them from the ballot booth. Messrs. Suman and Sinha both say they realize the limits of stardom. The crowd doesn't always translate into votes, says Mr. Sinha. It would be disappointing to lose, says Mr. Suman, but he figures if he fails, he can go back to Bollywood. Once an actor, he says, always an actor. Delhi goes to polls tomorrow; 160 aspirants in fray A confident Congress hopes to repeat its spectacular victory in the recent assembly polls while BJP would try to improve its tally when Delhi goes to general elections tomorrow where nearly 1.1 crore voters will decide the fate of 160 aspirants in the fray. Toyota Motor Corp. will invest less in India than its previous plan of 32 billion (about $650 million) for building a new car factory by sourcing lower-cost equipment from local vendors, said Shekar Vishwanathan, deputy managing director, commercial, at the local unit said the new plant will have an initial capacity of 70,000 vehicles per year, compared with its previous plan of 100,000 vehicles. We are not going to curtail the (final) capacity or the scope of the investment, Mr. Vishwanathan told. The Indian government's coffers are full of wheat. It's an embarrassment of riches resulting from a panicky export ban imposed in 2007, and pro-farmer, above-market price guarantee not to mention two back-to-back bumper crops. India's state-run Food Corp. has so much wheat it has taken to storing an estimated $6.5 billion, 34 million metric ton stash on public school grounds. Essar Steel Ltd., part of the diversified conglomerate Essar Global Ltd., is going ahead with the expansion of its Hazira plant in western India, but is putting on hold all of its greenfield expansion plans due to slowing global demand, the company's chief executive officer said. The company is expanding capacity at Hazira to 10 million metric tons a year from the current 4.6 million tons. The expanded capacity is likely to come on stream by June 2010. Indian steel manufacturers, anticipating a flood of cheap imports over the next three months, Wednesday demanded the immediate imposition of a safeguard tax during a meeting with federal government officials. As much as 700,000 metric tons of hot-rolled coils, an intermediate steel product, are expected to land on Indian shores. Ms. Ueberoth on basketball in India: Where India is at in its development in the early years? I'd say it's in the early stages. You can contrast the differences more than compare them with others, with the exception of perhaps two things. One, a growing economy and interest in leisure activities, including sports activities, and two, an increasing growth in the popularity of the game. Right now in India, basketball is one of the fastest growing sports. Aside from that, the other area is maybe in the interest in the sports ministries and even the government for the social values of basketball. Key strategy that the NBA has taken with India: We are taking a long-term look at India, where we have a long-term media partner called ESPN Star Sports. We are also starting to do more customized programming and more lifestyle-based programming as a natural next step, which makes sense for a country like India, where pop culture and Bollywood are very popular and there is a natural crossover between our iconic players and entertainment. We had a number of Bollywood stars over at the All-Star Weekend in Phoenix, and we created some behind-the-scenes All-Star Weekend programming that aired on Star Sports. We are deep into discussions now for a localized Web site so one would be able to have both English- and Hindi-language content customized for India. And there is still plenty of work to do in India, a country that lacks a basketball culture and where cricket is still king.The league has chosen Heidi Ueberroth to tackle the challenge. As president of global marketing partnerships and international business operations, she helped form partnerships in India. Titan Industries Ltd. expects its revenue to increase at a slower pace in this financial year as consumers spend less on high-value items such as watches and jewelry in the backdrop of a slowing economy, the company's managing director said. For the year, we are targeting growth of more than 15% in revenue, Bhaskar Bhat told. The Indian watch and jewelry maker reported annual revenue of 38.33 billion rupees in the financial year ended March. Cognizant pips Infosys, Wipro, TCS, HCL Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. has beaten India-based competitors such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Infosys Technologies Ltd in terms of incremental revenues for the first time ever in the 12-month period from April 2008 till March. The firm reported revenues of $2.9 billion (Rs 14,413 crore today) for FY09, $600 million more than the revenues in FY08.