I spent the first twenty years of my life in Karachi. The only two languages I became conversant with during that period were my mother tongue, Sindhi, and the language I had my education in, English.

'A book that was to later influence my politics'

Business Standard

It is unfortunate when nations can&rsquo;t care for their own when it comes to protecting the rights of their workers. It required a global cop to get garment factories in Cambodia to work towards being decent work places for poor migrant women.

Sreelatha Menon: The better factories

When criticised about the US administration&rsquo;s exchange-rate policy vis-&agrave;-vis the yen, former US president George H W Bush apparently retorted in a fit of pique, &ldquo;Let the Japanese handle their exchange rate and we will handle ours.&rdquo; Unfortunately, this bit of curious Texan logic doesn&rsquo;t quite hold in the world of currencies. One currency&rsquo;s gain is tautologically another&rsquo;s loss. If the dollar loses, the rupee gains &mdash; there are no two ways about it. Thus, in a world of interlinked economies and financial markets, the macroeconomic strategies of one economy impinge on another through the currency route. It is impossible for economic policy to be truly independent. This inescapable connection between economies via currencies poses the risk of an impending currency war. The battle line has been drawn by the two-track growth environment that the global economy finds itself in.

The currency wars

Intervening in the debate on the motion of confidence in the Lok Sabha on July 22, 2008, Congress party general secretary Rahul Gandhi famously said: &ldquo;It is important that we stop worrying about how the world will impact us&hellip; and think about how we will impact the world.

Sanjaya Baru: What can India do?

House Panel loses opportunity to correct anomalies.

State power over corporates all set to increase

Hutchison Essar is an Indian Company, the controlling interest of Hutchison Essar is held by an SPV of Cayman Island (CGP Investments Holding Ltd). CGP is owned by Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL), Hong Kong. In this manner the controlling interest of Hut-chison Essar is held by HTIL, Hong Kong through an intermediary Cayman Island company (CGP). Vodafone International Holdings, Netherland entered into an agreement with HTIL, Hong Kong to buy the shares of CGP (Cayman Island). Since CGP is holding 67 per cent shares of Hutchison Essar (India), the above transaction results in trans-fer of shares and controlling interest of Hutchison Essar(India) from HTIL, Hong Kong to Vodafone International Holding, Netherland.

Vodafone's case is not a closed chapter: a few lessons

There are so many exemptions that one sometimes finds overlapping exemptions and two exemptions for the same item with slightly different nomenclature and conditions. The thesis that the taxpayer has the right to be taxed the least amounts to saying that if he is faced with two exemptions, which are applicable to a particular commodity, the taxpayer can choose the one more beneficial to himself. And he can claim it even if he has not claimed it at an initial stage. This finds support from one of latest pronouncements of the Supreme Court in the case of Share Medical Care vs. Union of India &ndash; 2007(209) ELT321 (SC).

Taxpayer's right to be taxed the least

The Supreme Court last week dismissed two appeals moved by telecom companies, Bharti Cellular Ltd and Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd challenging the rulings against them by the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT). In the case of Bharti, which held licence for the Delhi metro area, the company accepted the terms of the migration package. Later, it raised disputes over the method of computation of subscribers, interest on the licence fee and imposition of penal interest on the fee. The court upheld the findings of the tribunal. It also dismissed the appeal of Sistema company stating that once the terms of the migration package was accepted, the company cannot &ldquo;approbate and reprobate&rdquo;, or go back from what was agreed upon.

Cellular operators appeal against TDSAT dismissed

Is the international monetary system in crisis? If so, what kind of a crisis? And what remedies are needed? These were issues in active debate in the various events surrounding the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank that concluded this past weekend.

Suman Bery: Crisis? What crisis?

