Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday asked the tax department to go after low tax-paying sectors. The minister said though the applicable tax rate for companies was 30%, the average tax rate came to 24% and even lower.

'Below-average' taxpayers

Business Standard

Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel has said it was not a good time to sell profit making PSUs such as BHEL. BHEL is one of the three large state-owned players that were cleared for disinvestment over a year ago. However, due to various reasons including volatile market conditions these issues have not hit the market.

Have the good times come and gone?

To appreciate success at team sport in full measure, care must be taken not to stoop to statistics.

The man who hit cancer for a six is back

The Global Competitiveness Report 2012&ndash;2013 comes amid slow growth in major centres of economic activity, particularly in large emerging economies and key advanced economies. The index seeks to provide insight and stimulate discussion among stakeholders on strategies and policies to help countries overcome obstacles to improving competitiveness.

Road to competitive global markets

The unrelenting criticism to which the government is being subjected over coal block allocations appears to have taken its toll on ministers. At the annual Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) convention, Minister for Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises Praful Patel was reluctant to speak. As he ironically observed at the start of a brief speech, &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t say much because it seems we are the people who know the least. We are told everyday how the government should be run. Yet we have no views.&rdquo; After briefly touching on the auto component industry, he made the point that governments change but it is always the people who vote regimes to power. Ceaseless bashing, he insisted, only hampers the decision-making process.

Critical conditioning

For the Indian Railways, the chickens are already coming home to roost, even though more than half the financial year still lies ahead. The national carrier has undertaken to cut investment expenditure across the board to make up for a revenue shortfall of over Rs 3,000 crore. This is mainly the result of current Railway Minister Mukul Roy rolling back key fare revisions announced in the Railway Budget. His predecessor, Dinesh Trivedi, had to step down and pay the price for defying his party leader, Mamata Banerjee, by revising fares, which had not been changed in years. In the process his efforts to turn the Railways around were nullified, and his successor has put the Railways firmly back on the path of inexorable decline.

Railways goes downhill again

The European Central Bank closed a landmark meeting on Thursday with its chief, Mario Draghi, saying that &ldquo;the euro is irreversible&rdquo; and that the Bank would prop it up by buying &ldquo;unlimited&rdquo; amounts of bonds from troubled euro zone governments. This is a departure for the conservative ECB &mdash; though it has hedged its support of the besieged euro-zone periphery with conditions.

The world of recession

A basic health insurance cover would include coverage for hospitalisation and surgical treatments up to a certain limit. It is also possible that it might carry a co-payment clause. Benefits might not include critical illness coverage. Whereas, a comprehensive health policy offers coverage against hospitalisation, surgical treatments and critical illnesses. There is a possibility that all the benefits might not be covered entirely by a single comprehensive coverage. It is, therefore, advisable to choose between various insurance plans or opt for riders to make your health insurance cover complete.

General Insurance: Gaurav Garg

Certainly, the current scandal over coal that has convulsed the media and stalled Parliament was on everyone&rsquo;s mind at the ACMA convention. In his speech &ldquo;Motorcycle Maharaja&rdquo; Pawan Munjal said as a child he recognised &ldquo;Colgate&rdquo; as a toothpaste that made your teeth white; with &ldquo;Coalgate&rdquo;, the association was with something dark. He also observed that mass hysteria has been caused by technology leading to the exodus of north-eastern people from south and west India. Yet it is this uncertainty, he claimed, that holds the key to future success. &ldquo;The future belongs to those companies who can embrace uncertainty and do rapid mid-course corrections in these times.

Change in black & white

Coal block allotments may have sent the government into a tizzy, but in North Block, another kind of allotment is causing some anxiety. Financial Services Secretary D K Mittal has been allotted a room (earlier occupied by Joint Secretary Expenditure Madhulika Sukul) in North Block, close to Finance Minister P Chidambaram&rsquo;s office. This is in addition to Mittal&rsquo;s office in nearby Jeevan Deep building.

