Renewable energy (RE) is a polarising subject. Everybody has an opinion. The most informed are, of course, the scientists and engineers exploring and extending the limits of the possible. Close behind are venture capitalists and private equity players, crystal-gazing with eyes firmly focused on return on investment.

Devangshu Datta: Is all well with renewable energy?

Business Standard

With the names of a large number of senior officers surfacing in the list of flat owners in the Mumbai-based Adarsh Housing Society scandal, the image and prestige of the Army has never been so low in the past six decades.

Nilendra Kumar: Adarsh - What's the army's defence?

At the recently concluded Dastkar&rsquo;s Nature Bazaar, one of the most eye-catching displays of crafts was on a rickshaw. Festooned with beautifully crafted bags woven by members of the Society for Child Development (SFCD), it attracted many interested visitors. And when they were told that those bags had been woven with waste videotape &ndash; that too by young adults with intellectual disabilities &ndash; most were impressed enough to buy some. Standing across the rickshaw, I was struck by the sheer innovativeness of the products on sale. I was also struck by the fact that most of the customers did not seem to be driven solely by a sense of charity towards the disadvantaged people who&rsquo;d made them &ndash; they seemed to find the bags genuinely interesting. As I watched a couple of college girls try on bag after bag to see which one would suit them best, I reckoned that this was probably the best accolade the makers of those bags could get.

Geetanjali Krishna: Weaving lives of dignity

If you&rsquo;re reading this in the morning, aren&rsquo;t hung over, and don&rsquo;t have the kind of bags under your eyes that actor Salman Khan had to have surgically removed, you must have had a loser Diwali. At least, that&rsquo;s what my wife would have you believe, which is why we seem to have spent the last fortnight out late-night partying instead of warming our middle-aged bones under a comforter with hot-water bags and a snifter of cognac by the bedside.

Kishore Singh: Play your cards right this Diwali

The idea of a review as an analytical, personal take on a film is still a radical one.

The reviewer and the review

No, the headline does not refer to the name of a new wine label &mdash; that&rsquo;s &lsquo;wines from Haryana&rsquo;, which are being rolled out under the &lsquo;Luca&rsquo; label across north India even as we speak.

Haryanvi wines

The general assumption in New Delhi&rsquo;s &ldquo;strategic community&rdquo; is that it is in India&rsquo;s interest for Americans troops to stay on in Kabul. The theory is that the US is doing the hard work that is beyond Indian military capability, and that US troops are preventing Afghanistan from falling into the hands of a Pakistan-controlled Taliban. That is why the prospect of a US pull-out is viewed in New Delhi with mild alarm.

T N Ninan: Frontline pay-off

The Nobel (Memorial) Prize for 2010 speaks to the need of the hour. Even if double-dip recession does not seem an immediate prospect for the major economic zones of the world, the nagging problem of high unemployment remains.

Indira Rajaraman: Search and match

May you live in interesting times,&rdquo; says the Chinese curse, but life in Shanghai does make time interesting! With its elevated flyways that appear infinite to the naked eye, and maglev trains travelling at breakneck speed, both running a parallel discourse to the local metro trains&hellip; all these snake above and below, making a convoluted and quite literally head-spinning experience. As if these did not offer enough contortions for the neck, there are at least 200 buildings over 300 metres high scraping the sky of this city. Largest, tallest, biggest, all lit up, converting the city centre into a massive neon billboard &mdash; one whose sole purpose seems to be to cause jaws to drop! A far cry from the tanks of Tiananmen, the image of this sensationalist architecture succeeds in instilling awe even in the most sceptical.

Good sense in 'Shanghaism'

A leveraged buyout (LBO) is a popular way to mount an acquisition. LBO is simple in theory. Find a target company. Borrow and buy it. Service the debt via the target&rsquo;s future cash flows and/or sale of the target&rsquo;s assets. The leverage multiplies returns. Capital gains are realised via later equity sale. Taking a listed entity private, and then relisting, is common.

Devangshu Datta: The games that LBOs play

The leftist government of West Bengal is atoning for its past sins as it heads towards defeat after a long stint in power, much like a person doing good deeds after a long life of waywardness in order to show something for himself when he meets his maker. It has approved a policy to legalise hawkers, bring them under a regulatory framework and also do something for their long-term future.