Why do we celebrate the niche and the speciality more than we do the big and the mass? Think about it. All research shows that Americans watch a huge amount of TV and advertisers pay a premium to reach them while they are watching the Super Bowl or 24. The biggest grossers are the most popular films &mdash; Avataar and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince topped the charts last year. Across the world, radio operators make more money playing popular music than any other content genre.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Celebrating the big, fat mass-media market

The telecom market boomed when tariffs and handset prices started falling; so did the consumer durables market. Over the past decade, both businesses have actually seen prices either stagnate or drop as a result of competition. Although the nature of these businesses is not strictly comparable, the market for direct-to-home (DTH) services can be called contrarian. Despite being available at a premium to cable and the Conditional Access System (CAS), India&rsquo;s DTH reach has grown so fast that it is soon expected to overtake the US to become the world&rsquo;s largest market by the first quarter of next year. India now has 26 million subscribers and is expected to end the calendar year with 30 million. By March next year, the number is expected to touch 32 million, making it the world&rsquo;s largest market, accounting for more than a fifth of the global market.

When transparency pays

The fresh initiative by Commerce Minister Anand Sharma to meet ambassadors of the key members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva, in a bid to revive the deadlocked Doha round of trade negotiations, is well-timed though a positive outcome may be doubtful.

Reviving Doha

Last month, the Union finance ministry released the Budget Manual. A 216-page document, it contains all the procedures and steps the government must follow while preparing the annual Budget. It is a unique document. No other ministry has ever tried to bring out in the open the procedures it follows before finalising, for instance, the foreign trade policy or the central and state plans.

A K Bhattacharya: Demystifying the beast

In celebration of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, we take a look this week at five of his most unforgettable characters.

Nilanjana S Roy: Vargas Llosa - The time of the hero

Politics in Karnataka has touched an all-time low with the manner in which the tumult of the last few days culminated in a vote of confidence passed without a ballot in five minutes amidst scenes of unprecedented violence and entry of police into the state assembly. Whatever be the final outcome, there is no doubt that the state has been set back on several counts. The first and the most immediate casualty is political stability. The government, which has remained in power for two years with the help of independent members and defections, now has to contend with rebels from within the ruling BJP who have refused to budge despite pressures to return to the fold. It is highly doubtful if under such conditions the state, once considered a leader in many respects, will be able to witness either growth or social stability.

Karnataka's issueless politics

The Nobel Prize in Economic Science for 2010 has been awarded to two Americans, Peter Diamond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University, along with a naturalised Briton, Christopher Pissarades, for their work in search theory, which, among other applications, rigorously explains the coexistence of unemployment and job vacancies in market economies. The award has been widely hailed given the centrality of the theory to provide a macroeconomic analysis of the labour market. While the underpinnings of the theory were established by Diamond in the early 1970s, Mortensen and Pissarades have deepened the theory later.

Understanding labour markets

The poor quality of general governance is widely acknowledged as India&rsquo;s central problem. One hears this ad nauseum at conferences, seminars, newspaper editorials and casual conversation. Many suggestions have been put forward ranging from reform of municipal government to that of political campaign financing. All of these initiatives are important and must be pursued. However, my own experience suggests that we need to resolve an even more basic problem that pervades the daily life of a common citizen.

Sanjeev Sanyal: Tell me the rules!

Compulsory licensing is one of the most powerful tools available to a government to ensure health security for its people. Through it a government can make available a vital medicine at an affordable price to meet a health emergency by setting aside the rights of the patent-holder in question.

Subir Roy: Use compulsory licensing with caution

When the revenue departments sleep over cases they had lost in the courts and do not appeal for long, it is difficult to tell whether it is just red tape or something else. Their lethargy causes losses to the government and gains to tax dodgers.

M J Antony: Delay as stratagem

There is undoubtedly a need to make microfinance institutions more transparent but capping lending rates will hurt numerous smaller MFIs operating in remote areas and thus may not help the poor.

Should microfinance rates be capped?

Transparency, openness and predictability are primary attributes for trade agreements to remain relevant for member countries. What is equally important, however, especially in turbulent times, is policy space available to countries for meeting domestic compulsions &mdash; political or economic.

T S Vishwanath: Homing in on domestic policy

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