As the G20 leaders&rsquo; summit of November 3-4 approaches, different streams of thought have taken hold. First, there is a divergence over the utility of the process that has turned out to be relatively slow in achieving consensus on mutual assessments among countries. Second, there is continuing disagreement over the relative importance of artificial exchange rates, loose fiscal stance, and reluctance to provide support in, broadly speaking, Asia, America and Europe.

Parthasarathi Shome: Countdown to Cannes

Business Standard

The Government of India or GoI isn&rsquo;t noted for its marketing or product development skills. For almost 45 years, from Independence till 1991, GoI ran monopolies across every conceivable industry. Yet, it developed no product worthy of note.

Devangshu Datta: Low price, low quality

I reckon by the time you are reading this, the &lsquo;Ipun because Isad&rsquo; tributes to You-Know-Who will have subsided somewhat. And by Sunday all those Einsteins on MacBook will desist from putting up ever more brilliant graphic interpretations on his passing.

Jobs and the fun factor

The great thing this year was it did not rain during the entire four-day Durga puja festival. Usually, at least a day is washed out and in the remaining time negotiating the slush thus created challenges the desire to go out and have a good time. One year, the main area at what was the largest puja was covered and so was dry despite the rain. But as I, decked in my puja specials, trudged through the slush after having parked the car, I wished I had stayed home.

Subir Roy: More pet-puja than puja

Of all things &mdash; Achilles, in a romantic novel. Achilles, whose father was a king and mother a goddess, the hero who fills Homer&rsquo;s Iliad with other people&rsquo;s blood, not all of it justifiably spilt. The warrior who, insulted, refuses to fight, and so lets the Trojans kill thousands of his fellow Greeks. Above all, Achilles, who may not even have existed as a real human being, and of whom there is no surviving archaeological evidence.

Heroes-in-waiting

A sub-committee of the Planning Commission has suggested merging the three centrally-sponsored schemes relating to wildlife &ndash; Project Tiger, Project Elephant and the Integrated Development under Wildlife Habitat &ndash; into a single wildlife protection programme. This will be in line with the Planning Commission&rsquo;s policy of reducing the number of centrally-sponsored schemes, to avoid duplication of effort and to capitalise on synergies. Earlier, the Commission gave similar advice to the agriculture ministry, which operates more than a score of centrally-sponsored schemes. On wildlife, the Plan panel has argued that the amalgamation of the different schemes is advisable in view of the pressing need to save other endangered species specific to states, such as lions and rhinos.

Saving the tiger, lion, rhino?

Last month, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or Nato invited India to become a partner in its missile defence programme, identifying the technology of missile defence as an area for co-operation.

NATO's missile defence offer to India: Nothing to lose

A number of people recently observed a fast near the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu to protest against the construction of a nuclear reactor. This power plant consists of two reactor units, each with a generating capacity of 1,000 Mw. The first unit is ready for fuel loading and can be started up in the next three months. However, the agitation has interrupted the start-up process.

M R Srinivasan: Why Kudankulam nuke plant is viable

Falling commodity prices during a recession lay the foundations for the recovery. First, prices of industrial metals and fossil fuels drop, along with falling overall demand. As input costs reduce, manufacturers cut prices, to stimulate demand all over again.

Energy valuations may suffer

What remains of Gandhi today? What should remain of Gandhi today? Some of his teachings are plainly irrelevant. For example, his ideas on food (his diet consisted chiefly of nuts and fruits and boiled vegetables), medicine (he wished to treat cancer with water baths), and sex (he imposed a strict celibacy on his followers) can hardly find favour with the majority of humans. That said, there are at least four areas in which Gandhi&rsquo;s ideas remain of interest and importance.

'Gandhi was a prophet, of sorts, but by no means a joyless one'

Jawandhia of Setkari Sanghatna, in a letter to Aruna Roy who along with the Right to Food activists had challenged Ahluwalia, said Roy&rsquo;s silence on the wages of the NREGA workers was unfair, given her objection to the Rs 32 poverty line. His reason: A farm labourer&rsquo;s wage in his village in 1972 was Rs 100 a month whereas the salary of a school teacher was Rs 150-200 per month.

Sreelatha Menon: Formula to cut inflation

Finance Minister Mukherjee unveiled the first DTC draft in 2009 followed a bill in 2010.&nbsp;As part&nbsp;of the&nbsp;budget 2010 announcements, the implementation of the new code was deferred to 2012. The 2010 DTC bill is with the Parliamentary standing committee under a 'veil of secrecy' and doubts are being expressed that given an isolated winter session of the parliament, the likely hood of tax payers&nbsp;witnessing the new law in 2012. Widespread representations have been made by the industry &amp; chambers and there is silence on part of the government on implementation.

