There are several reasons I wear the tri-colour around my wrist. It&rsquo;s a rubber band with the national flag, and the blue Ashoka Chakra on it. First, I love national symbols &mdash; the anthem, the flag; watching the President or Prime Minister&rsquo;s convoy drive past with the outriders bearing the national colours, all make my heart swell.

Suhasini Haidar Diplomacy in S Asia: Overcoming prejudice

Business Standard

Sharpe and Treynor ratios are important. However, there is no guarantee that future performance will resemble the past.

Cautious use of critical ratios

Last week, Finance Act, 2010 came into effect. A few days earlier, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had spelt out his response to several representations regarding his Budget proposals. Apparently, there were hardly any representation about the changes that will create tax liability for taxpayers with retrospective effect, or he decided not to yield to the representations.

Retrospective amendments that create tax liability are unfair

Given how the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India&rsquo;s (Trai&rsquo;s) recommendations on 2G spectrum will hit telecom firms, it&rsquo;s not surprising that telecom stocks have plunged. Of course, the fun and games have only begun since it is up to Telecom Minister A Raja to decide whether to accept the recommendations, which ones to accept, and when to accept.

Sunil Jain: Raja's in the saddle again

In calculating the cost of production, fixed overheads are assigned to units produced during the period using the normal capacity.

How do you determine normal capacity

The Finance Bill 2010 has received presidential assent on 8th May 2010 and has become the Finance Act 2010 with effect from that date. While the effective date for the levy of service tax on certain newly introduced taxable services and amendments in the scope of existing taxable services are yet to be notified, although expected in the very near future, the procedural changes in service tax legislation have come into force.

New taxable services and amendments in scope of existing services

Expatriate employees&rsquo; salary for working in India is chargeable to tax in India. The tax is charged on the basis of working in India whether the salary amount is received in India or outside India. While computing the taxable salary various deductions in respect of sums paid towards retirement benefits and saving schemes, e.g. contribution to Provident Fund, PPF, NSC contribution etc are allowed from the income. But, where the expatriate employees are required to pay certain sums in their home country towards statutory payments, like Citizen Tax, Social Security Charges etc. a question arises whether such payments shall be allowed as deduction while computing their taxable income in India.

Social security is deductible expense for expatriates

In my column late last year, I had expressed views on attempts to sabotage any noble intent to reform India&rsquo;s archaic judiciary system. An instance was the hanging fate of legislature&rsquo;s intent to set up the National Tax Tribunal (NTT) replacing high courts for speedy disposal of tax disputes. The NTT Act was challenged in various High Courts on the ground of constitutional validity and principles on separation of powers between judiciary and legislature.

'Tribunalisation' of HC powers not unconstitutional: SC

The earlier $150 billion euro zone/IMF package for Greece had not reassured the financial markets about the willingness of eurozone members to do all that may be necessary to restore Greek finances to a more stable level. There were also worries about whether the Greek disease would spread to other EU economies &mdash; Portugal? Spain? Ireland? The euro remained under pressure and the eurozone sovereign bond yields and credit default swap (CDS) spreads did not soften.

A V Rajwade: Is it really euro 750 billion?

The $140-billion support package that the Greek government has finally received from its European Union (EU) partners and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gives it the breathing space needed to undertake the difficult job of putting its finances in order. The package may or may not prevent Spain and Portugal from becoming undone in a similar fashion, or indeed even head off an eventual Greek default.

Dani Rodrik: Greek lessons for world economy

I spent this last week travelling in the US at the invitation of The Boeing Company&rsquo;s defence arm, Boeing Defense, Space &amp; Security (BDS). I visited Boeing&rsquo;s rotorcraft facilities in Philadelphia; a US Navy aircraft carrier (USS Harry S Truman) and naval air base (Oceana) in Norfolk, Virginia; Boeing&rsquo;s space division in Florida; and its C-17 transport aircraft plant in California.

