Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is now well into her second year at the helm of affairs in West Bengal. But it seems that Ms Banerjee has decided that whatever else may change about West Bengal, her populist style won't. Ms Banerjee&rsquo;s crowd-pleasing ways, however, don&rsquo;t always match the sort of crowd she&rsquo;s facing.

Walking it alone

Business Standard

Inevitably, much attention this past weekend was devoted to the official elevation of Rahul Gandhi to the number two position in the Congress party. Yet the events at the Jaipur &ldquo;chintan shivir&rdquo;, or party retreat, where he was appointed to the apparently largely ceremonial post of Congress vice-president, do not even finally settle the question of whether he will be a prime ministerial candidate next year.

A change of emphasis

The patent wars between global smartphone majors have taken a new turn after the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected three key Apple patent claims that featured in lawsuits brought by Apple against Samsung, HTC and Motorola Mobility (now part of Google). After the rejection, the award of $1.05 billion by an American jury to Apple against Samsung for patent violation is likely to be reviewed. This is also likely to be a consideration when US courts examine Apple&rsquo;s plea for injunctions against the sale of several Samsung products in America. European patent offices are more conservative than the US in granting sweeping patent claims. Hence, Apple&rsquo;s chances of getting these patents granted in other jurisdictions are not so good. Courts in Japan, Korea and Germany have also delivered more nuanced judgments in Apple vs Samsung lawsuits with, for example, a Korean court finding that Apple and Samsung had violated each other&rsquo;s patents.

A patent revolution

After several tumultuous quarters, corporate India&rsquo;s earnings are turning positive. The ongoing earnings season has started rather well, with even laggards beating most estimates. The 170 companies that have reported their third-quarter numbers for 2012-13 so far have seen revenues grow by 18.5 per cent and profit after tax jump by 42 per cent compared with what they recorded in the same period last year.

No real recovery

The sentencing of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, his son Ajay Chautala, and of three officials who served in the Haryana government under him in the early part of the last decade, to 10 years in jail is a landmark step. Mr Chautala has appealed the sentence, which is surprisingly stringent for a white-collar crime.

A lesson learnt

The housing sector has not been quite the same since the crash of 2008 hit its financing options. Now, it has been reported by this newspaper that it is trying to get infrastructure status for itself in this Budget, so as to ease its financing. Currently, companies building roads, pipelines and telecom towers can access financing from banks or non-banking finance companies at lower rates, and for a longer period.

Reform, not bailouts

It has been a characteristic of two-term presidencies in the United States that the first term is frenetic, full of policy adventures and misadventures, and the second term is much more sedate. In many cases, the broad agenda is set in the first term; in the second, the president struggles to fulfil it and secure his legacy. But, even given this, Barack Obama&rsquo;s second inaugural speech was worryingly content-free.

Lame-duck speech

Months after accusations broke claiming that he had misused his position as public works minister in Maharashtra, Nitin Gadkari is out as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Exit Mr Gadkari

The J S Verma Committee, which was set up with commendable promptness by the Union government within a week of the gang rape of a young woman in Delhi, is to be congratulated for doing a quick and thorough job. It has delivered a 657-page report in a month. Its remit was to look into how the country&rsquo;s criminal law could be amended to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for those committing serious sexual assaults against women, but it has made wide-ranging recommendations. The report and its recommendations deserve the closest scrutiny and contemplation. If the right legislative and executive action follows quickly, India will go a long way towards ensuring that crimes so brazen and barbaric as the Delhi gang rape do not happen.

A road map worth following

On January 29, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is expected to review monetary policy, and it has been widely expected that interest rates will be cut. This expectation is thanks to various statements from the central bank and its governor, Duvvuri Subbarao. The mid-quarter review of monetary policy in mid-December 2012 was pretty explicit about it, in fact. It said that inflation was steadily moderating.

A promise made

The cricketing world is passing from twilight to the evening of one of its periods of greatness. Over the past two decades, a few players of extraordinary talent, who bore comparison to the legendary greats of the game, have fascinated viewers and tormented their opponents. Sachin Tendulkar debuted in 1989; Brian Lara in 1990. Mr Lara is long gone, but Mr Tendulkar remains. The comparisons and contrasts between those two epoch-defining batsmen, which sparked a decade of heated conversations, ended with Mr Lara&rsquo;s retirement; but by that time this brilliant batting generation had been reinforced by many others. Rahul Dravid, a few months older than Mr Tendulkar, debuted in 1996; Ricky Ponting, a year younger, played his first Test in 1995; and Jacques Kallis, a year younger still, started the same year.

The great generation  

The Central Statistics Office of the Government of India has released figures for growth in gross domestic product in the second quarter (Q2) of 2012-13, and they do not make for comforting reading. GDP at factor cost grew by only 5.3 per cent compared to the same quarter, between July and September, of 2011-12. In the first quarter, GDP grew by 5.5 per cent &mdash; so growth is, by this measure, continuing to slow. Given that growth for the first half of this financial year is at 5.4 per cent, clearing six per cent for the whole year, therefore, seems near-impossible. Indeed, even the Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s target of 5.8 per cent seems distant. The lowest growth in a decade, well under six per cent, is far more likely.

