A question of answers

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's speech at the 86th annual general meeting of Ficci made waves in the media but business and industry may have been less than impressed after the interactive session that followed. When Gandhi's response to a question on the telecom sector was to not answer it, one industrialist took a dig at him on a query related to the Land Acquisition Act. "I don't know whether you are in the know of the details of the Act," he told Gandhi. This was followed by a question from Harsh Pati Singhania on education and human resource development. After the Gandhi scion finished answering that question, he asked Singhania, "Do you agree with me?" Singhania's prompt, laconic reply: "Not entirely." Given that the business community is usually extremely careful about alienating the political establishment, could this be a sign of the times?