While Norman Borlaug was celebrated for hybrid seed varieties, several small groups of farmers are today searching for those rare traditional seeds that are still being sown in some places in preference to hybrids.

Sreelatha Menon: A drought of seeds

Business Standard

It seems odd at first glance, when the annual World Investment Report has more than half its pages devoted to (of all things) a special focus on foreign investment in agriculture.

Trends in agriculture

Why does India sell one million motorcycles in a month? Why does the demand for cars in the country grow by 30 per cent and the same for Maggie noodles rise by 25 per cent annually? And, why has India become the fastest-growing cellphone market in the world? This is because India is moving from being a trillion-dollar economy to a two trillion-dollar one in the next six years.

Raamdeo Agrawal: A trillion-dollar opportunity

A moving documentary about a baby with &quot;two faces&quot;.

RIP sweet child

Tempur forgets cardinal retail law: location, location, location.

Unwelcome to bed

The long-awaited meeting of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers (EC) was recently held in Delhi and, as was perhaps expected, the EC has come out with a recommendation on what can legitimately be called a &ldquo;Dual Rated Dual GST System&rdquo;. There were expectations in certain quarters that the dual GST would be a single rated one at the Federal and the State level for both goods and services. This has not been possible and the EC has now come out with a dual rate model for goods. There has been no mention of whether there will be a dual rate for services as well but the understanding and expectation is that services will be taxed at just the one rate, at the Federal and State levels respectively. This article discusses the dual rate dual GST model for goods in some detail.

Dual rated dual GST

Foreign Companies and other non-residents are making huge investments in the shares of Indian companies in order to promote their business activities in the country. Indian firms attracting foreign investment may or may not be listed on Indian stock exchanges. Many of such companies are subsidiaries of foreign companies.

Non-residents to pay 10 per cent on long-term capital gain on shares

The real question with regard to the border with China is not whether there have been Chinese intrusions, and whether (as government spokesmen have said) they have been no more than last year (in which case, was last year&rsquo;s level of intrusions acceptable?). The real question is, what if Chinese troops do decide to come over the border? The vital issue when it comes to defence is not immediate intent or action, but capability.

Not quiet on the border

At first glance, Pittsburgh, PA seems like an unusual choice for a major gathering of global leaders. But, its geography and history accurately reflect the objectives of the G-20 summit that will take place there over two days later this week. One, the city centre straddles a major confluence, with two rivers converging to form a third, larger one, the Ohio.

Subir Gokarn: The search for global confluence

One part of the agenda for financial sector reforms is the question of full convertibility on capital account: In fact, both Percy Mistry and Raghuram Rajan committees stress/touch on it. (This columnist was a member of the two Tarapore committees on the subject.

A V Rajwade: Full convertibility-I

The introduction of the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill (2009) has the potential to derail economic development.

The 'L' word

Asim Dasgupta, chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers, may not have achieved the objective of the Centre, of having a common market through a single goods and services tax (GST), but can be credited for finding a common ground with 35 states and Union territories.

India's fiscal 'states'man

Dollar&rsquo;s strengthening against the euro dims investors&rsquo; demand for dollar-priced assets to hedge against inflation.

Crude oil weakens on strong dollar

Lack of understanding of time and its connection with trends has led to the failure of anticipatory and trending systems.

Trading time triads

The equation simplifies down to three items presented on the balance sheet. Operating surplus, as presented in the income statement is the difference between the capital as at the beginning of the accounting period and that at the end of the accounting period, adjusted for contribution from and distribution of profit to equity participants.

Measurement in Financial Accounting

Last fortnight, Vancouver, British Columbia hosted the annual International Fiscal Association (IFA) Congress with over 1000 international tax experts representing large MNCs, international tax experts, academicians and tax administrators of several jurisdictions. Expectedly, the buzz centered on India&rsquo;s Direct taxes code.

Alarm bells ring over British Columbia treaty override

The Reserve Bank contention that mergers and acquisitions among banks should to left to it, and not the newly functional Competition Commission, is valid and the necessary changes in the law or rules should be made. Banks are different from other businesses. After last year&rsquo;s financial crisis, it has become even clearer than before that once financial institutions get too big, they cannot be allowed to fail.

RBI or Competition Comm?

If Kaushik Basu of Cornell University is chosen as the next chief economic advisor in the finance ministry, and Subir Gokarn of Standard and Poor&rsquo;s as deputy governor in the Reserve Bank of India, the government would have made a significant departure from the convention of filling such top-level positions with economists who have prior experience of working within the government system.

Too few good men

Baby corn, a specialty maize, has huge potential to emerge as a money spinner for farmers. There are several reasons for that, apart from the obvious ones like the high prices and rapidly growing demand for baby corn in the domestic and export markets. For one, the baby corn crop takes very little time to grow, making it possible to raise three to four crops in a year on the same land.

Surinder Sud: Cornucopia

Talk about &ldquo;exit strategies&rdquo; will be high on the agenda when the heads of the G-20 countries gather in Pittsburgh a few days from now. They will promise to reverse the explosive monetary and fiscal expansion of the past two years, to do it neither too soon nor too late, and to do it in a coordinated way.

Martin Feldstein: The G-20&#39;s empty promises

The recent focus on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China has shed little light on what is actually going on there, although something certainly is.

Ajai Shukla: Worried dragon; outraged elephant

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