In a bid to check immigration, the UK government has changed certain visa norms for students.

Changes in UK visa norms

Business Standard

The India growth story has gained momentum over the last decade, attracting an increasing number of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) into its stock and debt markets. As domestic markets opened further, foreign investors have invested huge sums of money, through the P-Note route as well as directly, into listed and unlisted firms and across large and small companies. Notably, FIIs have and still continue to command higher influence as compared to domestic investors on the Indian markets.

The scorecard

A new job as a recruitment consultant should sound easy enough. Supplying candidates to high-profile clients and negotiating the (often astronomical) offers made is all part of the territory. One must keep their wits about them and ensure that the deal goes smoothly. All this was drilled into my head from the moment I occupied my seat at the glitzy office of my firm in a Mumbai suburban business district.

Wear deodorant at all times

Global investors who do not qualify or are not registered as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) rely on the Participatory Notes (P-Notes) route to invest in   Indian capital markets. P-Notes are a form of Offshore Derivative Instruments (ODI) issued by FIIs. Those who have applied for registration as an FII and don&rsquo;t want to wait also choose this route.

The controversy explained

From raising concern over rising public debt to exposing financial irregularities in government-run schemes, the Comptroller and Auditor General&rsquo;s audit reports on various state governments are gaining much more attention than they ever did.

Under CAG lens

Ajai Shukla provides an objective assessment of the fallout of the movement of two units of the army to the National Capital Region on January 16. It is the real, as against the stated, intentions of the army chief and the defence ministry that are still in the realm of speculation. Since the interpretation of intentions behind actions is influenced by the degree of trust between the affected parties, the incident highlighted the trust deficit between the two most important organs of the state. In a climate of mutual faith such a move of the army, even if it was not &ldquo;pre-notified&rdquo;, would have, at most, caused minor annoyance. Catapulting it to the height of a threat or a coup was the result of a complete malfunctioning of the two defence establishments.

Letters: Will the PM step in?

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan believes the recent movie on the Indian athlete-turned-dacoit Paan Singh Tomar might be a touching narration on the life of a person who won medals for the country but was forced to become a dacoit, but he emphasises that the situation in dacoit-prone areas of Chambal has changed in the last five years.

No more Paan Singhs?

This refers to A K Bhattacharya&rsquo;s column &ldquo;Moving away from coalitions?&rdquo; (New Delhi Diary, April 4). The architect of the Constitution of India, B R Ambedkar, had apprehensions about the misconduct of politicians and the grave danger that would pose to a young democracy. His fears seem to have been valid, given the way in which our current class of politicians are ruling the country.

Letters: Ambedkar's dream

A K Bhattacharya, in his column &ldquo;Moving away from coalitions?&rdquo; (New Delhi Diary, April 4), hopes that Indian voters will move away from voting in coalition governments to voting in governments with clear majorities. This shift will be enormously beneficial, but the limited choice before the Indian voter makes it impossible in the near future.

Letters: No choice for Indian voters

Apropos &ldquo;Power trip!&rdquo; (Weekend, April 7), it was delightful to see a spread of automobile museums from across the world. I&rsquo;d like to add to this list the collection of vintage car czar Pranlal Bhogilal. A Gujarati industrialist, Bhogilal, kept around 152 vintage cars near Valsad in Gujarat since his Mumbai residence did not have adequate parking space. About eight years ago, he shifted all his vehicles to Ahmedabad to a private museum that showcases his antique car collection. This museum is worth a visit.

Letters: Vintage wheels

The two national parties, the Congress and the BJP, need little excuse to attack each other. The immediate cause for enmity is the Delhi municipal corporation elections on April 15. With BJP National President Nitin Gadkari surprisingly taking centre-stage for the BJP and actively campaigning for these polls, senior Congress leaders are amused. As a veteran Congress politician wryly commented, &ldquo;If that&rsquo;s his standard, you can hardly blame him,&rdquo; and added a disparaging reference to his trader roots.

Trading insults

The chairman and managing director of a prominent Bangalore-based drug company was so furious at the media for turning up late to inaugurate an R&amp;D facility that she refused to speak to them. Reporters protested that the cars that were meant to transport them to the distant site arrived late; the firm&rsquo;s corporate communication team, in turn, blamed the PR consultants who were responsible for collecting the reporters. They, too, had an answer: traffic. Tired at the pointless finger pointing, the CMD thundered: &ldquo;You are all fired.

