A recent survey points to ways in which financial inclusion and its impact can be enhanced

Subir Gokarn: Demanding to be included

Business Standard

It is seeking re-elections in the capital soon, as delay will only lead to gains for the Bharatiya Janata Party

Somesh Jha: AAP channels focus on Delhi

Structural imbalances and problems created in our economy are deep and significant. These will take time to unwind and with reforms is needed a more effective economic strategy

'Public spending is notoriously leaky, fosters corruption...'

This was a Budget that represented stale continuity - surprisingly endorsed by much of the post-Budget commentary - when the need of the hour was demonstrable change

Arvind Subramanian: The 2014 Budget - Disappointing but retrievable

The time is ripe for India to make a serious bid to become a critical player in global value-chains. But it would need to ensure minimal transaction costs within and across national borders

Jayanta Roy: Speeding up trade

The new government is full of good intentions about getting investment going. It justifiably wants to increase investment in the railways because, as the railway minister more or less said, the system is in a shambles. It also wants more roads, ports, metro transport systems, airports, broadband lines to every village, industrial corridors, smart cities and more - all of which the finance minister mentioned in his Budget speech. The problem is that it finds itself constrained by the lack of resources. The railway minister held out the weak and unconvincing promise of foreign investment and public private partnerships (PPPs) making up for the government's lack of funds; the finance minister simply doled out small amounts of cash that were clearly inadequate.The funny thing is that the government has the money - but it is going into subsidies that Mr Jaitley has chosen to leave untouched. Out of the vast sums that the government proposes to spend this year, barely one in 15 rupees will g

T N Ninan: No shortage of money

If you want to detox," remarked an associate, "come to Doha." But it was work rather than abstinence that took me to Qatar during the holy month of Ramadan, when to even ruminate about a sundowner is considered sacrilegious. It wasn't just alcohol, or its lack, that was bothersome, there was the propriety about avoiding daytime snacking. Touching down at Hamad International Airport, the flight crew had suggested that dining or drinking anything, including water, in a public place could be insensitive to local culture. Not that there was much chance of ordering a sandwich and cafe latte to go, all neighbourhood coffee shops and restaurants being shut for the duration.Till sundown, that is, when you could join the local citizenry breaking the imposed fast with a feast fit, quite literally, for a sheikh. That's when Doha came to life. The malls, shut for the course of the day, would open at night till the wee hours of the morning. Hotels laid out special Ramadan buffets, offering the equi

Kishore Singh: Fasting, feasting

Travelling through Uttarakhand, I was struck by how hard the women worked. I saw them, heads bent, stoically carrying back-breaking bundles of firewood across miles to the family hearth, cooking, cleaning, raising children... doing everything but working outside their homes. "Life is tough for women here," said Manorama Devi, the only ladies tailor in Phata, the little town I was in, about 25 km from Gaurikund. "Girls have to do as their fathers say, and after they're married, obey their husbands and in-laws." But she was different.Manorama learnt tailoring when she was a young girl in Agastyamuni. After marriage, she moved to Phata. After a few years of sitting at home, the feisty young girl decided to make something of her life. She could have worked in the fields, but that wasn't her style. "I've always felt that farming is way too hard, and offers relatively few returns," she said. Her interest lay in tailoring, and she quietly set out to earn seed capital for her business idea."I'

Geetanjali Krishna: The evolution of a rural feminist

As it happened, I fell in love with the nerdy good looks of the Honda Brio (aesthetically, it is a cousin of the Beetle and the Mini)

Rahul Jacob: Some vroom for comfort

There's not too much difference between Indians and the people of Indonesia - what was once called the Greater India

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: A similar democracy

By some reckoning, women account for about 40 per cent of football fans worldwide. Like their male counterparts, they comprise both fanatics and the occasional viewer who may watch the odd signature match or tournament. Either way, women now undeniably form a significant and knowledgeable component of football's global audience, and anecdotal evidence suggests that their number is rising rapidly. Yet here's the weird thing. The coverage of football in the mainstream media remains aggressively geared towards men and, the evidence suggests, specifically towards the variety we in India derisively call "frustoos" (no translation needed).It starts with the newspapers, and the Indian ones are a pretty good indicator of this exclusionary approach. Since the World Cup now has a sizeable fan base in India, the mainline dailies feature front-page tear-sheets in addition to full pages in the sports section devoted to tournament coverage. But for the standard match stats, these sections could well

Kanika Datta: The World Cup's sex appeal

Finding parking space on Kolkata's Park Street with its classy shops and restaurants is nearly impossible. So I cheated - I drove into Park Hotel, handed over the keys for valet parking and entered the lobby, only to exit on to the street reached through the hotel's coffee shop. Then 10 paces brought me to the Oxford Bookstore, where you should be seen if you want to be tagged classy and literate.There was no time to browse, despite loads of books being offered on discount, for I had to quickly go to the mezzanine gallery and occupy one of the 50-odd chairs to witness the launch of Sahara: The Untold Story, which had made history even before hitting the stands.I could vividly remember the author Tamal Bandyopadhyay on the phone a few months ago sounding distraught. He had just had to make a quick trip from Mumbai to Kolkata that had cost him over Rs 40,000. A little more of this and I sensed he would be financially in dire straits. But more than the money it was the harassment. After h

Subir Roy: When friends do us proud

There was a lot of hope abroad that Mr Jaitley's first Budget would be known as the 'Rollback Retrospective'. Alas!

Devangshu Datta: 'The Rs 100-crore Budget'

Yes, there was a vision underlying this Budget - one of intervention, and micromanagement

Mihir S Sharma: Mr Modi's big bet

For every genuine football fan who's been living on Rio time, there are four fakers who get a solid night's sleep and Google a couple of statistics in the morning

Notes on faking it

Fratelli 'The Glass House' 2011, a classic Bordeaux blend, has been created exclusively for The Glass House, a new 'deli-bistro-bar' in Bangalore

Award winning Indian wines

"I have just got official communication that what the Congress VP was doing was something that is aligned to our policy.  We don't define it as 'sleep'. We would like to call it a 'power nap'"

Sleeping on the job

The finance minister has announced increased expenditure of about Rs 31,000 crore more than mentioned in the interim Budget of February. On the revenue side, he has given away a net amount of about Rs 9,000 crore in tax giveaways (Central account, plus more on the states' account). That's a cumulative figure of Rs 40,000 crore that has to be accounted for, yet the fiscal deficit is only Rs 2,000 crore more than it was in February. How has Mr Jaitley managed this? By raising the disinvestment target to an all-time high, by assuming much higher dividend payouts by the Reserve Bank, government-owned banks and other financial institutions, and other such non-tax receipts. Some of this may be doable; but, with less than nine months left in the year, the disinvestment target in particular will be a challenge - even if the buoyancy on the stock market is a helpful development.There is optimism in display in the tax revenue assumptions as well. Overall, tax collection is expected to go up by 1

An assumption of "Achche Din"

A careful balancing between the need for growth and fiscal consolidation may attract global businesses

Claude Smadja: India's open for business again

Mr Jaitley has fallen into the old trap of financing meaningless cleaning initiatives

Sunita Narain: No sustainability road map

For the government to go forward, it should build a better structure for research and policy analysis for the goods and services tax

Satya Poddar: The steps to the GST

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

Page 377 - Opinion Specials