Dash For Cash.

(From Business Today (India))

Byline: Anand Adhikari

The auditorium of the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in south Mumbai is often host to theatrical productions that range from the traditional to the experimental. In August, the hall was the venue for what you would normally assume to be an event completely bereft of comedy, tragedy, history or experiment-the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Indian Banks' Association (IBA). Also present at the AGM, along with the assorted head honchos of India's premier banks, was Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. Not totally unpredictably, the theatrical environs of the AGM setting prevailed over the lack of a dramatic air at the AGM, prompting the FM to hark back to a bit of Shakespearean melodrama. Picking out a couplet from Henry VI, Part II, Chidambaram thundered: "Ignorance is the curse of God; Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." Even as the front rows packed with by-now baffled

bank ceos pondered the provocation for this rather cryptic tempest, the minister duly set out to rephrase the good bard of Avon: "Inaction is the curse of God; action is the wing wherewith we fly to …