Crowding the busy Mini Bazaar street on the Varachha road in Surat, small time diamond traders have a new topic to gossip about&mdash;the Land of the Dragon. The hot news centres around the 12 or so Indian diamond traders who were arrested and then recently released from a detention centre in Shenzhen, China.

Asia puts the sparkle back in diamonds

Business Standard

During the course of an interview with CNN last weekend, Professor Soumitra Dutta said he was &ldquo;intrigued&rdquo; by the prospect of heading up a business school.

Newsmaker: Soumitra Dutta

They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel wrote Baroness Emma Orczy about Sir Percy Blakeney aka the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Newsmaker: Salman Rushdie

Despite a party leader who doesn&rsquo;t seem to put much faith in him and barbs on his first-time ministership, Trivedi is determined to revamp the Indian railways.

Coffee with BS: Dinesh Trivedi

I don't know who is better, Clint Eastwood or Rajkumar Hirani. I saw two back to back films, one was &lsquo;3 idiots&rsquo; on Thursday and Friday it was &lsquo;J Edgar&rsquo;. Though this non confirms my (self proclaimed) film buff status, I took a while to catch up on the top grossing cinema creations. Blockbuster or award winning films force you to think, relate and see patterns irrespective of the settings, regional or global.

Opinion: The temporal value

Pulok Chatterjee, perceived as being close to Sonia Gandhi, has joined the Prime Minister&rsquo;s Office. His brief is to get things moving. Santosh Tiwari on the PM&rsquo;s new principal secretary.

Mover & shaker

India has the highest number of think tanks in the world after the US and China; yet, not even one finds a place in the top 30 worldwide listing by the University of Pennsylvania. In the list, excluding those in America, only one entity from India figured in the top 50 -- the Delhi-based Centre for Civil Society (CCS) is at 34th position.

Major Indian think tanks are global minors

The Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has introduced a new system for issue and verification of Duty Entitlement Passbook (DEPB). The new system will significantly save transaction cost for

New DEPB system will save transaction cost for exporters

A large number of expatriate employees are deputed to work in India from the side of foreign companies. Their salary may be paid by the foreign companies, or, by Indian counterparts or, by both. 


Tax rules for expatriates

Recent amendments to the Government of India's policy for Indian companies raising foreign capital through foreign currency convertible bonds ("FCCBs") and global depository receipts ("GDRs") are now

Regressing  to price regulatory regime

Computer software development occupied the pride of place under taxation laws in India. We had Section 80HHE of the Income tax Act to exempt exports of software when the industry was going through its

Govt set to remove all service tax anomalies

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has restricted the import of second hand diesel generating sets and placed them on par withother restricted second hand capital goods such as

DGFT relaxes norms for import of inputs

The Supreme Court last week granted income tax relief to the sugar cooperatives of Maharashtra which had challenged the demand of tax on certain compulsory deductions. 


M J Antony: Income tax relief for sugar cooperatives

The finance ministry has pleasantly surprised importers with its new exemption notifications that give effect to the new Foreign Trade Policy provisions. 


T N C Rajagopalan: Contradictions in trade policy need to be ironed out

There were some political commentators who had questioned the Left parties decision in May not to join the Congress-led coalition to form the government at the Centre. 


The Left wins the first round

For Rajendra K Pachauri, last week brought a ray of sunshine through the thick smog of controversy clouding both his office and him personally. Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which Pachauri is chairman, received a clean chit from the InterAcademy Council. It also held Pachauri personally not guilty of misconduct.

R K Pachauri: Clean green

Ajay Singh is no stranger to departures. After a high-profile stint as officer on special duty in telecom, IT and information &amp; broadcasting during the NDA government, a change of regime at the Centre in 2004 left him cooling his heels. So, he and a few friends bought a defunct airline, rechristened it SpiceJet and began operations from an office outside the cargo terminal at Delhi airport.

Ajay Singh: Spreading his wings

The signboard at Kopra-Panvel, about 35 km from the existing Mumbai airport at Santa Cruz, was put up with much fanfare in 2004 after the site was finalised for the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport. Six years later, time seems to have stood still at the site &mdash; the land remains as barren, with not a soul in sight.

Navi Mumbai airport delay grounds key projects

The shift out of New Delhi, for the first time in 27 years, is meant to highlight the role of the states.

Summit comes to 'maximum city'

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