Ajai Shukla: Doing defence with Uncle Sam

Highway 443 connects Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and remains one of the most visible symbols of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is, in effect and even after recent rulings, a segregated highway, inaccessible to Palestinians without work permits and accessible in highly limited ways to Palestinians who possess work permits. For those who&rsquo;ve driven down Highway 443, there is an understanding that you are on one side of the road or the other &mdash; there is no middle ground.

Nilanjana S Roy: The high cost of neutrality

Until the 1990s, Pakistan enjoyed an edge over India in the global basmati rice market because it had superior quality of basmati to offer. But, this is no longer the case. The improved basmati varieties evolved in recent years by the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly called the Pusa Institute, have far better grain quality than even the traditional basmati types and can command higher prices and help get a greater share in the international market.

Surinder Sud: Basmati bonanza

The crash on Monday was caused by panic over the European situation. Support came at the upper end of the 200-Day Moving Average (DMA) zone. Derivatives&rsquo; volumes was huge and there was a lot of selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

The intermediate trend remains negative

Against our deemed export supplies, we have claimed refund of terminal excise duty, as per Para 8.3 (c) of the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP).

'Exporters may claim refund of education cess'

In spite of targeting a 120-basis-point reduction in the Centre&rsquo;s deficit for 2010-11 to 5.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee&rsquo;s Budget in February was notable for one rather optimistic assumption: that the oil subsidy during the current year would be no more than Rs 3,000 crore. Just a month-and-a-half into the fiscal year, the issue has become rather more pressing, although the unexpectedly ambitious bids in the 3G auctions are likely to create an impression that the government&rsquo;s fiscal worries are over, since the extra take on this account alone could be Rs 35,000 crore, or half a percentage point of GDP. However, the negative side more than outweighs this one-time gift, because oil prices have stayed high, and this will come to haunt the Budget&rsquo;s price assumptions.

Fisc slips on oil

An ordinance was promulgated last week that empowers the government to dissolve the Medical Council of India (MCI). As a first step, the government has now created a seven-member board that will take over the functioning of the MCI. The ordinance will be effective for a year during which time the government is likely (if reports are to be believed) to dissolve the MCI. It intends then to separate the two functions of the MCI &mdash; education and licensing &mdash; and hand them over to new institutions. Education will come under the ambit of the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER), which, in turn, will be overseen by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), and the licensing of medical practitioners under the National Council for Human Resources in Health (NCHRH), to be overseen by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Improve, don't abandon, MCI

Special economic zones (SEZs) in India have always been controversial. The controversy got more intense after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Manmohan Singh enacted a special law for such zones in 2005. With a slew of fiscal incentives and other concessions made available for setting up these zones, there was a virtual race among India&rsquo;s top companies to seek necessary approvals from the government and jump the SEZ bandwagon.

A K Bhattacharya: The rise of special economic zones

The persistence of bureaucrats to create sinecures for themselves is matched only by the vigour of the rebuff they receive periodically from the judiciary. What is lost in this foggy war are the urgently needed economic reforms. The strife started some time in 1986 when administrative tribunals, consumer forums and debt recovery tribunals were set up and it continues to this day.

M J Antony: Mandarin 'justice'

The refusal to auction 2G spectrum ensures that the debate over Trai&rsquo;s recommendations will centre on whether one group was favoured over the other in the past and whether one wrong justifies another.

Has Trai been fair?

Completing the Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations can boost global growth and new trade opportunities would constitute a stimulus package of up to $300 billion, Mr Pascal Lamy, the director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), claimed this week. This is incentive enough, especially for countries experiencing a slowdown in economic growth and worried about double-dip recession. Speaking at the Bahrain Global Forum, of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Mr Lamy made a reasonable claim for the WTO and the multilateral trade regime which, he said, had ensured there was no slide into protectionism in the face of the Great Recession. International trade is today as open as it was at the beginning of the crisis, Mr Lamy claimed. After a 12 per cent fall in real terms, in 2009, world trade is expected to grow by 9.5 per cent this year. This is reassuring. Keeping the wheels of trade moving has helped. But, the global economy has to move forward.

Doha round and round

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