If Manmohan Singh is Caesar's wife, companies cannot be far behind.

Indian companies do not understand the importance of quality, writes Sundeep Khanna. Couple of months back US retailers, Target and Walmart, stopped buying sheets from Welspun because it was not using Egyptian cotton, as per their contract. Welspun is the world's largest maker of bed sheets and towels. Class action lawsuits have been filed in 2 US states. Earlier an arbitration court in Singapore ruled that Ranbaxy cheated Daiichi Sankyo by deliberately concealing problems with its manufacturing units. There are some companies with excellent record for quality but for the most part Indian companies are happy to cut corners. Why? Because we have vast numbers of people, so there will always be buyers and if the thing turns out to be a dud, tough luck. What can you do? Of course, we have consumer courts which are supposed to uphold standards. But, our justice system is affectionately known as 'tarikh pe tarikh' which translates to 'date after date', because cases are postponed an infinite number of times, till the complainant is dead of old age. In India, we get our television content either through satellite transmission, known as Direct to Home, or DTH, and through cables. DTH companies have been adding channels on high definition for sometime and advertising the much better quality of pictures and sound on those channels. But, why would anyone want to watch children being bombed to bits in Syria on HD? So why are they pushing it? Because the regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India allows service providers to charge as much as they like on HD channels. So push us to change over to HD and then increase charges, that's their game. To force us to change they will broadcast Premier League matches only on HD from 1 November. Which means we have to pay Rs 1,800 for new set top boxes and buy new HD television sets if we enjoy football. Star Sports has the EPL rights for India but they provide content, it is up to Indian companies how they broadcast that content. In 2011, 83 million people watched football in India, more than the population of Britain, so our service providers can drive a bargain if they want to. But they don't. There are some 8 channels showing English movies but they show the same old ones again and again. Sports channels show endless repeats of previous cricket marches. No boxing, no rugby, no American football or ice hockey. Just endless rubbish. And now on high definition. Companies follow politicians. Members of parliament are not allowed to work for profit. Our previous Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh is going to teach economics at Punjab University. But he will not be paid a salary so no profits. Instead he will get a 'daily allowance' of Rs 5,000, which is Rs 150,000 per month. More than the salary of a Lieutenant General in the army. And he insists he is Caesar's Wife. How easy.