Growth crisis deepens

There seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel for the beleaguered United Progressive Alliance, or UPA, government with the logjam in Parliament over a vote on foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail being resolved. From being unable to take any kind of reform agenda forward because of insufficient legislative numbers, the coalition of support that is likely to allow the ruling UPA to win a parliamentary vote after a discussion on FDI should also let it look forward to addressing some of the long-pending legislative programmes. If all goes well, legislation affecting sectors as diverse as insurance, pensions, forward contracts, company law and regulation of competition should now see the light of day. Once the government is seen to be able to act, it is likely to change the mood of business and the stagnation in investment &ndash; which lies at the heart of the present slowdown in growth &ndash; should begin to end.

Hope after FDI compromise

India ranks fourth in the 2013 global manufacturing competitiveness index compiled by the consultancy Deloitte, even as the country&rsquo;s growth rate has been pulled down in recent quarters by sharply falling manufacturing performance. This is a truly odd combination; how to reconcile the two? The short answer is that the recent fall from grace has been captured by India&rsquo;s rank sliding from second in 2010 to the current fourth.

Decoding Deloitte

The ongoing dispute between the Indian company GMR Infrastructure and the Maldives government over the former&rsquo;s contract to build an airport for the Maldives&rsquo; capital, Mal&eacute;, throws up some knotty questions. Most importantly, to what degree should the Indian government step in to protect the interests of its corporate citizens abroad? Some would argue that even if the Maldives have entered into a poor deal, the sanctity of contracts requires it to be kept.

A classic MNC problem

The release of the election manifesto for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat by Chief Minister Narendra Modi is a good point at which to take stock of his growing stature within his party even before he wins the coming Assembly elections, as is expected. The past few days have seen a cascade of endorsements of Mr Modi&rsquo;s prime ministerial aspirations from all corners of the BJP. Its leader in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, said over the weekend that Mr Modi was &ldquo;capable of&rdquo; being and &ldquo;fit to become prime minister&rdquo;. Her Rajya Sabha counterpart, Arun Jaitley, said it was &ldquo;natural&rdquo; the BJP keep Mr Modi &ldquo;ahead&rdquo; of other aspirants. Other leaders, such as Gopinath Munde and Venkaiah Naidu, have expressed similar sentiments.

Mr Modi's new supporters

The new Basel III norms, which are to be implemented from January 1, 2013, should render the global banking system much less vulnerable. But their implementation starts at a time when Indian banking is under stress. Public sector banks (PSBs), which hold roughly 70 per cent of all assets, are in especially poor shape. There is provision for Rs 15,000 crore of PSB equity infusion in the 2012-13 Budget.

Govt's bank challenge

On the twentieth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya by a mob of enraged kar sevaks, it might appear that the dispute about the birthplace of Rama is a thing of the past. It seems no longer a salient issue in Indian politics; even the Bharatiya Janata Party merely pays lip service to it and speaks instead of economic nationalism or national security. Like its current standard-bearer, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the party seems more than willing to not make a polarising message explicit in 2012. For a post-liberalisation India, discussions of economic prosperity could well make the divisive rhetoric that caused and followed the demolition irrelevant.

Twenty years, second class

The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party remained absent at yesterday&rsquo;s voting in the Lok Sabha on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, which as a result gave the United Progressive Alliance or UPA the necessary numbers to defeat the challenge to its key economic policy initiative. The scene of action will now shift to the Rajya Sabha, where the UPA government is likely to face similar opposition.

Finally, debating markets

Policy makers should not overreact to the milk glut in India, since this has largely been caused by poorly advised government policy in the first place. The accumulation of surplus stocks of skimmed milk powder (SMP) is the consequence of the government&rsquo;s two ill-timed decisions two years ago as a panicked reaction to the protein-driven high food inflation &mdash; banning the export of milk products and simultaneously ordering import of SMP. These coincided with a rebound in domestic milk output after a post-2009 drought dip. To confound matters, the lifting of the export ban was delayed, for inexplicable reasons, till global prices had nosedived &mdash; making exports unviable. The dairy industry, too, erred: it mistimed increases in the consumer prices of liquid milk. This prevented a rise in sales in the wake of comfortable availability and resulted in a drop in the price paid to milk producers.

Skimming over milk 

The suspension of the Indian Olympic Association, or IOA, by the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, on Tuesday followed a long confrontation between the two bodies. The last straw for the IOC, however, was that the IOA refused to postpone the election it had scheduled for Wednesday &mdash; an election that the IOC claimed was fatally weakened by government interference.

Shamateurism reigns 

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 604 - Editorial Comment