Imagine being kicked so hard by a Bactrian camel that you somersault into the air and actually bounce a couple of times before landing painfully on your shoulder, injuring it. Your entire body hurts, you feel humiliated &mdash; and now you&rsquo;re a little afraid of these irascible, moody beasts you&rsquo;re supposed to be managing. So what do you do? Well, if you&rsquo;re Sucheta Kandethankar, you just pick yourself up and continue walking the rest of your 1,636-km trek across the Gobi desert.

The spirit of adventure

Business Standard

A big hug from my son who says no one throws parties like you do, and for acknowledging that I must be the coolest dad ever to be invited to &ndash; get this &ndash; &ldquo;the sexiest after-party in the universe&rdquo;. Coming from someone who spends a lot of his free time checking out the watering holes in town, this is &ndash; despite his youth and lack of adequate exposure to hotspots outside Delhi and Bombay, Bangkok and Singapore &ndash; no faint praise.

Kishore Singh: Lapping up the after party

A colleague disclosed some days ago that his grandmother was a student of Begum Akhtar, undoubtedly the greatest singer ever of ghazals, in Lucknow. The discussion next moved to books on Akhtar and Lucknow &mdash; there aren&rsquo;t too many.

The last lines of Lucknow

Poverty lines have been in the news again. This round started when a Planning Commission affidavit to the Supreme Court placing the poverty line at Rs 26 per capita per day (rural), Rs 32 (urban), raised a furore over the use of these to set a cap on the percentage of the population covered by the food security Bill.

Indira Rajaraman: Food security channels

In all the online discourse I&rsquo;ve seen around Ra.One, what makes me want to tear my hair out is when the movie&rsquo;s apologists say things like &ldquo;Okay, it isn&rsquo;t a great film &mdash; but you have to respect all the hard work that Shah Rukh and his team have put into it.

A small and unseen film

The ban on spam text messages has hit telecom service providers (TSPs) hard. It also hurts spammers, of course. However, from the subscribers&rsquo; point of view, it was long overdue. Given the conflicting interests of consumers, spammers and TSPs, it is worth taking a look at the situation. The measures taken can be improved upon.

Devangshu Datta: A share of the Spam Message Service

The railway line does not quite touch Bangalore&rsquo;s Indiranagar area, missing it by a kilometre or so. But if you are up at daybreak when the world is still asleep, you can hear the whistle blow as the odd train goes by. In the slight mist that the habitually rain-drenched city often wakes up to, the sound is muffled and seems to beckon you to come for a journey of discovery to distant lands.

Subir Roy: Daily street play, in light and sound

Arvind Kejriwal and his wife Sunita (whom no one mentions) resemble the Malayali couple, T V and Gowri Thomas, except that matrimony was no bed of roses for the Thomases. T V being CPI and Gowri CPI(M), Kerala&rsquo;s Left Front banished them to separate bungalows. They acquiesced in the cause of revolution and ministerial office but, reportedly, got round the hitch by installing a little door in the dividing wall. Figures could be seen slipping through it at dusk.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: By the elite, for the elite

The head of the European monetary authority stepped off the plane at Beijing airport, and was transported by a high-speed train faster than France&rsquo;s TGV, to the centre of Beijing. There he hopped into a waiting limousine and was driven through traffic that was waved aside by motorcycle outriders, to Tiananmen Square, where he had been given an audience in the Great Hall of the People. Mr Europe wondered how to make his a dignified mission.

T N Ninan: Yuan-boat diplomacy

The statement says the Communique endorses our call for increased banking transparency.

'Bringing back black money is a work in progress'

Malshi and his six brothers live in Mota Varnora village in Bhuj, Gujarat. This village and several others in the neighbourhood are full of weavers. Malshi and Khimji Samji Vankar, a relative from the neighbouring Bhujodi village, sell most of their exquisitely embroidered and woven clothes to middlemen or wholesale buyers who collect these from their villages. Malshi and his family of six brothers, their wives and children together barely make enough.

Sreelatha Menon: The craft of survival

Till then, invest in the safety of debt instruments.

