Bacchus is a strange deity who doesn&rsquo;t seem to have enough of his devotees. The more he is worshiped the more he wants to possess his inebriated worshippers. Drunkenness seems to be the only normal state as they get trapped in what is called alcoholism. Not all drunkards suffer from alcoholism, which is a state of uncontrollable craving for liquor that finally consumes the drinker, mentally and physically.

Sreelatha Menon: The angels of Bacchus

Business Standard

A long-term investor can use the SIP route; aggressive ones should accumulate cash.

Curtail your ambitions

Twenty years ago on this day, 24th July 1991, India&rsquo;s finance minister Manmohan Singh wound up his historic Union budget speech with the famous words: &ldquo;No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea.

Strategic dimension to 1991

India&rsquo;s free trade agreement with Asean has spurred a globalising drive by India Inc, and the region has emerged as a significant destination for India&rsquo;s outward investment.

N Chandra Mohan: Corporate India looks eastwards to Asean

Ever since the global economy turned south, Beijing&rsquo;s planners have been credited with a level of skill and fortitude not seen in the politically deadlocked West. China&rsquo;s massive stimulus of nearly 15 per cent of its GDP was seen as salvaging global demand when few economies possessed the fiscal resilience to step up to the plate. But, this was a holding operation premised on the expectation that OECD consumer demand would resume its pre-crisis path. This has not happened. It is becoming apparent that China&rsquo;s macroeconomic edifice is not nearly as robust and sustainable as mainstream economists had previously presumed.

Zorawar Daulet Singh: Sheen is coming off China's growth story

All the Congressional leaders have reiterated the desire to make sure that the United States does not default on our obligations, and that the full faith and credit of the US is preserved. That is a good thing. I think we should not even be this close to a deadline on this issue; this should have been taken care of earlier. But it is encouraging that everybody believes that this is something that has to be addressed. And for the general public &mdash; I&rsquo;ve said this before, but I just want to reiterate &mdash; this is not some abstract issue. These are obligations that the US has taken on in the past. Congress has run up the credit card, and we now have an obligation to pay our bills. If we do not, it could have a whole set of adverse consequences.

'Some shared sacrifices can stabilise economy'

The Union minister for petroleum and natural gas, Jaipal Reddy, is an unlikely candidate for &ldquo;reformer of the year&rdquo; title, but on the 20th anniversary of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh&rsquo;s pro-liberalisation initiatives of July 24, 1991, it was this diehard Congressman who revived the liberalisation spirit and chose to march ahead in a government that keeps looking right and left but shies away from crossing the road. First came the decision to raise petroleum prices, including the prices of kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas; then came the final breaking of the Cairn-Vedanta logjam; and now the clearance for the Reliance-British Petroleum deal. Mr Reddy would have made his prime minister proud with his pragmatic liberalism. He has shown how a proactive and self-assured politician can make a difference to a moribund ministry.

Anniversary spirit

The recently announced government policy on defence equipment procurement, clearly intended to jump-start the indigenous defence industry, comes not a day too soon. Much of what appears in the new policy was first mooted six years ago by a committee chaired by Vijay Kelkar. The benefits of such indigenisation extend beyond reducing the country&rsquo;s reliance on imports. Defence production can have economy-wide synergies, particularly with the manufacturing sector. India&rsquo;s reliance on defence equipment imports at over 70 per cent of total procurement is unacceptably high. To be sure, there are a few indigenous success stories, notably in metallurgy and special materials (the Chobham armour on the Arjun tank and the composites used in light combat aircraft are world-class), radars and embedded software used to design the mission computer used in frontline aircraft, but wide-ranging success has been largely elusive.

Defence and development

I have my own Spike Milligan kind of story to tell about a diplomatic brouhaha in Europe over Greece and me! Many moons ago the European Commission (EC) invited me to visit two member countries of my choice in the European Union (EU) to understand the dynamics of the Eurozone. I chose Germany and Greece. The head of the EC delegation in India, at that time a French national, suggested politely that a business journalist would find conversations in Paris more illuminating than in Athens.

Sanjaya Baru: Pigs can fly

China has unsettled its neighbours with naval displays and diplomatic spats.

Evan A Feigenbaum: Who will win as China's economy changes?

