The movement started by Medha Patkar to oppose the Sardar Sarovar Project is raising its pitch as the government okays construction of the last phase of the dam over the Narmada.

Sreelatha Menon: Unquiet flows the Narmada

Business Standard

The watchword of India&rsquo;s decennial population census for 2011 is &ldquo;Our Census, Our Future&rdquo;. By focusing on the future the managers of Census 2011 have wisely tried to steer away from the past in enumerating the present. Demographers and social scientists will understandably use the data to analyse changes in the economy and society since the last census of 2001. But Census 2011 is more about the future than the past because it will be used to construct for the very first time an electronic database on the basis of which the government of India will issue a Unique Identity Number to every enumerated and finger-printed person. Covering 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns and more than 6 lakh villages in the country, the 15th National Census takes forward a process first launched in 1872. The socio-economic and cultural database will enable the government to produce the National Population Register.

For an idea of India

Yet another low volatility, low-volume week passed.

Downside risk exceeds upsides

Two decades after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first unleashed his dose of economic liberalisation, industry continues to be shackled &mdash; an average manufacturing unit has to comply with 70-odd legislation, each of which requires at least one licence/certificate. All told, a unit has to fill up around 100 returns a year. In addition, there are the usual issues of lack of labour flexibility, the time it takes to close units down, and so on, basically all the issues that ensure India is at the bottom of most &lsquo;doing business&rsquo; surveys. To the extent the services sector, like the IT/ITeS segment, was relatively less shackled, it grew faster. Not surprisingly, the government wants to increase the share of manufacturing to 25 per cent by 2022 &mdash; it&rsquo;s around 16 per cent right now if you don&rsquo;t include construction and around 25 per cent if you do &mdash; since this will also create large-scale employment.

Liberated enclaves

This photograph, of an imperious Michel Camdessus, former managing director of the IMF, standing hands folded like a schoolmaster, peering over a bent President Suharto of Indonesia, signing up for an IMF bailout and policy advice, is etched deep in the psyche of every south-east Asian. It is the one visual, the one moment, that will forever mark the turning point in the global standing of the Fund.

Sanjaya Baru: Reinventing IMF

With 130-140 million Indians likely to move to cities in the next decade and an equal number in the one after that, the development of urban India represents the biggest challenge you can think of &mdash; in the next two decades, India will have to create as many new cities as it created in the last several hundred years. Alternately, the existing cities which are home to around 285 million people today will have to absorb nearly double the number of people they do today.

Sunil Jain: Urban disaster

China&rsquo;s current account surplus is once again rising with the revival of the global economy. As unemployment in the West remains stubbornly high, however, there has been persistent pressure from both the US and Europe on China to appreciate its currency. China appreciated its currency by more than 20 per cent against the dollar between mid-2005 and mid-2008, before suspending the appreciation.

A V Rajwade: The dollar-yuan parity

In my November 30 column last year following the Karnataka HC ruling on section 195, I was among sceptics and sounded devil&rsquo;s advocate. Now, with the Delhi HC dissenting with Karnataka, I will pick up from where I had left; albeit with some optimism.

Delhi HC rationalises unwieldy section 195

The Department feels that the non-quoting of PANs by deductees is creating problems in the processing of returns of income and in granting credit for tax deducted at source, leading to delays in issue of refunds.

Non-residents must obtain PAN for proper TDS

Earlier articles in this area focused on the problem relating to grant of refunds of input tax credits to exporters of services. By way of recapitulation, the Centre has zero rated such exports. Consequently, the services exporting community is entitled to obtain refunds of input tax credits or utilize such credits to offset domestic output service taxes. The IT/ITeS industry is a key part of the service exporting community and was expected to be competitive in global markets as a result of the zero rating benefits. However, as in well known by now, exporters of services had faced serious problems in obtaining refunds of input taxes for a variety of reasons. In order to ameliorate the problem, the CBEC had issued Circular No. 120/01/2010-ST dated 19th January, 2010 to clarify several important points on exports of services from India and to also lay down a simplified procedure for grant of refunds.

Services from India to qualify for zero rating

Elliott waves can be recreated using the geometrical Time Triads.

Demystifying Elliott Waves

At least seven important bills including the nuclear liability bill, the foreign universities bill, the women&rsquo;s reservation bill and a couple of other long-standing economic bills are all awaiting parliamentary approval and seem unlikely to secure it. Congress Party managers are blaming the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left Front for this legislative impasse, especially in the upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha. The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition does not have the numbers in the Rajya Sabha to get official bills passed. In the Lok Sabha the UPA has the numbers but the margin has come down sharply with supporting parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party no longer extending unconditional support to the UPA. With a wafer thin majority in the Lok Sabha, where the UPA now has 277 members in the 543 member house, the government feels constrained to back off.

