Automation spurs growth for manufacturing MSMEs

In 2014-15, entities with automated operations had an employee cost of only nine per cent of the total manufacturing cost

Business Standard

Some of the recommendations of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council with regard to administrative control over entities with annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore has brought about a degree of clarity on jurisdiction. But the talk of a "cross empowerment" model based on risk evaluation for entities with turnover of above Rs 1.5 crore to ensure such categories of suppliers of goods and services deal either with the Centre or state, as rightly pointed out, may prove tricky. This would lead to uncertainties both among tax authorities at the Centre and states as well as the assessees in this category. This is certainly not the best way to usher in such radical tax reforms across the country.Such bizarre thought, therefore, deserves to be discarded. By its very nature, dual control under the GST regime is unavoidable. Yet, both the Centre and the states can jointly evolve a workable mechanism to mitigate any possible hardship to the assessees emanating from dual control. Incidentally, A

Letters: GST for organised sector?

Corporate India's growing legal budget

Increase in compliance costs, growing number of M&A deals and rise in litigation are fuelling India Inc's legal and professional expenses.  Sun Pharma tops the list of legal spenders, as it has been grappling with regulatory issues in the Ranbaxy acquisition over the past two years. Reliance Industries has seen its legal expenses rise by 50% in FY16, largely due to its ongoing spat with ONGC. Pharma and information technology companies were among the largest spenders on legal services

Data Tracker: Urban-rural divide

The split between urban and rural India is not a rigid divide today, but rather a continuum. Urban and rural residents hold many of the same values but express them in different ways, according to Hemant Mehta, senior vice-president, Kantar IMRB, in the recently released report 'BrandZ Top 50 Most Valued Indian Brands'. The report lists five action points for brands to gain greater access to rural markets and shows how some brands have bridged the divideThe five rules for brands targeting rural consumers are:1.Reject old assumptions: Rural consumers don't necessarily want cheaper or simpler versions of products. Often rural consumers want the same products that urban consumers enjoy2. Make the brand relevant: In contrast to the urban segment, where consumers make more discretionary purchases, rural consumers are more likely to spend money on products and services that improve their lives in fundamental ways3. Tell the story efficiently: In the past, marketers assumed that rural consume

With reference to Anjuli Bhargava's article, "A potent cocktail of problems" (September 20) due to parental and peer pressure, students opt for courses in colleges that would likely get them high-paying jobs in the future

Letters: In students' interest

I found T N Ninan's piece, "TV anchors go to war" (September 24), an out-of-the-box and illuminative contribution to the subject of war psychosis being raked up by several Indian TV news channels, in their own ceaseless war to score TRP rating points

Letters: Apt arguments

I read TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan's article, "Politics, patronage and intellect" (September 24) with great interest

Letters: EPW's influence

West Bengal has decided to allow bars to serve liquor 365 days a year and to curtail the number of dry days - when liquor shops remain shut - from 12.5 to four

Liquor traders want dry day

Anand Mahindra tweeted a picture of a flooded Mumbai road, saying, "Mumbai tonight. It's a deluge. We need to design amphibious vehicles."

The 'amphibious' SUV

There was a mad rush among Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to visit the temples of the coastal town of Kozhikode in Kerala

BJP's Kerala-style meeting

Sebi to fix promoters' side deals with PE investors

In defence of small shareholders

A rush job to meet GST's April 1 deadline can be risky

Two done, many more to go

The state can mandate ways for Indians to live together

The limits of intolerance

Tamil Nadu continues to oppose GST that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa thinks is a way to tax those states that have managed industrial progress

Pandiarajan, Jayalalithaa's chosen one

What is the truth about the sacking of J P Rajkhowa, erstwhile governor of Arunachal Pradesh?

Pranab Mukherjee's equation with Rajnath Singh

The Supreme Court has given advocates with small children something to cheer about. It has substantially reduced charges for creche facilities, which have been available on the court premises since November 2015. The welcome reduction comes against the backdrop of a petition filed by a woman advocate of the court, stating that the high rates of creches were "a deterrent". Taking heed, the court has cut registration and care fees by over 50 per cent, while also halving daily expenses from Rs 500 to Rs 250.

SC cares for the family

While several Delhiites are struggling to come to terms with the fact that Race Course Road has been rechristened Lok Kalyan Marg, Google has already adopted the new name. Check Lok Kalyan Marg on Google Maps: you get a view of the area known till two days ago as Race Course Road. The map also highlights the Prime Minister's official residence, so you know where you are.

Right place

After Bardhaman and Midnapore districts of West Bengal, farmers in Birbhum's Bolpur area are up in arms against the West Bengal government, seeking their land back. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's favourite project, Gitabitan, a satellite town near the district headquarters of Bolpur, is under construction on a piece of land acquired by the erstwhile Left front government. The farmers' agitation in the area intensified against the backdrop of the Supreme Court's Singur verdict and the Trinamool Congress government's changed stance on land use. While the land was acquired for industry, the government decided to set up a township later.

Mamata's land woes

With reference to Premvir Das' article, "Timidity does not a great nation make" (September 22), Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) said, "Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity."India should shed its image of timidity and assert itself as the big nation it is. India is an emerging economic powerhouse and should be what it is endowed with. Das' several suggestions, including scaling down of diplomatic and economic links with Pakistan, should be looked into.We need to take a leaf out of China's book: learn how it behaves and acts, like a big power demanding its share in the world order and rightfully so. China utilises its economic and demographic clout to contain access to its market. Multinationals abide by its demands.China spares no effort to ensure its demands are met. India should, too.H N Ramakrishna BengaluruLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew De

Letters: India should be assertive

The Delhi High Court's notable judgment last week lifting a four-year ban on a photocopier kiosk on the Delhi University campus from providing students with "course packs" containing material from books published by three international publishers is unlikely to end the debate around copyright laws and their application. The votaries of a better alignment between Indian and global intellectual property rights (IPRs) will deplore the ruling, which struck down a petition filed by the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses and Taylor & Francis in 2012. There is no doubt that, taken together with India's lax enforcement of anti-piracy measures and the Supreme Court's rejection of a patent extension to Novartis in April 2013, the country's reputation as an IPR enforcer is unlikely to be enhanced.The publishers, however, had based their case on a narrow interpretation of the Copyright Act, saying that the reproduction of work could be allowed in classroom instruction or in an exam paper.

Copyright lessons

Status quo by key central banks implies more FPI inflows into India

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