Wait and watch for the tide to turn

The move of Indian Railways to introduce dynamic pricing in passenger fares was long overdue. It allows the railways to change passenger fares frequently, depending on demand, and this is made easier by computerisation. There is also considerable unmet demand for reserved accommodation on most trains on busy routes. Reservation, which is available up to 90 days before the scheduled date of a journey, is virtually impossible to get if you need to undertake it at short notice. Tatkal booking, by paying a little more than the normal fare, was a help for those undertaking emergency travel when it was first introduced. However, this has now ceased to be a meaningful option, as it is quite common for wait-listed passengers with Tatkal tickets not to get a place on the train eventually. Conversely, upper class reserved accommodation goes partially empty in off-peak seasons, signifying wastage of capacity already created at great cost.

It's time railways moved

The real challenge that the world faces today is to develop modalities of strengthening international cooperation and build common minimum commitments.

Faisal Ahmed: The global South needs a multilateral approach 

The telecom industry is likely to welcome the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India&rsquo;s (Trai&rsquo;s) latest recommendations on mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;As) in the sector but consumers may have cause for anxiety. The new norms certainly mark a major relaxation on the old ones. For one, they allow the merged entity to retain up to 25 per cent of the spectrum available with all operators in the circle in which the merger takes place against the earlier retention limit of 14.4 MHz (the rest was to be returned to the government). Under the new norms, Trai officials&rsquo; calculations suggest operators will be able to retain at least 2 to 3 MHz more.

Dial M for M&As

The Greek debt crisis had cast its shadow on the sixth summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) even before it could begin its two-day deliberations at Cannes last Thursday. Predictably, therefore, the crisis in Greece, made worse by its prime minister George Papandreou&rsquo;s flip-flop on a referendum on its bailout package, threatened to hijack the agenda for discussion that the leaders of the G20 countries had earlier prepared. Europe&rsquo;s leaders were so preoccupied with the crisis in the euro zone that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hosted the summit, was mostly huddled with other European leaders to prevent the Greek problem from snowballing into a contagion. This perhaps forced him to even cancel his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the summit.

New initiatives at Cannes

Responding to various representations from exporters, the finance ministry has amended the Duty Drawback All Industry Rate Schedule through a notification no. 75/2011-Cus (NT) dated October 28. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has issued Circular no. 48/2011-Cus (NT) dated October 31, explaining the changes.

Helpful change in duty drawback rule

A priest is asked by an &lsquo;upstart&rsquo; adolescent: &ldquo;May I smoke in Church?&rdquo;&nbsp;Controlling swelling anger, the priest replies: &ldquo;Of course, not. That would be blasphemous.&rdquo;&nbsp;The boy returns the next day with: &ldquo;Father, is it alright to pray while smoking?&rdquo; The priest&rsquo;s answer: &ldquo;Of course, yes. One must pray at every possible opportunity regardless of what one is doing.

Uncertainty continues to hurt investment law

The latest news about VAT is that the Delhi Government has agreed to withdraw VAT component from items being sold at thirty eight stores run by forces in Delhi if the goods are bought by Police and Central Para-military personnel. This largesse has been granted following a request by the Union Minister of State for Home and Director Generals of CRPF, ITBP, CISF and SSB. The proposal has so far not got the approval from the Delhi Cabinet. I do hope the Cabinet does not give the approval.

VAT: Populism is a path to fiscal disaster

Prior to the partition of India, the five tributaries of the Indus River flowing through undivided India, were North India&rsquo;s lifeblood. Years after partition, in 1960, the Governments of India and Pakistan executed the Indus Water Treaty (&ldquo;Treaty&rdquo;), at the instance of the World Bank, to deal with the sharing of the resources for equitable distribution, and recourses for protection of the rights of the parties. Briefly, India had the exclusivity of the Eastern Rivers and Pakistan over the Western ones. The Treaty has survived three wars and other conflicts between the two nations.

India's soft stance in troubled waters dispute

Just as Finance bills are used as an&nbsp;opportunity for announcing economic policy decision, draft NTP 2011 has more on intent and direction Minister Sibal&rsquo;s reformist draft policy traverses far beyond telecom services and attempts to encompass manufacturing of IT &amp; ITeS equipment and addressing spectrum challenges for sectors beyond telecom.

National Telecom Policy 2011: A fresh breather!

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

Page 718 - Opinion Specials