Room with a view

The food and consumer affairs ministry has proposed that stockholding limits on pulses and edible oils be retained for another year beyond October. In addition, it wants these curbs extended to rice, too. This is misguided, and will cause more problems than it wants to resolve. Instead of controlling prices, as is intended, these restrictions on trade will instead push them upwards. This is straightforward economic logic; these measures will severely constrain supply. In the shorter run, they will hurt growers of pulses and oilseeds by keeping trade out of the mandis during the post-harvest kharif marketing season that begins from end-October. As it is, these farmers usually don&rsquo;t even receive the minimum support prices for want of reliable arrangements for the procurement of these commodities. On paper, some apex cooperatives are supposed to lend price support to pulses and oilseeds, but they operate only in a few markets and buy only small quantities.

Repeating a mistake

The visit of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna to Pakistan has produced an agreement to liberalise the visa procedures for travellers between the two countries. While some of the processes will make pilgrimages and visits for tourism easier, much attention has focused, rightly, on the significant easing of restrictions on business travel. It has been reported that business visitors with an income of more than Rs 50 lakh or representing a business with a turnover of over Rs 30 crore will be eligible for a one-year multiple entry visa allowing them to visit up to 10 cities. In addition, the onerous requirement for most visitors, that they report their presence to the local police, has been eased for travellers on business visas. This is an important step forward for economic engagement.

Towards interdependence

The loss of Dr Verghese Kurien is irreparable, nobody can fill in the vacuum created by his sad demise. Amul fraternity has lost a fatherly figure. He was a father to everybody. A great institution builder, visionary and most importantly, he built institutions for the lower strata of the society, not for the rich or affluent. People, for whom nobody was ready to build a management institution.

Will never compromise on value system Dr Kurien created: Sodhi

A routine tea party in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior leaders of the government and members of the Opposition were present, remained tense this time on the last day of the Parliament session. Senior leaders of BJP &mdash; LK Advani and Gopinath Munde &mdash; who were present in the meeting along with the PM and Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, hardly spoke to each other during the meeting and junior leaders who were present remained silent most of the time. BJP leaders said this kind of tense atmosphere was seen during the winter session in 2010, when the entire session was a washout because of BJP, which wanted a joint parliamentary committee for the 2G telecom spectrum scam.

A tense tea party

Three-time Member of Parliament Hansraj Ahir might have remained unnoticed by the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for many years, but the undergraduate politician is now being recognised by senior leaders of the party. Things have changed for Ahir; even the most senior leader of BJP, L K Advani, waves at him when he meets Ahir in the corridors of Parliament. In another instance of appreciation, when Ahir got up from his seat to speak in Parliament, Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, looked at him and said now it was the turn of &lsquo;coal nayak&rsquo; to make a statement in the House.

Coal-nayak Ahir 

The sharp reaction from the Prime Minister&rsquo;s Office to a report in The Washington Post last week that said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was &ldquo;depressed&rdquo;, &ldquo;silent&rdquo; and a &ldquo;tragic figure&rdquo; is in keeping with its noticeable hypersensitivity to how Dr Singh is portrayed in the foreign press. The report itself was not novel in its content &mdash; indeed, some of the most damning quotes, from historian Ramachandra Guha, had previously appeared in the Delhi-based monthly The Caravan last year &mdash; but it nevertheless made headlines in much of the Indian media. In some ways, therefore, the PMO&rsquo;s reaction was in keeping with that of some others. Several questions are thrown up by this set of circumstances.

Look closer to home  

At the Common Admission Test (CAT) coaching centre, I teach English and Rajeev, Maths. This Wednesday, Rajeev had a class at 6:30 in the evening. Around 6 p m, I was in office making English material for a forthcoming test. Students started coming in at 6:20 and by 6:35 the class was full. No sign of Rajeev. 6:40, 6:45... Nalini, the counsellor, called his number but someone else picked up. We got seriously worried. Finally, at 7 p m, with students inspecting the door repeatedly, Rajeev walked in. Lo and behold, he was drunk. He could barely stand straight and when he walked, he shifted from one foot to the other. Nalini and I, the smiles gone from our faces, journeyed from disbelief to alarm in seconds.

Keeping up the spirits

Amazon&rsquo;s new Kindle Fire tablets aim to challenge Apple iPad&rsquo;s dominance in the market. Amazon has introduced devices that may not have all features of an iPad, but are attractive offerings in terms of price, display and size.

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