The current phase of sub-zero inflation will get over in a couple of months, maybe even sooner given the profligacy in the budget.

Poonam Munjal & Dharmakirti Joshi: Just a transient phase

Business Standard

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee&rsquo;s maiden Budget for the freshly reelected UPA government disappoints in two major dimensions: it is timid on economic reforms and imprudent on fiscal management. Taken together these features weaken the likelihood of an early resumption of high economic growth, which, in turn, weakens the long-term sustainability of inclusive development.

Shankar Acharya: Fiscal stimulus or fiscal ruin?

There are signs of life returning to the hedge-fund industry. Assets under management are rising. New funds are being launched. Some are even making money.

Matthew Lynn: Hedge-Fund Industry 2.0

A part of the raison d&rsquo;etre of the Unique Identification Card (UID) project, given to Nandan Nilekani to implement, is to facilitate a more effective delivery of government services (through more accurate identification of the intended beneficiaries), or paying the equivalent value in cash hand-outs. Given the vast budgets for the programmes that would benefit, and the scale of leakages that is widely believed to exist, the UID project would (or should) help the government to save tens of thousands of crores of rupees. Once enough UID had been issued to attain critical mass, the government would (or could) transfer funds to these smart-cards, using technology that already exists. At one stroke, as it were, the government would save on the vast overheads involved in service delivery and supervision, as well as the leakages.

NREGA vs Nilekani

That a sun-soaked country like India should invest in solar energy is a no-brainer. That it should build green, energy-efficient buildings while conserving scarce water resources is also an obvious thing to do. It should also invest in afforestation and practise sustainable agriculture. These are some of the initiatives that form the National Action Plan on Climate Change, or NAPCC. What is called an action plan is in fact a wish-list of desirable objectives; still, it is a smart way to focus energies on doing what officials term as &ldquo;no-regret&rdquo; measures while putting the country on a higher moral ground at the climate change negotiating table.

Betting on the sun

We have stalled various projects of national importance on one ground or the other; let us not do the same with Reliance's KG Basin gas.

Pradip Baijal: Let&#39;s understand what&#39;s at stake

Despite the reforms of the 1990s, the country's corporate structure hasn't transformed in any major manner.

Sunil Jain: The more things change

Lao Jiang&rsquo;s old boat could use some fresh paint. But he doesn&rsquo;t have the money. Jiang cruises on the Yangtze, the longest river in Asia, almost 200 kilometres north of its mouth near Shanghai. Jiang sells razor blades, Harbin beer and Chinese snacks to crews on big ships. Jiang has little understanding of economics but he has a good nose for business opportunities: &ldquo;There are fewer big container ships with products bound for America.

Frank Sieren & Andreas Sieren: A spark for growth

London: One of the most impressive and widely attended art exhibitions in London at the moment takes you back to an arid part of the Rajasthan desert in the 18th and 19th centuries, into a world of hedonistic pleasure, violent intrigue and spiritual attainment. Garden &amp; Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur is a superbly mounted show in seven interlinked galleries at the British Museum.

Sunil Sethi: London&#39;s Indian summer

Rieslings are probably one of the least-understood wines in India, weaned as we are on a steady diet of Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs.

Not just sweet

Having dinner with some friends the other night, we were watching television (low-brow, I know &mdash; but at least it was news) when my host and hostess reacted sharply to an ad for an anti-abortion pill: &ldquo;This is going to encourage more sex,&rdquo; they said in middle-class horror. Since neither I nor, I presume, my hosts could define a measure for &ldquo;more sex&rdquo;, I was flummoxed for an answer, and mumbled something about empowerment, the ability to exercise choice, and, of course, managing unwanted pregnancies. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know all that,&rdquo; I was admonished, &ldquo;this is going to encourage promiscuity.

Kishore Singh: No sex please, we&#39;re Indian

Mayawati's statues are taking away from the good work she's doing.

Aditi Phadnis: Caste in stone

I&rsquo;ve had the house to myself for weeks now, as all other inhabitants and regular visitors are summering somewhere cooler than Delhi.

Gross domestic product

Widespread pollution by the Vedanta refinery in Orissa raises serious questions about environmental monitoring.

Latha Jishnu: Killing them ever so softly

I had dreamt of soaring in the skies,&rdquo; said Ashwini, &ldquo;but my dreams have just come crashing down on me!&rdquo; This Ranchi lad was telling me about his experience with a private college that had taken a hefty fee from him for a diploma course in flight-steward training. The institute had taken the entire fee before the course could get over, and, apparently, guaranteed placement in airlines, cruise ships, hotels or call centres at the end of the course. Instead, when Ashwini&rsquo;s course ended last year, only two of his batch of 32 were placed. &ldquo;The rest of us were left high and dry,&rdquo; said he.

Geetanjali Krishna: Crashed course

There is no other way to stop corruption.

T N Ninan: Auction mining rights

Satan and the movies go back a long way. In cinema&rsquo;s earliest days, there were alarm-mongers who denounced the bioscope and the movie camera as &ldquo;the devil&rsquo;s instruments&rdquo;. To be fair, some of the dark mutterings about this unholy new technology are easy to understand. The first generation of movie viewers were scarcely equipped to deal with the concept of moving images on a screen (hence the possibly apocryphal story about people running out of the Paris theatre where the Lumiere Brothers screened a 40-second film of a train pulling into a station) and their reptile brains were even less prepared for the little shocks they would receive each time there was a cut. When innovative directors like Georges M&eacute;li&egrave;s began using special effects such as time-lapse photography (which allowed a carriage to abruptly vanish in the midst of a busy street scene), early viewers were thoroughly frazzled.

Devil in the machine

The Metro Museum in Delhi is at best basic.

Not yet on the right track

The G-8 summit in Italy has turned out to be more eventful than most meetings of this group. There is some movement forward on the two live global issues that have been the subjects of protracted negotiations (climate change since the late 1990s, and the Doha Round of trade talks from early in this decade), and a setback for India in the nuclear field. The broader message is that the need to enlarge the G-8, broadly recognised by most countries, has become more obvious than ever. The main topics discussed at the G-8 cannot be brought to any meaningful conclusion without the involvement of the G-5. After all, at least two economies in the G-5 (China and Brazil) are bigger than some who are in the G-8, and India is not far behind. China, Brazil and India also happen to be among the five most populous countries, and among the seven geographically largest.

Time for a G-11

China&rsquo;s extreme north-west province, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), propelled into the global spotlight this week with rioting and violence between the Uighurs (Turkic- Muslims) and Han Chinese ethnic groups. President Hu Jintao rushed home from the ongoing G-8 Summit in Italy, drawing attention to the gravity of the situation. Mobs took to the streets of Xinjiang&rsquo;s capital Urumqi and rioting turned into a free-for-all carnage.

Anurag Viswanath: Managing diversity - China gets a wake-up call

Tathagata Satpathy (DHENKANAL): Madam, we are used to toll gates being put up on highways or on roads that have been completed. When companies took up Mumbai and Delhi Airports for modernisation, everybody was excited about it.

'Why defray cost of cos modernising airports?'

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