The number of patent filings in India may be growing but with low R&amp;D spend, it is still a long way behind that of global leaders (Click on graphic)

A patent problem

Business Standard

Hewlett-Packard recently said it had taken a $8.8-billion accounting charge after discovering &ldquo;serious accounting improprieties&rdquo; and &ldquo;outright misrepresentations&rdquo; at Autonomy, a British software maker it bought for $10 billion last year.

A long line of accounting scandals

The inheritance tax has caused heartburn in many countries, even forcing billionaires' children to migrate to avoid paying the tax. One such case, reported by Reuters, is that of the Rausings, inheritors of the Tetra Pak packaging fortune, who moved to England three decades ago to avoid paying high Swedish inheritance tax. Sweden has since abolished the tax.

A global experiment

At a time when online posts on a social networking platform by two students has created a furore in the online and offline worlds, security firm McAfee has come up with a survey which shares insights on how Indian teenagers behave online. The survey shows one in every four teens has been a victim of cruel behaviour online, 35 per cent willingly access pornography and almost all have been active in social networks since the age of 13. Here's a picture of the dark alleys of the online world.

Lives of Indian teens in the virtual world

Over five decades IITs are famous for the merit based admissions and very negligible tuition fees. Also most of the students belong to villages. Those students were passionately working hard to get to IITs as the fee burden on the family was less. Now the hiking of the fees may be marginal from institute&rsquo;s point of view but this means a lot to those student. Loan requires heavy documentation and ultimately adds pressure to students. Instead IITs should look for options such as corporate sponsorship's, funds from government, and alumni, among others.

Student's corner

This refers to the edit &ldquo;Swift closure&rdquo; (November 22). The nation and the government appear to be in a self-congratulatory mood over the hanging of the lone surviving Pakistani gunman from the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai. Fortunately, nobody thought of making Kasab aware of the strange provision in our legal system that makes even a presidential rejection of a mercy plea subject to judicial review. Otherwise, the case would have dragged on for some more time.

Letters: The Kasab conundrum

With the fiscal deficit rising, the government is under pressure to moblise revenue. The recent telecom spectrum auction has not fetched the government enough revenue. Tax collection as a percentage of the GDP is low and our finance minister is adept in identifying new avenues to improve collection. In 2005, during his earlier tenure, he introduced the fringe benefit tax. Now, he could be looking at inheritance tax.

The ground realities should not be ignored

External affairs minister: The information I have is as under the law we are required and in sense of propriety we attempted to convey to the Pakistan Foreign Office that this decision had been taken and the execution will be done this morning.

'Our support for the Palestinian cause remains undiluted'

The summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, at which India was an observer, concluded last week with a reaffirmation of the virtues of free trade and regional integration. US President Barack Obama&rsquo;s visit to Phnom Penh to the summit was preceded by a stopover in Myanmar, which only underlined the new importance of the country as a source of natural resources. Of course, for India, Myanmar means even more &mdash; particularly in the context of trade with Southeast Asia. Good relations with its eastern neighbour are essential if new communications networks are to be built that will reduce non-tariff barriers to trade between India and Asean countries.

Leading questions

Not for a decade has growth in gross domestic product been as low as it is likely to be this financial year. Finance Minister P Chidambaram now says that it may be in the 5.5-6.0 per cent range; the Reserve Bank&rsquo;s figure is midway, at 5.7 per cent. More worryingly, while the slowdown has been caused very substantially by a shortfall in investment, there seem to be few sources of recovery on this front.

The sources of growth

The government has finally kicked the disinvestment ball a little further towards the goal of achieving the target figure of Rs 30,000 crore this financial year. With luck it might get there, though the lacklustre state of the stock market is no help &mdash; as demonstrated by the response to the ONGC share auction, which was salvaged only by the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) picking up the bulk of what was on offer.

India's own fiscal cliff

Former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who is expected to quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on December 9, has found a new office for his recently formed Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), and it is one with a chequered political history. The new headquarters is a small house in Rannebennur Colony that has been the political office of almost all the major parties that have contested in the state Assembly elections. Till Yeddyurappa&rsquo;s supporters converted it into the KJP office, it was the BJP&rsquo;s Karnataka office. But the house was first occupied by the Congress, then the Janata Dal, and even former Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde of the Lok Shakti was once an occupant of the house. For a very brief period, the house was occupied by the Janata Dal (United), too.

House parties

When Finance Minister P Chidambaram visited the central processing centre (CPC) during a trip to Bangalore this week, officials of the income tax (I-T) department did not waste the opportunity. They asked Chidambaram to write in their visitors&rsquo; book and he duly obliged by showering praise on CPC, saying it represented a technological leap for the I-T department and he was greatly impressed by it. Revenue Secretary Sumit Bose and Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairperson Poonam Saxena added similar comments. But CPC Bangalore did not think it necessary to restrict this fulsome praise from the finance ministry brass to the visitors' book, so it uploaded the comments on the I-T website for the world to see.

Spreading the good word

Alphonsus Stoelinga, Netherlands&rsquo; Ambassador to India, had a revelation. When he arrived in India, he learnt that Alphonso is a popular variety of mango available here. So, he jocularly says: &ldquo;I am a mango man. I am just an aam aadmi.&rdquo; He finds that a perfect way to break the ice with people he meets.

'Aam aadmi' ambassador

This refers to the report &ldquo;New bank licences 8-9 months after enabling legislation&rdquo; (November 17). If the finance ministry is confident that an amendment in the Banking Regulation Act is not necessary to give the powers sought by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for approving new banks, why is it not trying to convince the apex bank first? The finance minister&rsquo;s statement that the ministry has &ldquo;written&rdquo; to RBI to start receiving applications is absurd.

Letters: Make RBI whim-free

Apropos the editorial &ldquo;Bequest tax worries&rdquo;(November 15), the abolition of estate duty was necessitated by poor collection of revenues, and relatively high collection expense. But if the basic objective behind such an inheritance tax is reducing wealth inequality, it cannot be faulted. Making the rich pay more is easy, but as we have seen, it results in more tax-evasion. In this context, the suggestion made in the editorial to introduce exempt-exempt-tax scheme may be appropriate.

Letters: Taxing inheritance

This refers to the debate &ldquo;What&rsquo;s better: a single-member or a three-member CAG?&rdquo; (November 21). Nothing should be done out of anger, and far less a constitutional amendment. The people of India attach sanctity to the Constitution, and, so should the government. The timing of the government&rsquo;s intention to form a triumvirate of Comptroller and Auditor Generals (CAGs) shows that it is not backed by any logic, but a need to settle a score with an incumbent.

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