An anxious fortnight in which financial markets grappled with the consequences of a spiralling debt crisis in Europe and the prospect of a default by the US treasury (with the continuing impasse between the Democrats and the Grand Old Party over the sovereign debt ceiling) ended with a collective sigh of relief. European authorities finally set their bickering aside and announced a comprehensive package both for Greece and other fiscally-stretched countries.

Abheek Barua & Shivom Chakravarti: Madame No says Yes

Irony by definition is laced with dark humour, but it would be more like black humour when one views data systems in India. Less than a week after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expressed concern over the quality of data, the Central Statistics Office drastically reduced the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) growth number for capital goods for April to 7.3 per cent from 14.5 per cent when it was initially announced. Such revisions are quite bizarre and have a deeper implication because such high-frequency data is used for high-frequency monetary policy stances. The RBI&rsquo;s frustration is palpable because the April number would have provided the justification for increasing interest rates based on robust investment growth. But, now it turns out that capital goods production was, at best, stable.

Madan Sabnavis: What's wrong with our statistics?

Of the various changes in the CENVAT Credit Rules,2004 that were effected in Budget 2011, an intriguing one relates to the disallowance of input tax credits on warranty services relating to motor vehicles.

Input tax credits on vehicle warranties 

The general perception is that the threshold of reliability of information provided as disclosure in footnotes is lower than the reliability of information provided through measurement of assets and liabilities in the balance sheet and incomes and expenses in the profit and loss account.

Reliability of disclosures

One of the activities that the Commerce Minister and some of the officials in his Ministry keep busy with is the negotiation of free, preferential, bilateral or regional trade agreements. Apparently, the main objective of the agreements is trade creation i.e. increase in imports and exports. A close second is progressive liberalisation and greater integration with global economy. However, whether these agreements have actually contributed to increased trade is far from clear.

Time to pursue trade negotiations with developed countries

The Supreme Court ruled last week that if a cheque is issued by a director of a company towards any liability or debt incurred by a sister company, the drawer of the cheque is liable under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. In this case, Anil Sachar vs Shree Nath Spinners Ltd, a director was common to two companies. He issued four cheques in consideration of goods supplied to one company. They were dishonoured by the bank. The payee filed a complaint.

Director of sister co convicted for issuing dishonoured cheque

There's a straightforward link between industrial metals (ferrous and non-ferrous) and manufacturing. Metals are used in value-added products, ranging from safety pins to ships, skyscrapers and bridges. Higher economic growth automatically translates into metal demand.

Industrial metals: A good long-term bet

Diplomacy attaches great significance to words. While words are no substitute for deeds in international relations and what you do is more important than what you say, there are times when what is said can be significant if it presages what is likely to be done. Beat reporters may have been disappointed by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&rsquo;s visit because it did not produce any headlines about deals and deeds, but foreign policy analysts will pay greater attention to Ms Clinton&rsquo;s words, especially her speech in Chennai. This is the first time a Democratic Party politician has laid out the wider canvas within which the US sees its relations with India.

Hillary Curzon

The embarrassment of riches in grain stocks confronting the government is a problem of its own making. It is the product of ill-conceived policies on grain procurement, storage and distribution and mistimed decisions on opening and shutting of foodgrain exports. The grain stocks that have piled up as a consequence are far more than needed for any rational inventory and public distribution programme. Burgeoning food stocks pose problems of storage and wastage.

Poor economics

Next week will be a nail-biting finish to the &ldquo;game of chicken&rdquo;, or who blinks first standoff between the US president and the opposition Republicans. If they don&rsquo;t reach a deal before the deadline, the stalemate will lead to a historic default by the US government. Washington has been wrangling for months to avoid this catastrophic outcome. The current debt ceiling, also called overdraft facility available to the US Treasury Department, is about $14.2 trillion.

Ajit Ranade: Corporate cash and fiscal crash

Has the ISI&rsquo;s hospitality to Osama bin Laden, and Islamabad&rsquo;s furious response to his killing, become a tipping point in the US-Pakistan relationship? That Washington is intent on painting Islamabad black is evident from the American media&rsquo;s front-page coverage of last week&rsquo;s arrest of Kashmiri separatist, Ghulam Nabi Fai.

Ajai Shukla: US-Pak - Intertwined, but going nowhere

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