Best of BS Opinion: Governance reforms advance but execution gaps persist

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today

The Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 attempts to address long-standing frictions in India’s regulatory architecture while adapting to a more complex corporate environment. As our first editorial notes, this complements the proposed IBC amendments and could materially improve resolution timelines. The Bill also centralises merger approvals at a single NCLT bench, raises the CSR applicability threshold, and eases compliance for smaller firms while tightening accountability for key managerial personnel. Additional provisions including two buybacks annually, enhanced NFRA oversight, AIF conversions into LLPs, and formalising virtual shareholder meetings, collectively signal a push towards efficiency, stronger governance, and investor confidence. 

Meanwhile, Delhi’s Rs 1.03 trillion Budget for FY27 offers only a marginal increase in health spending, even as structural gaps remain pronounced. Our second editorial points to persistent deficiencies flagged by the CAG, including staff shortages exceeding 21 per cent, low bed availability, drug shortages, and delays in infrastructure delivery. These are not isolated to the capital. India’s public health spending remains below target, with high out-of-pocket expenditure driven largely by medicine costs. While allocations have risen at the Union level, the editorial argues that outcomes are constrained less by funding and more by execution failures: underutilisation of funds, slow project completion, and weak governance. 

Shishir Gupta and Rishita Sachdeva map Tamil Nadu’s sustained economic rise, with its $375 billion economy and per capita income well above the national average. Growth has been underpinned by strong human capital, health outcomes, and infrastructure, alongside stable governance conditions. However, the authors note uneven regional growth, with cities such as Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tiruchirappalli losing relative economic weight. Achieving the $1 trillion target by 2030 will require scaling Chennai into a globally competitive hub while revitalising slower-growing centres through sharper sectoral strategies, alongside continued investments in education and health. 

Kavita Rao examines the economic implications of the West Asia crisis, which has pushed crude and LNG prices sharply higher and exposed India’s dependence on imports. The government’s current reliance on reserves and rationing offers only limited relief. Rao argues that allowing prices to adjust may be a more effective mechanism to manage demand, despite inflationary consequences, as suppressing prices would strain fiscal resources. Expanding renewables, investing in ethanol, coal gasification, and carbon capture, and encouraging shifts towards electric mobility could reduce long-term vulnerability while supporting fiscal stability. 

Finally, Neha Kirpal reviews Every Last Girl by Safeena Husain, a book which documents the systemic barriers that keep millions of girls out of school. Through the idea of the “last girl”, Husain frames exclusion as a structural failure rather than an individual one. Drawing on her personal journey and her work with Educate Girls, she illustrates how poverty, early marriage, and entrenched norms intersect to limit access to education. The book highlights the role of community engagement and local leadership in shifting behaviour, and argues that expanding access to quality education is central to both individual empowerment and broader development outcomes. 

Stay tuned!