We&rsquo;re no banana republic, okay? We&rsquo;re the world&rsquo;s largest democracy and we have robust democratic institutions. Take the recently concluded case of the Really Trying, Whiny People of Bhopal vs. The Chaps Who Were Just Making Some Damn Pesticide. India should thank the district court in Bhopal for winding things up in a lightning 26 years, because frankly, nobody wants to go on listening to aforesaid really trying, whiny people say the same things witness after witness, year after year. Untold suffering is so out.

Pass the methyl isocyanate, please

Business Standard

One of Marx&rsquo;s more commonly quoted aphorisms is that &ldquo;History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce&rdquo;. There are few countries where that could be more true than India&mdash;as the Bhopal case shows. But Bhopal is not an exception, only a pointer to what happens all the time. Indeed, the substantive Bhopal case was killed and buried a long time ago, which is one reason why the sudden media anger over the farcical denouement raises uncomfortable questions.

T N Ninan: Tragedy as farce

Singapore has reinvented itself every few decades.

Avatar city

It is not easy being a Congressman these days. In the good old days, the commands to be followed flew from one source. Genuflection was easy. Today, there are at least two major sources of political power in India, mother Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul Gandhi. Sometimes, to add to the confusion if not much else, there is a third source &mdash; the prime minister, Manmohan Singh.

Surjit S Bhalla: Conflicted and confused

An inveterate traveller all his life, the poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1930 visited Dartington Hall, a 1,200-acre estate in Devon established by his long-standing Anglo-American camp followers Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst as a Santiniketan-type institution in England.

Sunil Sethi: Two sides of Tagore's art

One of the rules of diplomacy is to increase the number of friends and decrease adversaries. But Israel seems to be doing the opposite.

K Natwar Singh: Israel's worst enemy

The people of Manipur have had a hard summer. The price of petrol in the black market is Rs 150 per litre. Diesel costs Rs 110. A filled LPG cylinder ranges between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 &mdash; when you can get it. The price of kerosene has gone up from Rs 35 to Rs 65 over the last few days. Militant groups &mdash; whether Kuki, Naga or Meitei &mdash; are raking it in: they levy a tax of Rs 2 on every Rs 100 spent in the state and this has recently been raised to Rs 5. Traders too are making hay. The only people who&rsquo;re hurting are ordinary, hapless citizens, waiting for life-saving medicines to be airlifted or wheat or rice.

Aditi Phadnis: Manipur's development blockade

The Supreme Court on May 7 ruled that natural resources were national assets that belonged to the people and were ideally exploited by public sector undertakings. This obviously implies that local communities, including tribals, living on mineralised land, enjoy entitlements but not prescriptive ownership rights to such national assets. This is an important reiterative clarification defining mineral rights in Fifth Schedule areas that are currently in contention.

B G Verghese: People-friendly growth

Stuck in bad traffic on Delhi&rsquo;s inner Ring road, my eyes fell upon an advertisement for a new cold drink. It declared that the drink tasted just like a home-made one. For the next 15 minutes, while our car stood next to that billboard, I stewed over the irony of it all. The country, with one of the largest repertoires of traditional coolers, is today one of the world&rsquo;s biggest markets for packaged soft drinks! Maybe it was the irritation of being in such lousy traffic, or it was my parched throat, but I just couldn&rsquo;t stop remembering the wonderful sharbats I&rsquo;d had in the summers in my youth.

Geetanjali Krishna: Keeping cool, Indian style

Since we had never before worn coordinated ensembles, I couldn&rsquo;t help protesting, especially as the selection included white trousers, something I have always associated with PT classes in school. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; I looked at the gabardine with some loathing, &ldquo;am I wearing white?&rdquo; &ldquo;Because Karan Johar is going to be there,&rdquo; my wife said, as if that explained everything. &ldquo;Does he wear white trousers too?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, silly,&rdquo; laughed my wife, &ldquo;but my personal stylist insisted we wear these clothes, so will you get rid of the frown and go change, it&rsquo;s getting late&rdquo; &mdash; which was cheeky of her, considering she took another hour to get ready, in which time I had to entertain my mother-in-law with an extra round of whisky. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re wearing white pants,&rdquo; my mother-in-law pointed out after her third drink. &ldquo;Nothing wrong with your eyesight,&rdquo; I complimented her.

Kishore Singh: Nice and dysfunctional, at last

The diktat that all listed companies must have 25 per cent public shareholdings will cause tectonic shifts in the structure of India's stockmarkets over the next few years. There have been very few policy changes to compare with this in terms of long-term impact.

Interesting time for investors

I want to do three things today: To try to put this moment in a very broad historical perspective, to try to think about this generation in India, and to try to reflect on what it means for the relationship between our two countries.

'Developing world will be the biggest story of our era'

Earlier this week, Gustav Balduf, Air India's new Chief Operating Officer, told reporters in Berlin that the airline needed to cut costs and improve passenger services to turn around. This is an unexceptionable statement: controlling costs and focusing on service is, after all, at the heart of any airline&rsquo;s success. But in state-owned Air India&rsquo;s case, Mr Balduf&rsquo;s statement suggests irrational optimism. In theory the nature of ownership doesn&rsquo;t matter as far as performance is concerned, look at Singapore Airlines, but in practice it seems to matter a lot for Air India.

Mr Balduf's dilemma

My grandfather had an elephant. This is the title of a Malayalam novel by Vaikkom Mohammad Basheer. So what? I have three flats.

Sreelatha Menon: The real state of Kerala

Afghan President Hamid Karzai&rsquo;s recent visit to India came at a critical juncture. Recent happenings in Afghanistan have jolted the confidence of those ranged against jihadi terrorism. It seems a matter of time before Western forces withdraw from that country. And the time may come sooner rather than later.

Santosh Kumar & Neha Malik: The future great game

Distinguished visiting professor, 
National INstitute of Public Finance and Policy

Mongolian herders and rural Indians, two seemingly disparate peoples, could provide valuable insights for other countries in Asia. Both groups have suffered from multiple crises and both are climbing their way out through innovative schemes that offer a hand up instead of a handout.

Ajay Chhibber: Cash for work - Asia's answer to crises

There&rsquo;s no better way to whet your appetite for underground cinema.

Criterion's cult classics

Since the financial crisis in Greece made the headlines, financial markets &mdash; bonds (particularly of southern and central/east European countries), equities, currencies, commodities, etc. &mdash; have been nervous and volatile.

A V Rajwade: Edgy financial markets

It is important for us to find our own idiom for corporate governance, which is rooted in the Indian ethos, but speaks the global language.

Pratip Kar: An Eclectic View

Accounting for agriculture will change radically when companies will formulate accounting policy consistent with IAS-41 equivalent Indian Accounting Standard.

Accounting for agriculture all set for major change

The provisions relating to Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR) had been enacted with a view to ent-rust the power of giving adv-ance rulings to an indepen-dent adjudicatory body and to further ensure that the procedure is simple, inexpensive, expeditious and authoritative. The advance rulings from the AAR can be sought on any question of law or fact in relation to the tax liability of a non-resident arising out of a transaction which has already been undertaken, or which is proposed to be undertaken.

Can we secure advance for future transactions?

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