Attacks on Indians in Australia, and a subsequent steep drop in Indian student enrollment, have pressed Australian universities to engage more with India.

Australian colleges reach out to India

Business Standard

An unviable minimum support price (MSP) for rice has forced farmers in Andhra Pradesh to leave their lands fallow. The movement is spreading to other states.

AP farmers go on 'Crop holiday'

The prospects of buoyancy in the growth of the Indian economy which was predicted sometime back seems to be fading and increasingly clouded by heightened uncertainty. The growing concerns in the world economy regarding the prevailing low growth, fiscal woes and financial pressures in the US and European Union are further adding to the gloomy outlook. Reflecting the sentiment, the IMF has trimmed its global growth forecast yet again to around 4% in 2011 and 2012. In the domestic economy, various data sets released within the span of the past few months have failed to provide any indication to the direction or magnitude of the economic activity. The sharp revisions in numbers along with volatile data sets are making it increasingly difficult not only to gauge the present scenario but also to estimate future growth prospects.

The current scenario - Is GDP to remain subdued?

Driving from Bangalore to Mysore in an hour&rsquo;s time is still an elusive dream due to a project stalled by accusations of a land grab and a faulty MoU.

Bangalore's expressway project stuck in Gridlock

What a difference two years can make. In 2009, the Unique Identification Project spearheaded by the government&rsquo;s then golden boy, Nandan Nilekani, was a much publicised and pampered one. Today, it has become everybody&rsquo;s favourite whipping boy.

Nilekani's UID Under Siege

The National Advisory Council draws its exalted status from the fact that UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi heads it.

Power centre or toothless body?

A new team at the ministry has junked antiquated rules, introduced sensible new ones and given India Inc a boost.

Corporate Affairs Ministry launches Makeover

RBI&rsquo;s policy tightening has worked; rate cycle could be close to peaking out.

Slowing IIP no reason to panic

If more qualifications were needed, a new one has been added to the ones you need to be a Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC). Currently one of the jobs most prized by retiring Indian bureaucrats, a CVC means you stay on delhi till you&rsquo;re 65 and can be as intrusive in the affairs of the influential and the powerful as you want.

Newsmaker: Pradeep Kumar

Criticism may have pushed the govt out of its lethargy, but the list of Bills is rather long.

Policy paralysis not over yet

India Inc reminisces the historic day when the country&rsquo;s economic policies got a new direction. Business Standard catches up with some of the witnesses.

What reforms meant for the government and its finances

It is ultimately ironic that a state that witnessed much of its male population voyage to the Gulf in search of work is now home to a more domestic story of mass migration.

Kerala, a 'Dubai' for Bengali migrants

MPs and MLAs are getting back to the classroom for crash courses on governance, media-management and other issues.

Politically-correct classroom

The place of performance of services was the most disputed issue, next only to classification disputes, of the erstwhile regime of service taxation. After introduction of the negative list and definition of â€˜serviceâ€™ per se, the introduction of the Place of Provision of Service Rules, 2012, (â€˜PoPSâ€™ rules) seems to be a more scientific approach to determine the location of services. The PoPS rules combined with the concept of â€˜taxable territoryâ€™ have comprehensively replaced the imports and export rules prevalent in the erstwhile regime of service taxation.

Vivek Mishra: Place of provision of services rules: Scope for clarity

The Union Budget season has begun. North Block, headquarters of the finance ministry, is busy with pre-Budget meetings with stakeholders. The most significant of them so far was the one with the economists. There are conflicting versions of whether all or some economists were in favour of a higher tax on the super-rich.

A K Bhattacharya: The politics of a super-rich tax

Complex pricing of energy always causes a cascading set of problems. Consider the recent decision taken by the United Progressive Alliance government to allow oil marketing companies the freedom to alter diesel prices at the pump in small doses. The idea is to eventually wipe out under-recoveries â€” losses on each litre of diesel sold â€” which eventually find their way into the governmentâ€™s accounts and push up the fiscal deficit, already unsustainably high.

Keeping it simple

Gujarat&rsquo;s investor-friendly policies have spawned a thousand wealth-creators.

The entrepreneurial state

Pankaj Patel has used acquisitions and alliances to take the group to the next level.

Deal-maker extraordinary

A product and marketing innovator, Piruz Khambatta has made Rasna a household name.

Soft-drink concentrate king

Karsanbhai Patel&rsquo;s innovative marketing strategies pulled the rug from under the multinationals.

Inventor of low-cost detergents

In the early 1990s, Lalbhai withdrew all of the company&rsquo;s products, focussing purely on denim.

Denim sultan

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