Firing line

Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj, who is also the governor in-charge of Kerala, has reportedly demanded a Rs 67-lakh Audi Q7 for travelling in Kerala. In view of the summer weather, he has also requested that his car have the latest accessories, which may have cost the exchequer up to Rs 80 lakh. The state government, however, considered the request a bit heavy on the taxpayer, so Raj Bhavan scaled back its demand to a Honda CR-V &mdash; although the governor already has a fleet of cars at his disposal (including two Mercedes). Though approval of the scaled-back request is awaited, the incident has clearly caused some discomfiture. Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy told reporters after a Cabinet meeting last week that he did not want to comment since the issue had to do with Raj Bhavan.

Car seva

It is fitting that former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refused to attend the 20th congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), at Kozhikode. Mr Bhattacharjee cited ill health for staying away; but as one of the few &ndash; if not the only &ndash; leaders of India&rsquo;s largest communist party imbued with some understanding of the modern world, he would have been at odds with the proceedings as much as he is with the leadership that, showing little self-awareness, accused him of &ldquo;arrogance&rdquo;. Indeed, anybody listening to the inaugural speech of CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat could be forgiven for thinking they were in a time warp. Devoid of a single new or original thought, it denounced the US (for &ldquo;imperialism&rdquo;) and the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (for &ldquo;neo-liberal policies&rdquo;) and urged the party to reconnect itself to the struggles of the working class and peasantry.

The Left marks time 

The notion that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari&rsquo;s one-day visit to India was a purely personal, private trip receiving more attention than it deserved could not quite stand up to the sight of two Pakistan air force planes landing in New Delhi and disgorging Mr Zardari and his 40-member entourage. However, this was not designed to be a headline-grabbing, summit-to-end-all-summits sort of visit. The statement read out by India&rsquo;s foreign secretary outlining what was discussed in the half-hour meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Zardari showed, instead, that both countries&rsquo; leaders are more than willing to restate positions on matters of domestic political salience &ndash; terrorism and Kashmir &ndash; while moving forward on other matters on which compromise appears easier.

Low-key lunch diplomacy

In data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week, it became clear that India&rsquo;s states are, on the whole, performing noticeably better than the Centre in controlling expenditure. As Table 1 shows, the gross fiscal deficit of all states in the estimates for 2011-12 has declined over the previous year, the first such decline for five years.

StatsGuru-09-April-12

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh is off to Finland.  He is going to address a joint sitting of Parliament at Helsinki. &ldquo;Parliament is finished here. So, I am going to Finland to  finish their Parliament, as well,&rdquo; Ramesh said.

Stray far

Who is going to be the chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC)? One of the most important names suggested by the ministry of human resource development has been put on hold by the Prime Minister&rsquo;s Office after several Muslim Members of Parliament, including one from an alliance partner, the Masjid-e-ittehadul Muslimeen, represented to the Prime Minister. UGC is headless, but then so are a dozen other government bodies.

Whose post is it anyway?

There are but a few hundred Great Indian Bustards left. The bird &mdash; one of the heaviest capable of flight, and found only in the subcontinent &mdash; is slowly vanishing. India&rsquo;s owl population is in similar decline; and the vulture, once a common sight in India&rsquo;s cities, has almost disappeared. Now comes news from the International Union for Conservation of Nature that 14 more species of birds from India are critically endangered. Aside from vultures, the IUCN lists the Himalayan Quail, once abundant, and the majestic Siberian Crane, which used to migrate in such large numbers that they would fill the sky. Some of these birds are central to the Indian landscape and to this country&rsquo;s myths. Others have an irreplaceable role in controlling the population of pests that affect crops, or of vectors for diseases that kill human beings. By some estimates, at least 82 of India&rsquo;s 1,250 bird species are fading into history.

Nowhere to fly 

More than 90 per cent of business executives in India spend anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours every day on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Skype and Google+ from their notebook PCs, smartphones and tablets, reveals a recent study

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 904 - Business Standard