Twelve years after introducing current account convertibility (in his role then as finance minister), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has done well to re-focus attention on the next step, capital

That forgotten goal

Business Standard

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawars announcement in Parliament on the formulation of a new agricultural insurance scheme is neither the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. More than half a

It won`t work

If the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India is being pursued in order to arrest the two airlines loss of market share over the years (as some reports have suggested), it is a bad idea. A merged

Expect turbulence

The plea in Mumbai last week by the Planning Commissions deputy chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, for taking agricultural development into areas like food processing, horticulture, life sciences and

Getting firms interested

The continuing boom in sugar scrips is neither unexpected nor unwarranted. These have been on the upswing for quite some time, though the gains in the past week have been even more easily noticed than

Sweet spot

Private insurers in India have just completed five years of existence. It is creditable that they have taken more than 26 per cent of the market in both the life and non-life segments, having

Questions on insurance

The South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta), replacing the South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement (Sapta), has come into effect this month, and implements the understanding reached at the Islamabad

A very limited step

The governments decision to slash the monthly foodgrain quota under the public distribution system (PDS), and to raise prices for households above the poverty line (or APLs) is a politically bold

Limited subsidy impact

Though Indias leading businessmen have made a direct pitch to Finance Minister P Chidambaram to do away with the fringe benefit tax (FBT) and replace it, if need be, with a nominal increase in the

Foul Business Tax

Economists have been crying wolf about global macro-economic balances for a while now. Concern has been expressed about the combination of: the large US fiscal deficit; the large US current account

Build on high ground

President George Bush will be here in about 45 days. One of the things he will be expected to deliver is the nuclear deal that he signed with the Prime Minister last July, but it is unlikely that the

Hum, Tum, aur Woh log

As Indian companies step up acquisitions overseas, making a success of running international businesses becomes important. The challenge for many is at the time of entry as well as when attempting

Managing overseas

The two-day meeting of donor countries to raise funds for combating the bird flu menace ended in Beijing yesterday with financial commitments amounting to $1.8 billion, thus exceeding the target of $1

Tackling the menace

Indian software companies have turned in almost uniformly good results in the third quarter of the current financial year. As several companies have posted handsome sequential (compared to the

Software rides high

In raising the reverse repo rate (the rate which it pays to banks to park their excess funds with it) by 25 basis points in a second successive announcement, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has

Excessive caution

But it's an extreme weapon, to be used judiciously

Enter compulsory licensing

Rahul Gandhi must alter system his mother and PM worked out

Reforming diarchy

On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of India released its third-quarter review of monetary policy, and relieved the markets and many in industry by cutting the repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.75 per cent. In addition, the cash reserve ratio, or CRR, applicable to scheduled banks was cut by a similar margin to 4 per cent of their net demand and time liabilities &ndash; a step which will infuse an additional Rs 18,000 crore into the system.

Now, the supply side

The summit commemorating the 20th anniversary of India&rsquo;s &ldquo;partnership&rdquo; with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, was held in New Delhi on December 20 and 21. Unusually for an occasion where so many heads of government arrived, it was kept low-key; this is all the more remarkable because its centrepiece was agreements for free trade in services and for investment. This comes &ndash; as the leaders of the Philippines and Vietnam pointed out in their speeches &ndash; when many countries in Southeast Asia are growing increasingly concerned about the sheer scale of Chinese influence in their region, and it thus has implications that go well beyond the domain of economics. As the culmination of a sustained focus on India&rsquo;s &ldquo;Look East&rdquo; policy steered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it is a triumph for both foreign policy management and for reformist, open economics.

The grand Eastern U-turn

Over the past nine Independence Days, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has spoken often of the list of welfarist measures that his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has promised to deliver. Some of them have become a reality, and are now being expanded. This year, for instance, he spoke of the National Rural Health Mission, while there are also several other measures that have taken very long to get off the ground &mdash; such as the attempt to improve the skills of India&rsquo;s young people. But the economic growth that underpins such giveaways has always been presented as an achievement, rather than as a promise. That this is a mistaken approach has been made clear by the fact that, with high growth vanishing, the UPA is finding it difficult to break out of the template of welfarism that it set for itself.

Create the consensus

The notification of new rules for the Right to Information (RTI) Act announced two weeks ago has raised the bar for information seekers. The new rules mean that many RTI applications could cost more. Also, in cases where the applicant appeals to the Central Information Commission (CIC) due to a reluctance on the part of the relevant public authority to provide information, the rules imply that the applicant must be present or available on video-conference. This provision is wrong-headed: it could inconvenience applicants, or even put them in physical danger.

Too high a bar

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

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