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?'

Business Standard

The other day I was discussing the scope of management accounting with the director of a highly reputed business school. The context was discussion of a theme of a conference on management accounting. The director was trying to convince me that the scope of the profession cannot be as wide as I was presenting. He ultimately came to the conclusion that if I was right then Indian Institute Managements should be renamed as Indian Institute of Management Accounting. This small episode speaks volumes. The evolution of management accounting has gone unnoticed in academia in India. Except those who research or teach in the area of management accounting, others have no understanding on how the role of management accounting has changed from cost collection and analysis to active participation in formulation and execution of strategy.

Evolution of management accounting

Whilst reading the fine print of Budget 2009 proposals, I figured out that there are far reaching changes and shift in our Energy tax policy.

Shift in focus on energy tax

Budget 2009 contains important proposals in regard to exempting packaged software from customs duty, on importation, and on excise duty, with regard to domestic supplies, to the extent that such software is purportedly chargeable to the service tax. In other words, these proposals attempt to redress the problem of potential double taxation that arise in regard to such software. Earlier articles in this column had highlighted the problem of double taxation in relation to several transactions. This article however analyses the implications of the proposals and considers the extent to which the issue of double taxation has supposedly been addressed.

Service taxation of packaged software

... In the 1990s, Lufthansa&rsquo;s market share was plunging as were its revenues. Its turnaround strategy holds valuable lessons for Air India&rsquo;s revival.

Pratip Kar: A tale of two airlines...

In an article which appeared on 29 June 2009 in these columns, it was suggested to enlarge the scope of Advance Ruling to provide a more effective mechanism for resolution of tax disputes between the tax department and foreign companies operating in India.

Alternative conflict resolution mechanism for foreign firms

Some time in the summer of 1997, LG had thrown a party in Delhi. The Korean chaebol had set up shop in the country and was in a mood to celebrate. It had earlier joined hands with C K Birla but the joint venture fell through even before it could start. Globally, it had gone through a brand makeover from Lucky Goldstar to LG. It was now ready to have a go at India. At the party, K R Kim, the head of LG in India, took a few guests aside and said he knew how to make a nuclear bomb. The nasal voice was little more than a whine.

Bhupesh Bhandari: Korea&#39;s nuclear bomb

Budget merely repeats last year&rsquo;s changes.

Old urea in new packing

Most of those who are focussed on the Rs 10,000-odd crore Air India bailout are naturally sceptical about whether it will work. Aviation Minister Praful Patel spends a lot of time talking of the 1,000 employees Air India has in its canteen and even a tailor who gets paid Rs 1.5 lakh a month &lsquo;to repair the seats if they get torn&rsquo;, but this is hardly the issue &mdash; to put it in perspective, 80 per cent of Air India&rsquo;s 31,000 staffers account for just a third of its wages.

Sunil Jain: Does competition matter?

Web Excl: Attempt to rationalise transfer pricing disputes

India&rsquo;s urban population is projected to go up by around 100 million in the next 12 years; that means urban space and facilities equivalent to at least seven Mumbais will have to be created. The challenge is making governments at the Centre and in the states start focusing on the needs of towns and cities, in part because more voters live in them than before. In the latest Budget, for instance, the finance minister has introduced a low-cost housing programme (named inevitably after Rajiv Gandhi) that is grandly intended to abolish slums in five years. The likelihood of this happening can be gauged from the fate of that flagship programme, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, which has used only a third of the funds made available during four out of its seven years.

Daunting urban challenge

New York is a nice film. The bubblegummish romp with terrorism, set in New York after 9/11, has its heart in the right place. My only quibble &mdash; the end was too gimmicky and the ideological underpinning is somewhat weak. Both, the hero (John Abraham) who becomes a terrorist and the FBI officer who chases him (Irrfan Khan), don&rsquo;t argue their case strongly enough. But honestly, that is of no consequence when you see New York.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: The &#39;new&#39; in New York

Inability to see the advantages of close state-business relations is the blind spot of modern economic liberalism.

Dani Rodrik: Mercantilism reconsidered

Farmers won't invest unless they earn more - and that requires greater access to credit and risk-hedging tools.

Surinder Sud: Investing in the farm

Accidents happen in large construction projects, and too much should not be read into isolated episodes. Also, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has been one of the more successful infrastructure projects in not just the capital but the whole country&mdash;work of a high quality done on schedule, within cost, and until recently with a good safety record.

Off the rails

If you can't figure out what various laws mean, you're not alone - even judges can&rsquo;t understand what they're saying.

M J Antony: What was that again?

If economic growth in India leads to large inflows of capital, the chances of interest rates rising are low - if that doesn't happen, they will.

&#39;Are interest rates likely to start rising soon?&#39;

The debate on the economic condition of the US has most recently focused on the effectiveness, or lack of it, of the fiscal stimulus package that the Obama administration initiated very early into its term. There is a growing body of opinion that says the $787 billion boost is simply not large enough. Although there has been much talk of green shoots in the past few weeks, as indicators like consumer confidence and housing starts have begun to stabilise, the one persistent source of concern has been unemployment. In June, the economy lost a further 467,000 jobs, less than the 700,000 job losses per month in the first quarter but still symptomatic of severe recession. This raised the unemployment rate to 9.5 per cent, a level not seen since the recession of the early 1980s.

Withering shoots?

The deliberations at different forums at L&rsquo;Aquila in Italy last week have further confounded the vexed issue of combating climate change. Instead of paving the way for a final agreement on emission reductions in the post-Kyoto period, after 2012, the voices emanating from these forums have added new dimensions to the issue which were not under negotiation thus far. What was expected, and also urgently needed, at this stage was to narrow the span of the climate change talks to firming up the country-specific targets of emission reduction for the Annexure-1 countries (for whom these cuts are binding), so that the non-mandatory but desirable action on the part of other countries could also be considered. Instead, the resolutions adopted at the meeting of the G-8 and that of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) have diverted the focus to vague goals based on equally indistinct parameters.

Clouding the climate debate

World Population Day was observed on July 11 and for a brief moment the world remembered an old problem. Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad gave a speech on the need to control population growth and suggested measures to increase the age of marriage. We have been trying to stabilise our population since the early seventies with efforts that have ranged from gentle persuasion to Sanjay Gandhi&rsquo;s infamous sterilisation campaign.

Sanjeev Sanyal: Light at the end of the population tunnel

Everyone in Delhi feels good about Delhi Metro. It has given residents of the city a public transport network of which they can really be proud. It manages the network efficiently. It runs the trains on time. It provides a clean and comfortable service for commuters at a tariff that is one of the cheapest among all the metro networks in the world.

A K Bhattacharya: The Metro Man&#39;s two mistakes

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