The timing couldn't be worse. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) issued a notification on Standards of Quality of Service last month. It seeks to enforce the 12- minute-per-hour limit on advertising time on television. The idea is fine. It is in fact part of media policy in most countries. In India, too, the rule has been part of the advertising code that comes under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995. So it is not new. It is just a whip that Trai is cracking to enforce an old law as complaints from consumer organisations pile up.The complaints are justified. Almost every broadcaster is over the 12-minute norm and some go up to 20-30 minutes at times. This takes away the pleasure of watching television, causing the consumer to either switch off or sulk and continue. So the notification has been greeted with joy by consumers.That still does not take away from the fact that it is very badly timed and might actually end up harming both consumers and the i

Trai's bad timing

Business Standard

HDFC Securities expects large cap Indian software services exporters to report 2-3 % quarter-on-quarter USD revenue growth in the January-March period.

HDFC Sec expects 2-3 percent USD revenue growth for India IT

Reuters

He is England's fourth-highest goal scorer; the youngest player to reach 100 goals in the Premier League, an absolute peach of a goal-poacher and yet, at 33, it seems Michael Owen's career never really reached the heights it was destined for.

Owen and out

RBI has issued revised instructions to this effect through a circular dated March 12, 2013

A matter of clarity

Electoral outcomes in times of economic difficulty provide no guarantee of resolution

Economic stress and political outcomes

Financially strapped, the Centre is increasingly leaning on the states to pick up a larger share of welfare schemes

Central parsimony

Since glass traps heat, buildings require more air conditioning. As a result, energy use goes up

A green building is not glass

But sugar decontrol doesn't go far enough

Better than nothing

Rahul Gandhi should have talked investment

Jobs, jobs, jobs

The judgment will save taxpayers' money without hurting the pharma industry or R&DIn September 2007, Arun Kumar*, a serving officer in the Indian Army, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). For the first three of his years of his treatment, he took the standard prescribed dose of the appropriate medicine, imatinib. Then, owing to a sudden spike in the level of chromosomal abnormality that indicates CML, his doctors switched him to a double dose. Today, after six years of treatment, his cancer is under control. The average monthly cost of his imatinib intake is about Rs 20,000 - and this cost, along with every other aspect of his treatment, is borne by the armed forces - from taxpayer funds. An annual bill of Rs 240,000 for medicines for one individual might sound like a lot of money, but Mr Kumar will be lucky if it stays that way.For one thing, the forces - like all branches of government - procure generic imatinib. If the government were forced to buy imatinib from

Why SC got it right on Novartis

Rahul Gandhi talks of compassion as a necessary element for development

India's boat people

Ladies and gentlemen, how do we measure up in terms of governance after 66 years of our independence? There is little doubt that we have made great strides in almost all major areas of development.From 3.5 per cent growth rate per annum during the First Five-Year Plan period, we achieved eight per cent per annum during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period. The Green Revolution in the 1960s made our country self-sufficient in food grains. We have also reduced the incidence of poverty. Today, India is the third-largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity.We can certainly be proud of these achievements. But it is equally true that much more remains to be done. The challenges to our governance systems are reflected in some important international analyses that are mainly dependent on the social index. India's ranking in key governance indicators like voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule

'At the root of poor governance is our lethargy for change'

Adequate', 'stable', 'predictable' and 'innovative' financing were some of the buzzwords heard at Bali this week during the meetings of the High Level Panel on a post-2015 development agenda (HLP), set up by the United Nations Secretary General (UN-SG). The Panel, with 27 members from governments, civil society and academia around the world, has been tasked by the UN-SG to give him a bold yet practical development agenda for after 2015, when the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire. At Bali, the Panel heard parliamentarians, representatives of civil society, businessmen, academics and youth from around the world on what they see as priorities - especially on the vexing issues called "means of implementation" in UN language, essentially denoting technology, finance, capacity building, and other enablers of development.Deciding on how the world should go about financing the post-2015 development agenda, is turning out to be a particularly tricky question. Foreign aid, or ov

A post-MDG world

The author answers five questions on the disputed Novartis ruling

Alone, but correct?

For most people, there comes a time when they realise that the only adventure they're going to have is deciding whether they want to dine al fresco at an Italian cafe or more formally at a five-star. Whether to do yoga in the morning and suffer through a score of excruciating surya-namaskaars, or hit the gym apres the marketing meeting to burn off the frustration of unachievable targets with a cardio workout. Kochi for a holiday or Cannes? Brogues or moccasins?There are a few others who defy their age, such as my no-longer-kid brother who's got a tapestry of tattoos across his body - all manner of snakes and birds and other twisting creatures too horrific to look at - and who, even as you read this, is on his way trekking to the Everest base camp. Because he intends to be gone for a while, he's parked his Hayabusa in our garage. My son takes it to his office, but only occasionally because it isn't the chick magnet he had hoped it would be. Girls enjoy looking at the bike with the kind

The motorcycle diary - redux

It's ironic that April, with its scented breezes, sudden showers and languorous days, heralds the coming of a season of discontent for so many. Even as the children of the upper-classes celebrate their exam results in malls and bowling alleys, the children of "People Like Them" mill anxiously outside government schools, vocational centres and bookshops, worried about their results, worried about their future. I often see many of them not far from my house, where a non-governmental organisation organises vocational training programmes for young girls. That is where I recently ran into Anita. Seventeen, made up and truculent, she'd come to find out what courses she could join."I don't mind doing a beautician's course," said she, admiring her predatory scarlet talons. "Beauty can never go out of business!" She was desperate for something to do, having failed her Class X exams. Her parents now wanted her to quit school and start working. "They say they don't have the money to send me to sc

Schooling, not schools

Is he a hard-nosed prime ministerial aspirant or an earnest visionary?

Rahul Gandhi's enigma variations

As entertainment, the Indian Premier League has finally found its stride with the aam aadmi. But entertainment always has a shelf life

All but sport

It had been over 10 years since the waiter and I last set eyes on each other, and both of us had aged considerably. Yet neither had any difficulty in recognising a face from the past. As soon as he spotted me, he broke into a broad smile and came up to exchange pleasantries and take my order.Those over, he was embarrassed he could not remember my membership number. And when I helped him out, his instant reply was, "It is so rarely that we get a do hazari (2,000) these days." Time, to him, was measured both by the regular calendar and membership numbers. Today's greenhorns at Delhi Press Club carry tags pushing 7,000; those like me are almost at the other end of the numerical spectrum, in the low thousands.I looked around to find that the halls remained easily recognisable, despite the leftovers of periodic failed attempts at redoing and renovation. What had sadly changed was that the lawn outside was gone, giving way to a paved terrace. Our daughter, now pursuing her MA in Delhi and th

The unchanging Delhi Press Club

CII meet was ideal for laying out details of concrete policies. But Rahul Gandhi did not choose to speak in concrete terms

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