Legislative impasse

This has to be the ultimate irony. Barely a few weeks after a Supreme Court committee comes out with a verdict that the public distribution system is bust and needs a drastic overhaul, the government clears a food security bill that seeks to push more food through this very same burst pipe. If newspaper reports are to be believed, the Congress president is not happy with even this and wants the government to increase the quantity of subsidized food from 25 kg per poor family per month to 35 kg. Apart from the issue of what this increase will do to the subsidy bill, surely there should be a discussion on how the PDS can possibly deliver on its new responsibilities when it is practically non-existent in several states, apart from the huge leaks in it? What is even more curious is that the Congress party should be keen on increasing the scope of the PDS when the government is talking of switching over to cash transfers linked to the Unique ID system.

Right to governance

With renewed emphasis on fiscal consolidation, it is necessary to internalise the lessons from the first phase of the implementation of the fiscal responsibility legislation. It is clear from experience that the mere passing of the legislation will not bring about fiscal discipline. First of all, it is necessary for the government, not just the Ministry of Finance, to take responsibility for fiscal discipline for stable macroeconomic management and political motivation; no legislation can ensure this. This is not to mean that legislation does not have any role. This can work when the executive realises the urgency of the issue and is willing to make the required sacrifices. Secondly, it is necessary to evolve an institutional mechanism not only to monitor but also to ensure the participation of all spending departments in implementation.

M Govinda Rao: Monitoring Fiscal Consolidation

The vulnerability of Indian agriculture to climate change is well acknowledged. But what is not fully appreciated is the impact this will have on rain-fed (non-irrigated) agriculture, practiced mostly by small and marginal farmers who will suffer the most. The crops that may be hit include pulses and oilseeds, among others. These are already in short supply and are consequently high-priced.

Surinder Sud: Too hot for comfort

An important outcome of the economic liberalisation and changes in industrial policy initiated since 1991 has been industrial restructuring and reallocation of resources towards activities and sectors with a greater comparative advantage. This has improved the productivity and efficiency of India&rsquo;s manufacturing sector and made it globally competitive.

Sunil K Sinha: In a smog of its own making

Figuring out the state of an army&rsquo;s morale is easy. All it takes is a couple of drinks with two groups of people: the officers and the enlisted men. If the chatter is mainly about sports and professional competitions, ongoing training and about how much tougher and smarter they are than their rival units, morale is high. If talk centres on pay and allowances, promotions and postings and on the world outside the army, you can bet money that morale is low.

Ajai Shukla: Soldier, heal thyself

&ldquo;I read Glenarvon too, by Caro Lamb&hellip;/ Goddamn!&rdquo; In 1816, when the Lady Caroline Lamb published her infamous roman &agrave; clef, Glenarvon, Lord Byron&rsquo;s response summed up his dismay at discovering the history of their tempestuous romance preserved for posterity. Glenarvon, now barely read, went into multiple editions at the time; Caro Lamb was ostracized and condemned; Byron continued his devastating career despite the scandal.

Nilanjana S Roy: The desi roman a clef

The horrific attack on security forces by armed Maoist extremists in Chhattisgarh is yet another reminder that the government, both at the Centre and in the states, needs a more effective strategy to deal with what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has long dubbed India&rsquo;s biggest national security threat. India&rsquo;s major political parties must stop the blame game, must stop passing the buck and sit together and work out a joint strategy. A senior and experienced police officer like Mr K P S Gill has raised serious questions about the manner in which the state government was dealing with the situation on the ground. The questions he has raised must be addressed. It is clear, at one level, that the intensity of the battle has been heightened by increased desperation on the part of the Maoist groups precisely because the security forces have been on the offensive.

Time for stocktaking

The future looks somewhat bright for the Indian pharmaceutical industry which is wholly into generics. It expects to get a push from the new US legislation bringing into the health-care fold 32 million or 10 per cent of the country&rsquo;s population which is currently uninsured.

US opportunity for pharma

Like the rest of the market, I was somewhat surprised by the Reserve Bank of India&rsquo;s (RBI&rsquo;s) rate hike on March 19. The element of surprise related entirely to the timing of the move. Senior officials of the central bank earlier seemed to suggest that rate changes would be kept for the quarterly monetary policies and not sprung on the market between policy meetings.

Abheek Barua: Should RBI hike rates further?

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