Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee&rsquo;s task in drafting this coming Budget is unenviable. He has to balance growth-enhancing measures with a move back to fiscal sustainability. While there are differences about details, there is a surprising degree of consensus among observers on the broad features of the approach he should take. He will have to transform India&rsquo;s creaking, leaking, overreaching subsidy regime; he will have to push for more reform across sectors; and he will have to broaden the tax net and roll back the tax cuts introduced after the global financial crisis in 2008. Yet not everybody in India Inc seems to agree to this approach. Or that, at least, seems to be the thrust of recent statements from industry organisations. The pre-Budget memorandum from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), for example, agrees that fiscal space is limited. Yet it goes on to demand exemptions for industry from this agenda.

Time for good sense

Business Standard

A recent report of the Global Wind Energy Council exposes India&rsquo;s modest performance vis-&agrave;-vis more green energy-conscious nations in using wind as a renewable source of power. The fresh addition to wind energy capacity in India in 2011 was merely 3,000 megawatts (Mw), which compares very poorly indeed with China&rsquo;s 18,000 Mw &mdash; and is just a fraction of the 41,000 Mw capacity created globally.

In the shade

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is among the most discreet of politicians. So, when he makes a controversial remark, it can be assumed that it is the product of measured judgement rather than hot-headed indiscretion.

No-Go Organisations?

As Infosys Technologies celebrates 25 years of its glorious journey, it is useful to take stock of what this unique enterprise has come to symbolise, so as to learn from its achievements and also

Glorious 25 years

The data released by the ministry of commerce and industry last week indicate a high degree of buoyancy on the trade front. For the period April-July 2006, merchandise exports grew by over 34 per cent

Export exuberance

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been viewed by many people, not least the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, as the best solution to a host of constraints and irritants that dog the investment

Not special enough

Several factors have contributed to the Indian Railways showing all-round improvement in the current year. The indications are that the national carrier will end 2005-06 with not just a decent rise in

On the fast track

The country can expect to see another round of reductions in long-distance telecom tariffs, following the One India tariff announcement, though it's unlikely that rural India will join in the party

Who`ll foot the bill?

The worst fears about the dreaded bird flu striking India have come true. As was apprehended, the infection has arrived with migratory birds. Fortunately, neither the government nor the poultry

Preventing a pandemic

Any finance minister should be asking himself, as he prepares his Budget, what it should be remembered for. Ten years after first rising to his feet on Budget day, Mr Chidambaram is about to become

A fifth Budget

The preliminary crop production estimates for 2005-06, released by the agriculture ministry, conceal more than what they reveal. The numbers present this year's farm harvest as being a shade better

A story of farm decline

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence on January 1, 1995. Having completed a decade of existence, during which it has evoked the entire spectrum of opinion from being the saviour of

The trade decade

It is not without reason that the cow in India has become an object of national and international awe. Admittedly, a society has the absolute right to determine what it will regard as holy and

Cow and awe

The controversy over textiles and garments trade data has led to questioning of DGCIS (Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence &amp; Statistics) data in general; until the raw or provisional

Healthy growth

The Punjab government's move to seek World Bank assistance for its proposed Rs 640-crore agriculture diversification programme needs to be viewed as a small step in the right direction.


Punjab's agri challenge

The promised Outcomes Budget of the central government came last week in the form of a 723-page document, badly printed, poorly bound and filled with minutiae. 


Important outcome

In the name of re-classification, the freight rate for sugar, which is an essential commodity, has been increased. 


Not so sweet after all

The government, it is reported, is anxious to reform governance. So it has come up with a new idea. Catch them young, says a new proposal that is being attributed to the Prime Minister, and train them

Not a great idea

The encouraging quarterly results that the Indian IT sector has just put behind it should not let it lapse into complacency. 


Up the value chain

S M Krishna, one of the better chief ministers of one of the better run states (Karnataka), has just shot himself in the foot. 



No excuse for bad roads

As was expected, the mini-ministerial meet of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Montreal last week failed to narrow differences on contentious issues prior to the full ministerial conference at

Time to negotiate

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 490 - Editorial Comment