No, anxiety is just no fun. For no apparent reason at all your heart suddenly starts to beat at breakneck speed, bits of your stomach twist and fill with dread, your limbs begin to shake, there&rsquo;s pain in your arm and you&rsquo;re faint, the world starts to roar in your ears, a cold sweat breaks out on your brow. You might have these, or a thousand other petrifying sensations that you recognise quite clearly as the Four Horsemen of the Apocollapse. This is it.

Panic room

Business Standard

The campaign to round up Delhi's beggars and brush them under a carpet of mobile courts, biometric database and special institutions before next year's Commonwealth Games is a tactical mistake. If India's capital looks too spick and span, aggrieved Britons might feel even more strongly they are being taken for a ride by doling out money to a country savouring thoughts of Chandrayaan, a nuclear sub and plans for fighter aircraft and another aircraft carrier as it celebrates 62 years of independence.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Looking the part

Since its costs are very different from those of Low-Cost Carriers, the move to convert it into an LCC will bleed it further.

Surajeet Das Gupta: Will Air India&#39;s new avatar work?

Professor Amartya Sen has recently reiterated his criticism of the Left's political practice in India. Dr Sen is quoted to have said: &quot;I was disappointed with the Left for not focussing on issues that are central issues of social justice and focussing much more on India's sovereignty and that kind of question.

A fraternal argument with Dr Amartya Sen

Speeches made on Independence Day are rarely remembered on the morrow. That is in part because most of our national leaders have not mastered the art of formal oratory. Atal Behari Vajpayee, for instance, could be electrifying at an election rally, but he was mostly a bore when he reached the Red Fort. In part, it is because I-Day speeches tend to be written with the intention of touching all the right buttons politically (promise something for farmers, women, armed forces, minorities and the like, mention good relations with neighbours, and so on), not to move the audience that is physically present and the much larger one watching on television.

Unmemorable speeches

The earth&rsquo;s geological past has seen violent climate shifts. The extinction of the dinosaurs, the Neolithic Revolution that followed the retreat of the last ice age, and the sudden demise of ancient civilisations have been linked to climate change.

Alok Sheel: On a self-destructive mission

Rule 4 in Section 55 of the Land Acquisition Act's Company Rules may help farmers in Dadri but is hardly a guarantee for other cultivators.

Sreelatha Menon: A leaking roof for farmers

Forget all this chatter about finding a new reserve currency. We already have one, and it&rsquo;s called the yen. OK, stop laughing.

William Pesek: Dollar&#39;s replacement is just 6,700 miles away

After the Rs 12,500 crore Reliance Power mega-issue in January 2008, the primary market went into hibernation. The financial jugglery involved in RPower may have helped trigger complete cessation of investor interest.

Power: Long-term play

Newspapers have recently reported that a proposal has been mooted in government to convert the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) into a &ldquo;Financial Services Appellate Tribunal&rdquo; to hear grievances against orders passed by various sub-sectoral regulators. Currently, the SAT hears appeals only against orders passed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India ('SEBI').

Single tribunal needed for financial sector

Never before in the his-tory of the Indian accountancy profession, has there been a time like the present. Traditionally account-ants were staid backroom boys dabbling in conventional accounting (without the benefits of accounting standards) and helping people pick their way through the complex web of tax laws. The backroom boys have come to the forefront now.

The hour of the accountant

Budget 2009-10 has just said the bare minimum that there will be dual GST &mdash; &ldquo;a Central GST and a state GST. The Centre and the state will each legislate, levy and administer the Central GST and state GST respectively&rdquo;. But the exact nature of dual GST has not been indicated. There are two ways of making it &mdash; one advocated by Finance Commission and one by the Empowered Committee, tho-ugh the later has not been officially made public.

Two ways of designing dual GST

The Supreme Court has set aside the order of the Bombay high court quashing the investigation against the chairman and managing director of City Limouzines Ltd on a complaint by an investor in the company. The proceedings will thus go on. According to the plan floated by the company, each investor deposited about Rs 1 lakh in a ren-a-car scheme. The car would be purchased in the name of the investor but the vehicle would be used by the company which will pay Rs 4,000 per month to the investor for five years. After 60 months, the agreement would end and the investor is free to take back his car in proper working condition. The dispute arose when an investor was given cheques instead of the car. He filed a complaint with the police, which was quashed by the high court. The government appealed to the Supreme Court (State of Maharashtra vs Sayed Masood) which asked the investigating officer to carry out his inquiry.

Bombay high court order to stop probe quashed

Any up-leg on the Indian Rupee against the dollar should not push above 53, after which the currency should fall to 30. The weakness till 53 should not extend beyond the October-November seasonally low periods for equity. The 30 leg should last at least till late 2010. Despite the large rupee strengthening we are speaking about we are still not ruling out a few negative months on Indian equity.

The rupee at 30

Low volume cash trading was coupled to low-key activity in the derivatives segment. The FIIs cut derivatives exposure. Option premiums rose. A fair amount of index option volume migrated to the September series.

Strong carryover pattern & bearish PCR

Sugar may climb 80 percent to as high as 40 cents a pound on global supply shortages, said Singapore-based commodity hedge fund manager Michael Coleman. &ldquo;Sugar is caught in a perfect storm,&rdquo; he said. There is &ldquo;a big hole&rdquo; in world supply and no obvious solution in the next six to nine months, said Coleman, 49, managing director of Aisling Analytics, which runs a $1.4 billion fund invested in energy and agriculture. The sweetener has already surged 88 percent this year, reaching a 28-year high, as India, the biggest consumer, had its driest June in 83 years and parts of Brazil, the largest grower, were drenched by rainfall four times more than normal, too wet to harvest. World demand will exceed output by as much as 5 million metric tons in the year ending September 2010, according to the International Sugar Organisation.

Out of stock

The difficulties in the government borrowing a record sum of Rs 400,000 crore this year, as proposed in the Budget, are becoming apparent. Such an outsize programme could drive up interest rates, which would adversely affect bond prices.

Overseas money no panacea

Most public goods in India are provided by the second and third tiers of government &mdash; states and local bodies &mdash; but fiscal decentralisation has made slow progress. While states have made some gains through federalism, they have been loath to pass on these gains to local bodies. This is despite the clear evidence that states which decentralise more tend to benefit more than others.

Money for the third tier

The brand-new Porsche just made it to the 97th floor; and only in an upright position. The door of the goods elevator of Shanghai World Financial Centre, the second largest building in the world, barely closed. At the top of the building, the new Panamara, the four-door Porsche coupe, was presented to the world for the first time. Never before has a vehicle premiere in China been celebrated like this.

Frank Sieren & Andreas Sieren: To learn from China

Key ministries had top economists during the reforms of the 1990s. The absence of these advisors is keenly felt today.

A K Bhattacharya: Where are the experts?

It doesn&rsquo;t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice,&rdquo; said Deng Xiaoping as he presided over the Middle Kingdom&rsquo;s plunge into market-led economic policies. In little over three decades starting from 1978, he transformed China into the &lsquo;workshop of the world&rsquo;. While the Communist party and its members controlled the political and cultural affairs of the state, a host of liberal capitalistic practices dominated the economy. China joined the World Trade Organisation &mdash; the sanctum sanctorum for the liberal mercantilist trade order &mdash; in 2001 and agreed to a range of far-reaching market access concessions for goods and services.

D Ravi Kanth: The colour of WTO rules

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