Sectors with foreign direct investment (FDI) caps attracted $50.7 billion between April 2000 and August 2012, accounting for 28 per cent of India's FDI inflow of $179.14 billion. If most sectoral caps are withdrawn, as suggested by the Reserve Bank of India, FDI flows might get a boost.

Hope for FDI?

Business Standard

Millions of people across eastern United States struggled to recover from the destruction wrought by powerful storm Sandy, which knocked out power to huge swaths of the nation's most densely populated region, swamped New York&rsquo;s subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan's financial district (Click on graphic)

Tracing Sandy's aftermath

Is the Kejriwal effect having an impact on the government&rsquo;s revenue-raising agenda? Outlining the fiscal consolidation road map ahead of the Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s quarterly review of monetary policy this week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government had no plans to sell stakes held by its arm, the Specified Undertaking of UTI (SUUTI), in several listed companies, including blue-chips ITC, Larsen &amp; Toubro and Axis Bank. Why this reluctance when the government badly needs revenue? A senior finance ministry official explained that the government was cautious because of the possibility that these stakes would end up in the hands of big private corporations, thereby attracting charges of collusion. &ldquo;You never know, anybody can raise question these days attributing motives behind the decision,&rdquo; the official said.

What's a sellout?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail may be a signed, sealed and delivered deal as far as the government is concerned, but the traders&rsquo; community is unfazed. Every other week, its representative organisation thinks of innovative ways to protest against the policy that it insists will impact livelihoods.

Buffaloes in government

What happened at the Haldia dock complex in West Bengal last week is likely to be compared with Tata Motors&rsquo; decision four years ago to abandon its Nano car project in Singur, less than 40 kilometres north of the state&rsquo;s capital city of Kolkata. In October 2008, Tata Motors decided to pull out of the small-car project as the state government, then led by the Left Front, failed to provide adequate safety to its employees who were being threatened by a protest movement spearheaded by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee.

Haldia's Singur moment

Following the government&rsquo;s decision to increase the price of diesel and introduce a cap on the number of subsidised gas cylinders available for household use in September, there was a reasonable amount of hope that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had learned some lessons. First, that it was essential to reduce the fuel subsidy bill, the most obvious component of the ballooning central fiscal deficit.

Dithering on all cylinders

If a bank deposit holder does not provide Permanent Account Number (PAN) details to the bank, the interest income on the deposit will attract a higher tax deduction at source (TDS).

Tipping point

Every Monday, Business Standard analyses one family&rsquo;s finances and suggests a suitable way forward (Click on graphic)
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Case study

I have to repay a personal and a home loan. I am concerned the repayment burden will fall on my family, if something happens to me.

Life Insurance: V Philip

Asia Pacific organisations are having difficulty in executing leadership development strategies as the infrastructure (processes, people, and technology), necessary to truly develop leaders, are not aligned, finds a survey.

Leadership in Asia Pacific

The government is off to a slow start to the disinvestment programme for 2012-13. Of the Rs 30,000 crore that has to be achieved this financial year, less than one per cent has gone into the government&rsquo;s kitty.

Crawling on disinvestment front

Pali, the ancient Indian language associated with the Buddha&rsquo;s teachings, may have lost its practical use a long time ago, but aspirants to the Indian civil services swear by it because it is a high-scoring paper. Now, a high-level committee set up to propose reforms in the civil services exam wants &ldquo;Literature of the Pali language&rdquo; out of the list of papers that candidates can take, unless he or she had it as a subject in graduation. The Union Public Service Commission, or UPSC &ndash; the organisation responsible for civil services exams &ndash; has supported the expert committee&rsquo;s view. It&rsquo;s up to the government now to take a decision &mdash; but, as with all things cultural in India, the matter isn&rsquo;t that straightforward. There are supposedly religious sentiments attached to the archaic language that Opposition politicians might raise. Besides, many would-be bureaucrats might be disappointed, if this paper is struck off the list.

Un-Pali-table truth

As Indians increase in aspiration and wealth, it is inevitably reflected in their diet. Eggs, of course, and milk products. But the increase in demand is perhaps most visible for protein-rich foods like meat and poultry. While the supply response to the increase in demand for meat and poultry hasn&rsquo;t been enough to control a steep rise in their prices, at least a ramp-up in supply capability can be imagined and planned. When it comes to seafood, however, little of the same vision comes into play. After all, is not India surrounded by sea, rich in rivers? Will not the ocean provide? Alas, no. The output from marine fisheries is undergoing a prolonged stagnation. The total availability of seafood has remained static at around 3 million tonnes since the 1990s &mdash; though, thankfully, fish supplies from inland waters have maintained a steady uptrend. Clearly, a sizeable proportion of the sustainable fish production potential of India&rsquo;s fisheries sector remains untapped.

Broadening the nets 

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari is upset with former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa. He feels the two leaders are causing problems for the party by threatening to form their own parties in their respective states, and they don&rsquo;t want to share authority in their states with other BJP leaders. &ldquo;The two leaders, Vasundhara Raje and B S Yeddyurappa, are indulging in &lsquo;blackmail tactics&rsquo; with Nitin Gadkari because they know he is going through a difficult time with repeated allegations of corruption levelled against him,&rdquo; said a senior party leader.

Political blackmail?

The musical chairs surrounding the newly sworn-in Council of Ministers just doesn&rsquo;t seem to cease. Rashtrapati Bhavan announced yet another change of portfolio on Friday evening. S Jagathrakshakan, who was sworn in as minister of state (MoS) for new and renewable energy, has now been reassigned the commerce and industry ministry. Prior to that, MoS for Defence Lal Chand Kataria was directed to wait before assuming charge. Two days later, he was shifted to the rural development ministry. This was because another minister from Rajasthan, Jitendra Singh, had been appointed MoS for defence. That this game of musical chairs is certainly not over is evident from the fact that nobody else has been reassigned the new and renewable energy portfolio. Moreover, the power corridors are abuzz that current MoS, D Purandeswari, may be promoted to MoS (independent charge) in the textiles ministry.

Musical chairs

If you're feeling weighed down by the gloom and doom in the economy this Diwali, don?t lose heart.

Affordable luxury

The mobile phone would easily be the most despised gadget, if only someone quantified the many violations that are carried out in its name. What was meant to get your Mummy closer to you is used by all and sundry to intrude upon your personal time, without so much as a guilt pang. On the contrary, companies now expect employees to be on call 24x7 &ldquo;should something urgent arise&rdquo;. This stress on work as more important than life (that despicable either-or paradigm) might have its origin in Calvinist notions of propriety, but is doing a lot of harm to today&rsquo;s brain-addled workforce.

Mobile but jammed

At one level, the ongoing tussle between the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the Anil Ambani-controlled Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) may confirm the misgivings of those who think public-private partnerships (PPPs) are a risky way of bridging the infrastructure gap. At another level, it could hold valuable lessons for government agencies in how not to implement PPP projects. The airport metro link collaboration was something of a showcase.

Lessons in failure

Homes in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata that had analogue cable television went blank last night. The Madras High Court has given the residents of Chennai, where only 62 per cent of connections have been digitised, time till November 5 to switch over to the digital system or face a similar blackout. The latest reports suggest that digitisation has been near universal in Mumbai and 95 per cent in Delhi.

Business Standard

Business Standard

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