Ten years ago, in January 2001, corporate India had just emerged from two tests of its metier. It had performed miserably in both. The first was in 1997 when the boom immediately after liberalisation died out rather early. The second was the even shorter dotcom boom around the turn of the millennium. In both cases, herd mentality and access to easy money did the companies in.

Mahesh Vyas: India Inc's Prowess

Business Standard

As I walked through the airport in Dubai recently, I was struck by the large number of travellers who were buying gold coins. They were not reacting to Dubai&rsquo;s financial trouble, but rather were joining the eager rush to own gold before its price rises even further.

Martin Feldstein: Is gold a good hedge?

The epic, Mahabharata, thinks that human beings are fundamentally flawed and their faults make the world &ldquo;uneven&rdquo; (vishama). As a result, they are vulnerable to nasty surprises. Duryodhana is the chief purveyor of &ldquo;uneveness&rdquo; in the epic, but the others also contribute to it in good measure &mdash; Yudhishthira cannot resist gambling; Karna suffers from status anxiety; Ashwatthama has a revengeful nature; Dhritarashtra is prone to excessive love for his eldest son and so on. These human defects drive the epic towards calamity.

Gurcharan Das: Relax, capitalism is not the problem

Our low expectation of Hindi cinema could do with a push.

Analyse this

One government social-awareness advertisement that caught the eye was the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) offering free HIV test, and counselling at all government hospitals. Knowing where most government-funded programmes flounder, I decided to try the test and counselling myself.

A test well passed

It gives me great pleasure to address the 92nd conference of the Indian Economic Association. I have many happy memories of the association and its activities, from the days when I was a Professor in the Panjab University. I have also personally known many of the stalwarts who contributed to building this institution in those days.

'Economists focus on problems to draw public attention'

The proponents of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a non-profit effort to get more and more companies across the globe to report their greenhouse gas emissions, feel that in India, as elsewhere, a mix of the last two factors is goading companies to find greener ways of doing business.

Sreelatha Menon: Making goodness pay

If there is a boom in 2010-11, it cannot happen without the financial sector&rsquo;s participation.

Bet on financials

Given that almost all historical, cultural, economic and geo-political factors overwhelmingly point to a close partnership between India and Japan it has taken an inordinately long time for these two Asian nations to strike a meaningful strategic partnership. Hopefully the visit to India of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama should spur this up-again-down-again yo-yo relationship forward. The news that came on the evening of the Hatoyama visit that India has become the most important destination for Japanese investment, as it has been for Japanese aid, defines the new tenor of the relationship. This change is significant considering that in the past two decades there has been a secular decline in Japan&rsquo;s economic engagement with India.

Japan's yo-yo ties with India

India and China seemed to be on the same side at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, while the United States had to gatecrash to join hands. However, India can do more with the US in dealing with the consequences of climate change than the real high emitter, China.

K Subrahmanyam: India&#39;s real partner is the US, not China

The Union government&rsquo;s new Maharatna policy, aimed at offering more managerial freedom to large public sector enterprises (PSEs), should be welcomed. Far too many PSEs have suffered in global competition due to domestic bureaucratic bungling and political interference, even in strategic sectors. Delayed approvals have been the bane of PSEs wishing to take advantage of global opportunities. A good owner must know how much space ought to be given to professional managers. Modern management theory debunked long ago any link between ownership and management performance. There can be good and bad owners both in the public and private sectors just as there can be good and bad managers. Hence, there is no inherent reason for poorer performance by public sector enterprises. If many of India&rsquo;s PSEs have performed under par, it is either on account of undue political interference or on account of bad managements.

From Navaratna to Maharatna

With 2010 here, 2020 is not too far ahead. Remember all those Vision 2020 stuff? It was not just our homegrown futurologist Abdul Kalam but an entire expert committee of the Planning Commission and many others, including McKinsey &amp; Co, that had come up with visions for 2020 and their road maps to the future.

Sanjaya Baru: 2020 is just ten years away

Post-1991, while FDI norms were generously liberalised, the royalty reforms took time. Historically, in the emotional aftermath of Indian Independence, spearheaded by the Swadeshi approach, the Indian Government&rsquo;s Policy towards foreign technology collaboration was expectedly cautious, but not discriminatory. It was the populist wave of the late sixties which espoused MRTPA, 1969 and FERA, 1973 severely restricting foreign collaborations, whether in equity, expansion or technology transfer. And for years India was caught in a time warp of poor quality utilities, non-functional telephones, withdrawal of foreign business &ndash; notably IBM and Coca-Cola.

News on Royalty payment brings cheer in new year

It has been a strange week for the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI&rdquo;) and the &ldquo;IPO scam&rdquo;. Last week, SEBI published a report produced by a committee headed by Justice D P Wadhwa on how alleged victims of the &ldquo;IPO scam&rdquo; ought to be compensated. However, an unexceptionable and lucid order passed last week by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) poses a much bigger question about the so-called scam.

How big really was the IPO scam?

In mid-December, Business Standard Hindi had held a roundtable discussion on industrial development in Bihar. The idea was to bring together representatives of the state government, academia and industry to brainstorm the subject. The problem was to find speakers from industry. Most large companies and business houses, we realised quickly, did not have Bihar on their radar screen. Apart from Hindustan Lever, no other blue-chip company has of late put money in the state.

Bhupesh Bhandari: Jury still out on Bihar's reforms

Insofar as the birth of Jesus can be dated with any reliability, it probably occurred four years before Anno Domini (&ldquo;The year of our Lord&rdquo;) as it&rsquo;s known in Vatican City. Sometime in the last 15-20 years, as the world has become more politically correct, AD has transmuted to &ldquo;Common Era&rdquo;, in tacit acknowledgement that it is the most commonly followed calendar-era.

Devangshu Datta: November's 'October' revolution

If something is not taxable at all, can one exempt it? Obviously not. If one does it, it is conceptually meaningless and even absurd. Taking an excise example, it is like saying that free air is exempt. If free air is not taxable, it cannot be exempted by the government. Precisely this type of conceptual error is visible in the exemption list suggested in the Report of the Task Force of the 13th Finance Commission .

GST: Exemption list of panel shows error

The Delhi high court last week ruled that equity shares cannot be considered as liabilities under the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act. Therefore, a claim to issuance of shares or delivery of shares in place of debt repayment cannot be regarded as an action seeking the recovery of a debt as defined in Section 2(g) of the said Act. This ruling against the order of the debt recovery tribunal in Delhi came in the case, Cochin International Airport Ltd vs Hudco.

Debt recovery tribunal cannot accept equity shares

The December settlement concluded with very little volatility and a fair amount of carryover. The market sentiment appears to be generally positive going into the New Year.

Exploit low volatility in range-trading market

Even the most practiced soothsayer will struggle to make any detailed predictions for the next 10 years.

A decade of good returns

The Indian Medical Council (IMC) has revised its 2002 regulations for professional conduct and ethics to fill a glaring gap by taking into account doctors&rsquo; dealings with the pharmaceutical and allied health care industries. It bans taking of gifts from firms or their representatives, travel benefits for attending conferences, seminars and continuing medical education programmes, hospitality, cash or grants in their individual capacities and endorsing a drug or product. Any research finding should be disclosed only through scientific bodies and publications. What is more, the regulation says doctors can work for research projects funded by industry but enjoins upon them to ensure their right to publish research results in the greater interest of society by inserting a suitable clause in the agreement to do such research.

Looking a gift in the mouth

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

Page 820 - Opinion Specials