The 2012 tax cliff

Imagine the predicament of an officer when he gets in his hand the latest circular on prosecution dated 12th May 2011 for service tax cases. It says that all previous instructions and guidelines in Central Excise are also applicable mutatis mutandis. Now when I look for the Central Excise Circulars I find that there are far too many and the same point has been discussed in different circulars in different ways . That is hardly any finality on some crucial points. Moreover, Custom circulars have not been referred to. This is a wrong approach because both Customs, Excise and Service Tax should have the same principles regarding prosecution. This circular should have ideally, incorporated the general principles enunciated in the Customs and Excise circulars into this circular. That would have made the circular self contained and not an open ended one. This circular is in a letter form with F. No.

Multitudinous circulars on prosecution need consolidation

Taking someone by surprise is a virtue, but mostly when one is at war. In other circumstances, particularly in matters of investment policy, surprises are mostly unpleasant. Yet, our policy-makers have demonstrated their penchant for taking the investment community by surprise. In the evening of Friday, September 30, when the world thought India was looking forward to a weekend of Navaratri night revelry, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (&ldquo;DIPP&rdquo;) took the world by surprise, causing sleepless nights all around.

What a banana republic we are

The Supreme Court has ruled that offenses under the Customs Act and the Central Excise Act are non-cognisable and bailable. In non-cognisable offenses, the police have no authority to arrest a person without warrant. The central government argued in the case of Choith Harchandani vs Union of India, that the offenders under these two laws were not entitled to bail, quoting the Criminal Procedure Code. The court rejected the government&rsquo;s arguments and allowed the appeals of the alleged offenders about arrest and bail. There were several appeals from high courts in excise and customs cases. All the offenders under these two laws were ordered to be released.

Easier bail for evaders of customs, excise duty

Mahatma Gandhi was a committed constitutionalist. He, like the entire pantheon of India&rsquo;s freedom fighters including B R Ambedkar, believed in the rule of law, negotiated settlement and the integrity of democratic institutions. Mr Gandhi never went on a fast to make a demand; he fasted as an act of penance. Thus, neither the threat to fast in pursuit of a demand nor the assertion that citizens are above Parliament is Gandhian. It can certainly not be accepted as a legitimate assertion of a free people&rsquo;s democratic rights. Arvind Kejriwal of the India Against Corruption movement is, therefore, wrong to assert that his leader Baburao Hazare stands above Parliament. Parliament is answerable to people through constitutionally mandated means, and not in the populist sense that Mr Hazare assumed when he fasted at New Delhi&rsquo;s Ramlila Grounds seeking to shape Parliament&rsquo;s business on an hourly basis in the name of the people.

Institutional integrity

The worm may be turning. The microfinance industry, after a disastrous second half last financial year and more pain likely in the first half of the current year, is being told by some of its investors to refocus on its primary objective: uplifting the poor. The crisis happened because some aggressive microfinance institutions (MFIs) tried to deliver on the commitments they had made to their global investors. Hence, this refocusing may be the beginning of a return to stability as well as slow and steady growth. The overall lesson is that only variations of social entrepreneurship can sustain lending to the poor. If that means slow growth and not accessing a lot of quick return-seeking global capital, then so be it.&nbsp;By losing sight of the cardinal objective of improving the lives of the poor and chasing numbers, the sector will open itself to the allegation that it is nothing but a moneylender dressed in modern corporate garb, as was levelled by the Andhra Pradesh government.

Sense on microfinance

The downgrade of State Bank of India&rsquo;s (SBI&rsquo;s) financial strength by Moody&rsquo;s Investor Services has come as a shock to India&rsquo;s financial markets. The international rating agency expresses an opinion on the &ldquo;standalone&rdquo; financial strength of financial institutions and assigns a rating to specific debt obligations of the institutions concerned.

Suman Bery: Shooting the messenger

Is there a case for having a ceiling on how often and how much any media should be measured? The latest Indian Readership Survey shows once again how little the variation is quarter-on-quarter in newspaper readership (see &ldquo;Timing issues in checking on media readership&rdquo;, Business Standard, October 5, 2011). No one disputes the usefulness of quarterly readership data.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: The downside of too much data

The underlying assumption of the proposed Land Acquisition Bill seems that the price paid to farmers is unreasonably low due to dominant power of industrial buyers, requiring government intervention. The draft, however, may neither accelerate the pace of land acquisition for industry nor overcome the psychological barriers of landowners that impede land transfers.

V Kumaraswamy: Ground realities in land acquisition

Both Nandan Nilekani and his well-wishers are today, two years after he set out on his unique identification (UID) journey, wiser if not a more disillusioned lot. Right at the outset he had acknowledged concerns over privacy issues, saying, &ldquo;India does not really have a privacy law. So all this will act as an impetus to define the privacy framework for Indians.

Subir Roy: Can you have Nilekani without UID? 

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