If the system's broken, why fix it? Government policy is to replace it with an 'authority', without sorting out the details.

Sunita Narain: Why authorise it?

Business Standard

Ford unveils the small car that it will make in India from next year; Renault announces fresh Indian plans, adding Nissan as a partner after having already selected Bajaj for a joint venture; Volkswagen in turn will introduce its small car next year. By all accounts, the car industry in India is about to acquire serious scale, as new car plants start dotting the maps of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Gujarat and Uttaranchal.

A small-car hub

The reconstitution of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) earlier this month, within three years of its being set up, suggests that the government is unsure of how to fulfil this mandate. Actually, the solutions exist, and have been demonstrated on the ground; they need replication. For although there are no firm estimates of how far the tiger population has diminished since Project Tiger began in 1972 &mdash; the &ldquo;pug mark&rdquo; census method used then has been widely discredited &mdash; it is easy to see that tigers are disappearing from India&rsquo;s jungles. Conserving the approximately 1,650-odd Royal Bengal tigers that India now has is essentially a question of institutional reform.

Protecting the tiger

Investors should be careful in assuming that dollar weakness is a given; this could easily reverse.

Akash Prakash: The dollar carry trade?

The idea of the MRP is becoming less relevant and should be replaced by portfolio pricing.

Shobhana Subramanian: The rising chorus against MRP

Provided they have all the details, shareholders are best placed to do this.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Curbing costly chiefs

Lack of transparency in pipeline projects and the absence of regulations to prevent monopolies are marring the gas market.

Latha Jishnu: Blockages in the gas pipeline

My son was quite intrigued by his grade-six lesson on stereotypes and discrimination. &ldquo;Women,&rdquo; said he, quite &ldquo;my book tells me, are gentle creatures who stay at home and rear children while fathers go out to earn...&rdquo; Times, said I to him, were a-changing and gender roles had obviously been re-written long after his text book had been written.

Geetanjali Krishna: Yours, mine ... or ours?

We&rsquo;ve been wanting to have a party, a formal affair &mdash; not the kind where friends come and dump on you with their problems and drink up all your whisky and puke over the carpet &mdash; for some time now, but with little luck.

Kishore Singh: Inviting trouble


The world is all heated up about global warming, but did you know that there has been no warming of the globe over the past decade? And that, according to one recent forecast, there will be no warming over the next decade either? Also, did you know that there was no change in India&rsquo;s mean temperature for three decades up to the mid-1970s? In other words, in roughly 50 out of 75 years, there was/will be no global warming! No, I am not joining the small minority which still argues that

T N Ninan: Warming to hope

We need to be careful not to confuse financial market reform with following the US model of regulation, if finance is to remain a servant, not master, of the real economy.

A V Rajwade: Financial regulation - The US model

Despite opinions to the contrary, Durga Puja isn&rsquo;t an occasion for senseless gorging. The true gourmand&rsquo;s responsibility is to pack in as much good eating as s/he can in this week &mdash; and that&rsquo;s harder than it seems. For many, the most insistent taste memories of Puja come from the legendary pandal &ldquo;bhogs&rdquo; served for lunch and dinner at these places, some of which can boast of third- and fourth-generation master chefs.

Pray, we're feasting

There are many things I have striven to do in my life but never managed. One is to write these columns in advance so that I can travel without my laptop. Another is to visit Bhutan, that beautiful, sensible little country snuggled into the north-eastern border of India. One of the main reasons I want to visit is that they are best known for being less concerned with GDP than with what they call GNH, or Gross National Happiness.

Don&#39;t worry, be happy

Transparency International, the Berlin-based organisation, ranks India as one of the more corrupt countries in the world&mdash;a conclusion based on surveys of business people. You wouldn&rsquo;t think that is the case, if you go by what the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is doing. In its latest report, the CVC has put on its website a list of 123 government officials against whom it has advised either penalties or prosecution for corruption. Just 123 officials are corrupt&mdash;in a country that ranks among the more corrupt economies in the world? One explanation is that this is the list for just July; if you add the list for previous months, the number becomes less laughable. Major penalties, for instance, have been imposed on 385 officers during the year and the CVC has advised that this be done to 778 officials. But even so, the numbers don&rsquo;t square with the reality that everyone is familiar with.

Just 123 corrupt officials?

The raging political firestorm over how to reform the US&rsquo;s $2.5-trillion healthcare sector might seem to be of limited relevance to India. But for the Indian IT services sector, the Obama-led revolution might just present an exciting growth opportunity. Taking advantage of what we believe in will be a multi-billion dollar opportunity that requires immediate mobilisation and mastery of the intricacies of the US healthcare system.

US beckons Indian IT giants

Here&rsquo;s one thing that leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20) nations don&rsquo;t need to work on at their Pittsburgh meeting&mdash;accounting rules. There is no surer way to give investors short shrift, or lay the groundwork for future financial crises, than to politicise accounting. Nor do investors need bank regulators sticking their noses into this area. If regulators want to ensure that banks are better able to withstand losses, they have the power to do so on their own.

David Reilly: Bank regulators need not meddle in accounting

We have discussed the complex challenges posed by the need to revive the global economy. I would like to focus on what this implies for the developing countries. An estimated 90 million people in the developing world are likely to be pushed below the poverty line. Lower revenues will also lead to lower levels of expenditure. This will not only hurt future growth, but also delay achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Social and political tensions could increase.

&#39;Help for countries not responsible for the crisis is justified&#39;

Does it help if your left hand doesn&rsquo;t know what your right hand is doing? When ordinary people do charity, the world hardly gets to know.

Sreelatha Menon: The charity virus

Following a price-earnings based asset allocation strategy could give investors good returns over time. Here's an example.

Mastering money making

Various awards in performing arts categories felicitate young minds.

Youth in power

As a lawyer it&rsquo;s not uncommon to be confronted with unwarranted accusations of creating complexities out of simple situations &mdash; some Mr Know-it-All will corner you at a dinner and hold forth on how lawyers and accountants make a big &ldquo;deal&rdquo; of M&amp;A activities, that they tend to sideline all other considerations except what they receive. Even though such barbs deserve to be ignored, it sent me thinking on the lawyer&rsquo;s role in M&amp;A.

Lawyer role in mergers and acquisitions

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