Subir Roy: Hawkers who have come to stay

On Wednesday, Australia lost a one-day international to Sri Lanka. That is no longer the rarity it used to be. What made the match remarkable was that Sri Lanka came back from a hopeless position. It lost its eighth wicket at 107, with 133 more to get and Malinga, a bonafide number 10, at one end.

The shoe is on the other foot

Barack Obama isn&rsquo;t bringing an entourage of 200 businessmen to admire the Diwali junketings. Nor &ndash; though this will cut our foreign policy pundits to the quick &ndash; to seek India&rsquo;s advice on a new global architecture. To quote the deputy national security adviser, Mike Froman, &ldquo;A key part of the (president&rsquo;s) message is going to be that we want to make sure there&rsquo;s opportunities for US jobs, US exports.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: It's still the economy, stupid

The private sector in India has started occupying the commanding heights of the economy, which were once the preserve of the public sector. It has, however, not shown equal alacrity in assuming responsibility for the social agenda that was imposed on the public sector. Among the unattended agenda items causing the greatest concern is the generation of employment for the disadvantaged members of our society &mdash; specifically those belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs/STs). The private sector cavalry brigade has its eyes focused intently on the horizon, which promises economic super-power status to unbridled enterprise. While the private sector necessarily has to take care of the mounts that are speeding it to success, there is no obvious self-interest for it to ensure that the vast number of sparrows (to borrow Galbraith&rsquo;s analogy), who are yet to benefit from the economic miracle, are adequately fed.

Visty Banaji: A rewarding social agenda

Business Standard wishes all its readers a happy and healthy Diwali, or Deepavali. Hopefully, this year fewer of our readers have had bronchial and asthma attacks, chest congestion, cough and throat irritation and red and watery eyes! A colourful festival of lights has become an evening of fumes with a morning after of smog in many parts of the country. Deepavali has always been associated with not just lights but also sound, since bursting crackers is part of the fun and the tradition of celebrating the victory of good over evil and the warding off of evil spirits. The bursting of crackers has always left a trail of smoke. However, over the years this trail has become a cloud of injurious smoke. In the nation&rsquo;s capital, with the usual winter smog, people report high incidence of asthmatic and bronchial attacks and throat and eye problems.

Happy and healthy Diwali

India and Russia should consider a broad-based technological partnership, as the existing military-technology cooperation has not helped modernise either economy.

Smita Purushottam: Russia, China and the 'reset' with the West

It is not normal for members of the United Nations to let any issue pass without conspicuous debate over pretended disagreements. However, when the 10-year review meeting of the millennium development goals (MDGs) took place recently in New York, there was little disagreement on reiterating the global goals of eliminating poverty and hunger, among other laudable objectives.

Prakash Shah: MDGs - When less can be more

It is difficult for me to talk about Burma without a deep sense of nostalgia. My earliest memories are all of Burma, where I grew up between the ages of three and six. My father was a visiting professor at the Agricultural College in Mandalay, on leave from Dhaka University. My first memory of striking natural beauty is that of sunrise over the Maymyo hills seen from our wooden house at the eastern edge of Mandalay. It was a thrilling sight even for a young boy.

'New Myanmar a hell-hole version of old Burma'

The last week saw lots of action in the bullion market and especially in gold. Jewellers work overtime before Diwali when it is a near-religious obligation for many communities to buy gold. India has always been fascinated by the yellow metal and traditionally, a large chunk of year-end surpluses are invested in it.

An expensive hedging instrument

Regulatory enforcement against insider trading is attracting attention worldwide. Recently, the United States&rsquo; Federal Bureau of Investigation (not the securities market regulator) launched its own criminal action against a French doctor for communicating informa-tion to a hedge fund mana-ger, about a drug trial by a company to which he was a consultant.&nbsp;The funds sold the stock within a week before a press release on the drug trial was issued.

Insider-trading rules need fixing

The Madras High Court bench here has ruled that the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) cannot claim damages from employers for delayed payment of their contribution &quot;if there is no intention to commit a prohibited act or actus reus&quot; (action or conduct that is a constituent element of a crime) behind the delay.

'EPFO cannot claim damages for delayed payment'

Press Trust of India

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