Does UPA-II at last intend to take some decisions?

Yet another start

Business Standard

Whatever the motivation, scrapping SEZs is the right thing to do

Happy ending

Despite high returns, the NPS Lite scheme is moving at a snail's pace

Pension for the last man

The Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) was initiated in 1993, committing public money to benefit each parliamentary constituency. The scheme seeks to build relationships between elected representatives stakeholders and ground-level government institutions and civil society. It is a political response to fulfiling those local needs that do not get picked up through the top-down planning process. However, it does create a significant challenge for policy makers and administrators: devising norms, guidelines and procedures for the effective utilisation of the huge funds placed at the disposal of the legislators. There are issues of accountability, determining development priorities, the sustainability of assets and above all, passing the test of a level playing field among competing political candidates.The scheme's constitutional validity and use of funds was challenged before the Supreme Court. However, a five-member bench dismissed the petition and described MP

Fixing MPLADS

India must diversify its services trade away from low-cost programming if it is to remain an IT-enabled hub

Staying the world's back office

Is it masochism that makes the govt invite controversy?

One more!

Room service was fast, the coffee mostly good even if served in paper cups, as for the frequent orders of doughnuts and angels wings, croissants and sandwiches, housekeeping was forever removing the crumbs and detritus before the next round of guests crowded the room with a view. Because he'd never intended to check-in, my uncle hadn't told too many people about his arrival in the hospital, so we'd been his only visitors on day one. By day two, his wife had broadcast a status update on Facebook, so the numbers swelled alarmingly, 107 at last count, which was a lot for a deluxe room with an occupancy of one. On day three, the floor guard was forced to complain that the file outside resembled an interview queue that could cost him his job. Every time there was a knock on the door, my aunt would herd visitors into the bathroom "for just a moment, sorry" before letting in the offending staff member. A nurse walking in unannounced found the room as crowded as a bar at happy hour. "One atten

Happy hours in hospital

Every summer in Santiniketan when the heat gets unbearable, residents remind themselves that it is the intensity of the heat that ensures the ripening of mangoes and jackfruits. So looking up at trees makes us wonder if all the sweating will be worth it.Since many houses - whether with small gardens or large - have at least a couple of fruit trees, conversations at the onset of summer are dominated by whether or not they have flowered. Then there are worries if the nor'westers will make the flowers fall off, or whether the first rains will make stems stronger. Was there a good yield last year? What do we expect this year? Have hailstorms caused much damage? Well, then, we will just have to make pickles with the bruised mangoes.Normal preoccupations every year. But this year, thanks to the meagre crop last year, our mango trees were promising more fruits than ever. In the midst of all these discussions, we announced our annual holiday. Coincidentally, our dates clashed with the ripening

Mango people on roaming

Japan's 'dash for growth' is important for India and for the world

Could Abenomics succeed?

There is a need of uniform application of the concept of de facto control in India

Defining control of Indian firms: Are we there yet?

A sports team must be careful of designations such as 'team owner', 'team principal', 'chief executive' and other such exalted titles

Name games

Deep in the heart of middle-class Kolkata, down the narrow lanes of Old Ballygunge, I hunted for what seemed like hours for a bit of parking space. Then hope sprang, in the form of an oddity: an unpaved driveway, overgrown with grass, and a narrow path traced by footfalls led to a house set way back from the road. Obviously, those living in it had no use for a car and I thought I could safely park right in front, leaving enough space for walkers.But no sooner had I done so than an elderly lady came up to protest in chaste Bengali that this was no place to park. So many old people used the pathway, she said. But they don't need the width of a car, I almost muttered but held back, realising that convenience was not the issue. It was a territorial thing. The space in front of a house, leaving aside the main carriageway, was the jagir of its residents.I should have remembered my early taste of assertive middle-class Delhi in respectable Nizamuddin. Late in the evening, the space in front o

A patch that's mine to grab

Boo! (I stick my tongue out, make a Calvin-inspired face while flapping my hands crazily.) That's how scared I was after watching Fear Factor on Sony television for precisely five minutes. It

Clones and Kandies

With a startup, the conventional wisdom is that all resources should be poured into the core business. But most Indian entrepreneurs don't seem to think this way if a study done by Amarnath Bhide,

The cost of starting up

The revenue department has used a specious argument to include processed agricultural commodities in the commodities transaction tax

Breaking the CTT code

Uttarakhand's tragedy makes the need for accurate forecasting obvious

Predicting the weather right

There is, of course, no such thing in the real world. Theoretically, we could say that the correct value of the rupee is one that supports growth with low inflation and ensures that both imports and exports do well. But such an animal is seldom found and, if it does come to life, is dashed rudely in short order.The closest I could find in recent years was when the rupee was steady (certainly by today's standards) in a range of 44 to 46 over the period from June to August 2011. GDP was growing at eight-plus per cent a year, and both exports and imports were on fire (each growing at over 30 per cent a year). The only failure was inflation, which was quite high, with the wholesale price index (WPI) inflation at over nine per cent.Close, but no cigar.Nonetheless, and particularly since I long ago stopped smoking, let's assume that the exchange rate at that time was a reasonable surrogate for the "correct value" of the rupee. Let us then adjust that value (of 46 to the dollar) to movements

The correct value of the rupee

Don't assume governments will set accurate benchmark interest rates for risk-free assets

When risk is mispriced

Vulnerability on both current and capital accounts

Falling deficit, rising debt

<B>Tata proposes to now begin looking for a successor and remains firm on his retirement plans.</B>


`The fortune is indeed at the bottom of the pyramid`

Lets examine Budgetary provisions in two unrelated sectors: first, oil &amp; gas. Customs duties on crude imports have been reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. 


Budgetary effects on oil and telecom

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