Hello and welcome to Best of Business Standard Opinion, our wrap of the day’s editorial page. The RBI’s decision to raise the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.5 per cent, while shifting its stance to “calibrated tightening”, signals that rate cuts are unlikely in the near term. With inflation projected at 5.2 per cent for the year and averaging about 5.8 per cent over the next three quarters, further tightening appears likely, potentially including another increase in December. Today’s first editorial notes that strong growth, projected at 7.1 per cent this year, gives the MPC room to prioritise inflation control. It also highlights risks from crude prices, liquidity, currency pressures, and the rupee’s depreciation. A proposed mandatory 10 per cent copayment on individual health insurance could weaken consumer choice without addressing the deeper problem of rising hospital costs. While copayments can reduce unnecessary healthcare use by mitigating moral hazard, patients are poorly placed to judge whether procedures are necessary or negotiate hospital charges. Insurers, with greater data, expertise, and bargaining power, should instead tackle costs through common hospital networks, benchmark prices, outcome-based contracts, and grievance mechanisms. The second editorial stresses that optimal insurance should balance incentives with protection against large, uncertain medical expenses. Consumers should therefore choose between lower premiums with copayment and higher premiums for comprehensive coverage, rather than face a blanket requirement. India’s tax reforms over 35 years have transformed an extortionary, discretion-based system into one that is simpler and less distortionary, though significant work remains, particularly on indirect taxes. The journey began with personal income-tax rationalisation under the Chelliah committee and continued through efforts to simplify excise duties, introduce service taxation, and replace state sales taxes with VAT. M Govinda Rao traces the evolution from MODVAT and CENVAT to GST, highlighting the institutional groundwork, constitutional changes, and negotiations among states needed to integrate domestic consumption taxes. Today’s column emphasises that tax reform remains a continuing process, shaped by experimentation, coordination, and consensus. The flydubai near-tragedy involving 174 passengers has revived debate over airline security, but history suggests no safeguards can eliminate risks created by geopolitical turmoil. Kanika Datta traces parallels with the hijackings of the 1970s, the 1985 bombing of the Kanishka, the 1999 IC 814 hijacking, and the post-9/11 tightening of cockpit security. The flight’s survival, she notes, depended on an unusual combination of courage, expertise, and luck after a suicidal pilot created the crisis. Yet successive security measures have brought substantial costs, with airport operators spending heavily on protection and passing some costs to travellers. Datta concludes that lasting aviation security ultimately depends on political leaders addressing conflicts on the ground.
Paramita Sen’s Batanagar: A Personal History of India’s Forgotten Company Town combines childhood memories with the history of Bata’s Indian operations and its once-thriving township on the Hooghly. Sneha Pathak finds the recollections of friendships, childhood adventures, festivals, and community life particularly evocative, conveying the wistfulness of a place that no longer exists as it once did. Sen also acknowledges the township’s social hierarchies and labour tensions, though her portrayal remains largely idyllic. However, while the historical chapters have a more impersonal, reportage-like quality, the frequent shifts between past and present disrupt the narrative flow. Better integration of personal memory and corporate history, Pathak suggests, would have strengthened the book.
