Any Budget can be evaluated on a number of criteria. Here, briefly, is a check-list of benchmarks by which today's pronouncements can be scored. First, from the perspective of the finance ministry's

Budget 2008: Assessing the Budget

Business Standard

In recent months, the US dollar has depreciated against virtually all major currencies, most significantly against the euro and the pound and, to a lesser extent, against the rupee and other

Dollar in the dumps?

The board of governors of the US Federal Reserve System decided at its meeting on Tuesday to cut the target for its benchmark federal funds rate by 25 basis points. The vote to cut was unanimous, but

Turbulent ride ahead

The Prime Minister was doubtless being both sincere and rational when he spoke over the week-end about the need to curb the ballooning subsidy bill, especially since much of the bill does not benefit

Words not enough

The Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI), the oldest of what used to be three apex development finance institutions (the other two being ICICI and IDBI), has just called off a strategic sale

Letting go

In matters of public policy and governance, arriving at the right balance between the letter and the spirit of the law has always posed a tricky problem for those who have to manage governments.

No room for denial

In July and August this year, the sub-prime crisis in the US fuelled fears of a recession which, given the strong inter-linkages between countries across the world, would very likely translate into a

Not over yet

While wild animals have received a good deal of attention from the viewpoint of preservation, economically important livestock have not been as fortunate. Consequently, regardless of their commercial

Now, endangered livestock

Unlike earthquakes and other such natural disasters which cannot be predicted with any degree of accuracy, floods are easily predictable as it usually takes a river many hours, even days, to breach

Avoidable loss

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) numbers for June 2007, released last Friday, indicate a persistence of the somewhat unbalanced pattern of growth that was evident in the numbers for the first

Continuing imbalance

One notable feature of the current worldwide financial upheaval is how quickly everyone turned towards the central banks of the world for a remedy. And, of course, some of them responded with alacrity

Damned if they do?

The recent moves by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to simultaneously raise the repo rate and the cash reserve ratio (CRR) almost a month ahead of the scheduled quarterly announcement has sparked off

Finger in the dyke?

A recent report indicates that the share of private equity (PE) investments in listed companies in India, which accounted for as much as a third of all investments in 2005, fell to 22 per cent in 2006

Private equity trends

Earlier this week, the empowered committee of state finance ministers endorsed a formula for the phase-out of the central sales tax (CST). This body was the critical instrument for the implementation

Beyond CST

It&rsquo;s yesterday once more at business school campuses: summer job placements this year seemed like final placements four or five years ago. At the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, for example, as many as 75 firms out of a total 230 didn&rsquo;t get the chance to make offers as the process ended ahead of schedule. The summer placement report card suggests 2013 may be a much better year than 2012 for jobs &mdash; IIM Lucknow placed 453 students in a record five days and IIM Calcutta&rsquo;s 449 students secured job offers in four days. Even the newbie, IIM Rohtak, saw 53 companies participating with the highest stipend crossing Rs 1 lakh. Beyond IIM, the 240 students of XLRI Jamshedpur got over 280 offers in four days, while at Mumbai-based Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, many companies returned to the campus after a year&rsquo;s gap.

Green shoots for jobs

Nobody knows the name of the 23-year-old student who died on Saturday after she was brutally raped nearly two weeks ago by six men in a white bus with tinted windows that moved unchecked through South Delhi. But aspects of her biography have been reported. Put together, they build a picture that provides a stark and revealing contrast to what is known about those accused of the crime. In a way, as India enters another year with its growth potential intact but ever further from being turned into reality, the contrast between the young woman and her attackers also shows the two paths that India can take from here on. And, importantly, the choice between those two paths isn&rsquo;t purely a matter of politics or of social reform &mdash; it&rsquo;s a matter of making the right economic choices.

India's two futures

For two hours after midnight on January 1, 2013, the United States headed off the dreaded &ldquo;fiscal cliff&rdquo;. Then the US Senate voted to pass a package that averts the worst of the disaster for now. If cleared by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the immediate prospect of harsh spending cuts that would almost certainly lead to a fresh recession will be avoided.

Kicking it down the road

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released data on India&rsquo;s balance of payments during the second quarter of 2012-13 on Monday that made for sobering reading of challenges as India heads into the new calendar year. The challenges ahead are severe. The headline number: 5.4 per cent.

A year of weakness

The Union Cabinet&rsquo;s decision to raise the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat by five per cent for the current rabi season defies logic in several respects. For one, the effective increase of Rs 65 per quintal conforms neither to the recommendation of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which wanted the MSP to be frozen at last year&rsquo;s level, nor to the agriculture ministry&rsquo;s suggestion, which favoured a step-up of Rs 100 a quintal. The announcement&rsquo;s timing, too, is questionable &mdash; the bulk of the wheat crop has already been planted. With the policy of open-ended grain procurement being unchanged, the government is likely to once again end up mopping up the bulk of the market arrivals of wheat in the post-harvest peak marketing season, needlessly swelling its grain reserves, starving the open market of adequate supplies and pushing up wheat prices despite surplus production and record inventories.

Time to reform wheat

The cheer of the new year was darkened by news that India&rsquo;s public finances continue to be in dire straits. The deficit of government spending over revenue has already reached over 80 per cent of budgeted levels. The clear indication is that the Budget target of a fiscal deficit at 5.1 per cent of gross domestic product, or the finance minister&rsquo;s &ldquo;revised&rdquo; target presented in the fiscal consolidation road map a few months ago, of 5.3 per cent of GDP, is out of reach.

A long-overdue raise

Policy makers in India are justifiably rattled by the soaring gold demand, which has pushed the current account deficit in the second quarter of 2012-13 to a record 5.4 per cent of gross domestic product. Gold is the biggest contributor to imports after crude oil, widening the country&rsquo;s trade and current account deficits. In the absence of adequate foreign capital flows, it also raises questions about India&rsquo;s foreign exchange reserves buffer and its external vulnerability.

Solving the gold riddle 

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 602 - Editorial Comment