&lsquo;Sick&rsquo; wineries in Maharashtra will take a while to bounce back.

New whine, old bottle

Business Standard

What politicians could not achieve, the IPL has - sporting integration and an end to racism in sports for good. A spectacular achievement.

K Natwar Singh: The cricket bat and the toilet seat

It&rsquo;s agony to watch my mother use her wonderfully portable piece of junk.

An Apple a day

Because she had been unusually busy, my wife was delighted when an invitation for a working (for me) trip (for the family) came up, complete with the promise of spa treatments and gourmet meals. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in Agra for the weekend,&rdquo; she started postponing her appointments. &ldquo;Whoa,&rdquo; I cautioned, for I had not yet said yes, &ldquo;I may be busy with another assignment and unable to go.&rdquo; But my wife had made up her mind. &ldquo;Pack your bags,&rdquo; she told our daughter, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re off to Agra.

Brain no longer on plane

International supply-control measures don&rsquo;t work. It is time to end the War on Drugs if we want to win the War on Terror.

Deepak Lal: The misguided war on drugs

Sheikh Chilli is a well-known character in South Asian mythology. He abounds in vision, dreams, and knows how to inspire people with his talk. He is brimming with futuristic ideas, but has no idea how to realise them: The most famous Sheikh Chilli story is how he decided to cut a branch off a tree when he needed firewood, except that he was sitting on the branch while cutting it.

Aditi Phadnis: Gadkari's big plan

Twenty years ago, the Abu Dhabi book fair was a disorganised books souk, but then, 20 years ago, not all that much was going on in Abu Dhabi. This year, the book fair&rsquo;s general manager, a brisk German, announced that it was now the largest book fair between Tehran and Seoul, and with 236,000 publishing professionals, 840 exhibitors and 63 countries participating, even bigger than Moscow&rsquo;s.

Sunil Sethi: Abu Dhabi - The Gulf's central arena

The Foreign Universities Bill is puzzling for two reasons: One, it proposes that a business operating in India can be exempt from the letter and spirit of the prevailing laws of the land on the grounds that the owner is foreign (pharmaceutical companies would love for that to be applicable to their industry too!); and two, this proposed exemption from reservations comes from a government that is otherwise very, very clear about its position &mdash; and walks its talk &mdash; on the inclusion of backward classes and economically-weaker sections into educational institutions.

Rama Bijapurkar: Inclusion not elitism, please

Scams aplenty, but few get the in-depth treatment.

Cooking the books

At a dinner party at the home of India&rsquo;s defence attach&eacute;, Brigadier Surinder Singh, in Kabul in December 2009, the freezing cold outside was considerably lightened not only by a raging bonfire set up on the verandah, but also by the grace, charm, warmth and wit of the young men and women from India&rsquo;s Army Education Corps and Army Medical Corps who had left their spouses and children back home in order to work among the people of Afghanistan.

Jyoti Malhotra: Filling the post-US vacuum

When is a new generation born? The cheeky answer is, around 10 pm. To a similar question (when was the new world order born?), the answer would be: September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed. It has been customary in the year-and-a-half since then to talk of the global financial crisis. In truth, it was no such thing, because the crisis engulfed only a couple of dozen countries around the North Atlantic.

T N Ninan: The post-Lehman world

It is unfortunate that the propaganda against the Bill is that it will benefit only one section &mdash; the well-off women. In reality, in today&rsquo;s situation, it is not a disadvantage in politics to be a daughter in an OBC family. This is clear, for example, in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

'In reality, it is not a disadvantage to be an OBC daughter'

The Tamil Nadu development formula makes programmes like the NREGS work through simple but top-down solutions.

Sreelatha Menon: The Tamil growth rate

Nakul Anand, ITC&rsquo;s divisional chief executive - hotels division.

'I enjoy eating tandoori chicken'

There are two aspects to the summons Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been issued by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to appear before it, in connection with the Gulbarg Society massacre of 2002, a legal one and a political one. Mr Modi appears to be concentrating on the legal one at the moment and legal eagle Ram Jethmalani has been pressed into service &mdash; appearing on behalf of one of the BJP MLAs accused of having a role in the post-Godhra riots, Jethmalani has argued that the April 2009 order by the Supreme Court (to establish the SIT) was taken without hearing the 63 accused, which include Mr Modi. The Supreme Court has indicated it will hear Jethmalani&rsquo;s plea early next month. So one course of action for Mr Modi is to argue that he should not be asked to make a personal appearance before the Supreme Court case is disposed off.

Mr Modi's stand with SIT

If you&rsquo;re looking at tax reforms, the GST will be a big step, but don&rsquo;t forget bigger reforms like the Tax Information Network and implementing VAT.

M Govinda Rao: Think TIN, not just GST

Urbanisation in India has been like climate change in the world. It has been happening inexorably for decades, not receiving much attention, its significance not noted. 300 million Indians live in towns and cities, underserved by utilities, with inadequate housing, and now choking in traffic. If not well managed, the consequences of this inevitable increase in India&rsquo;s urban population on human development indices, the fabric of Indian society, the growth of its economy, and its political ramifications too, have only now begun to be appreciated.

Arun Maira: JNNURM - Catalysing an urban resurgence

Basic civility is what&rsquo;s missing on some television shows today.

What price courtesy?

Though the government has made the right noises, much more needs to be done.

Confusion over infrastructure

There is a good news for the exporters. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has issued fresh instructions for verification and monitoring of export obligation under various export promotion schemes. If properly implemented, the latest instructions would, to a large extent, reduce unnecessary paperwork, harassment and corruption at the ground level.

Monitoring of export obligation a good move

The day the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the repo and reverse repo rates by 25 basis points, taking them back to just last March&rsquo;s pre-election level, the Indian Meteorological Department announced that this year&rsquo;s monsoon is likely to be normal. The message from the moneymakers, the rainmakers and the macroeconomic authorities is clear &mdash; yesterday&rsquo;s &ldquo;skewflation&rdquo; will not be allowed to become tomorrow&rsquo;s generalised inflation. The central bank may have surprised all with the timing of its announcement, but the better informed would not have been surprised by the direction of policy. Even though senior RBI officials told the media after the January 28 policy statement was issued that the central bank would not raise rates till its next policy statement in April, the central bank&rsquo;s own statement did not give that assurance.

Message to market

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

Page 806 - Opinion Specials