Foreign Policy magazine, in its latest issue, lists five country leaders who might be wishing that George W Bush were still in the White House. It mentions Berlusconi of Italy, Netanyahu of Israel, Chavez of Venezuela (he misses Mr Bush as a target!), and the leaders of Poland and Colombia.

T N Ninan: Four lost years

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PRALHAD JOSHI (DHARWAD): Some of the universities, in USA, Australia and many other countries are selling their degrees, and without knowing all these things, the students are giving lakhs of rupees to agents. I would like to know whether the government is making any plan to control these agents and educate our students.

'The main problem is with Australia'

A top banker set up a special classroom for autistic children in a New Delhi school. The model is now ready for replication in other schools.

Sreelatha Menon: The Blue Room

While some of us claim to have a good understanding of how the music industry works, and sometimes offer keen insight into trends that define the business, there comes a time, every now and then, when we have to re-assess this expertise and really question whether anyone has any clue at all as to how trends in the music business will manifest themselves. This thought occurred to me while looking at the chart positions for various Michael Jackson albums in the immediate aftermath of his death. It&rsquo;s been over a couple of weeks now, and at least three of his releases are still in the top five in the UK, Australia and even India. With over 100,000 CD&rsquo;s sold in Australia on Friday following his death, the Sony BMG factory had to work through the weekend to meet the maddening demand. This is in the face of decreasing music sales and music retailers going through something of a crisis.

Who can tell...

The government has come up with three explanations for the about-turn that India has done in the meeting between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan at Sharm-el-Sheikh. The first is that there is no about-turn at all.

Betting on Islamabad

Within days of his return from the G-8/G-5 meeting in Italy, the Indian Prime Minister was on his way to the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Egypt this week. It has been widely reported in the media that Dr Manmohan Singh has an excellent rapport with many heads of state, including US President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy.

Rajesh Tandon: Need to mobilise our &#39;soft&#39; power

A sharp contraction in labour income has many negative effects on the economy and financial markets, says Nouriel Roubini.

Nouriel Roubini: The joblessness threat

Till even a few days ago, if you took a poll, despite the recent string of disasters in the Delhi Metro&rsquo;s construction, most Delhi-ites would want Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) chief E Sreedharan to stay on. Accidents happen in all big projects, the argument goes, but Sreedharan is one of the few people who accepted moral responsibility, he has always delivered on time, he&rsquo;s honest, he had to speed up things to meet the Commonwealth Games&rsquo; deadline, and so on.

Sunil Jain: Time to go, Mr Sreedharan

The finance minister, in his Budget for 2009, took many initiatives that will help exporters. But none of them is significant enough to make any crucial impact on export prospects. Perhaps he has left it to the commerce minister to find ways to reduce transaction costs and recast the export promotion schemes in the new Foreign Trade Policy due in the first week of August.

Announce ad hoc Foreign Trade Policy

If India does not want to shed jobs in labour-intensive industries, it must have a competitive exchange rate.

A V Rajwade: Labouring over the rupee

A series of key interventions are required if the infrastructure market is to take off.

Vinayak Chatterjee: Beyond the budget

The level of public shareholding that Indian listed companies are required to have has come to the fore yet again. The Union Finance Minister made a mention in his Budget speech that the government would increase the public float available in the stock market and bring about uniform requirements in this area.

India investment strategy is a game of chess

The facts as presented by the media appear to be disheartening. The government&rsquo;s official stand that India does not face any threat lacks conviction. There are contracts and policy statements, business and bilateral tie-ups, and the issue of global protection. In a bundle, it&rsquo;s the future of nuclear India &ndash; on which the last government and the present Prime Minister had staked their survival, to remove the trade and technology isolation.

India stands to gain from nuclear talks

A very important issue about what will be the date when the duty is payable for warehoused goods which are cleared illegally.&nbsp;This concerns a very large number of importers who warehouse the goods and clear them as and when they need them. This is an old issue but controversies never die. The issue has come up once again because in a latest judgement delivered on 30th April 2009 the Tribunal Delhi has ruled that on illegally cleared warehoused goods the rate of duty will &nbsp;be applicable as per Section 15(1)(b) ( for warehoused goods the date when the Bill of Entry is presented to Customs) and not as per Section 15(1)(c) of the Customs Act (the date of payment of duty). I respectfully disagree with this judgement. The correct position is that the relevant date is the date of payment of duty under Section 15(1)(c).

Date when duty is applicable on warehoused goods illegally cleared

Why is it that in India bad news hogs the headlines, whereas we tend to gloss over all the good things that we achieve? People would have read ad nauseam about the so-called &ldquo;Satyam Scam&rdquo; but I am yet to see any major newspaper highlighting the fact that while in the comparable &lsquo;Enron scandal&rsquo; the company was liquidated, shareholders lost their money, old retired pensioners were impoverished, employees were driven out on the street and one of the world&rsquo;s largest accounting firms collapsed rendering many more people jobless.

An agenda for MCA

Gold was little changed in Asia after US equities extended gains for a fourth day, reducing demand for the metal as a safe investment during the global recession.

Demand for gold diminishes

A potential source of pressure on the BoP.

Remittance reversal

The derivative market is generating near-record volume. At the same time, the FII share of open interest has dropped to around 32 per cent in the past week &ndash; it's averaged 38 per cent in the last couple of years. This suggests that well-heeled Indian operators are entering F&amp;O since individual traders rarely keep overnight positions.

Short-term indicators positive

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee wore a triumphant smile when, in his Budget speech early this month, he talked about the government&rsquo;s expenditure having crossed the Rs 10,00,000 crore mark.

A K Bhattacharya: Budgeting for trouble

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it&rsquo; is a timely reminder for key actors who are bent on pushing failed agendas. As governments and multilateral institutions struggle to recover from a pervasive crisis of confidence stemming from the current political and economic climate, it is important to not make the same mistakes all over again. But the tendency is to cock a snook at such warnings.

D Ravi Kanth: A Trips-plus agenda at WIPO

One distinct sign of macroeconomic stability is that the frequency of actions by central banks around the world, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has declined considerably. Towards the end of last year, policy rates and reserve ratios were being slashed almost every few days. Now, the pattern has more or less reverted to its schedule, which in the case of the RBI is a quarterly one.

Status quo for RBI

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