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

Business Standard

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the usual case for India accepting limits on its carbon emissions &mdash; the bulk of future carbon emissions, she said, would emanate from high-growth developing countries such as India and China and, therefore, the only way to avoid an environmental catastrophe was for them to follow a low-carbon development path. Despite its apparent logic, the argument has a critical flaw, which is that the rich countries have been environmental free riders all along and seek to continue to be free riders. The environment minister Jairam Ramesh did well, therefore, to make it clear that India would not accept any legally binding restrictions. If India is to move its millions from poverty to an acceptable living standard, it has to adopt industrialisation models, which are energy-intensive.

No carbon copies

I first worked on Latin America in the late 1980s. At that time many of the countries of the so-called &ldquo;Southern Cone&rdquo; of South America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil and Peru) were engaged in the dual tasks of restoring democracy after an extended period of military rule, and stabilising their economies after extended periods of high inflation.

Suman Bery: The wisdom of Professor Calvo

Tata Steel made a virtue of &lsquo;also&rsquo; making steel a few years ago. It was perhaps the first, last and only private sector company to draw comfort from its prowess in civic affairs. For most PSUs in India though, this is an area not much deliberated upon, mostly because the businesses are monopolies. No one cares or asks.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Is Air India an airline?

The art of writing cheques with no money in the bank is booming despite censorship.

M J Antony: Bouncer for criminal courts

Unless radio is allowed to offer more diversified fare, and each group allowed to own more than one channel, the new auction for 800 frequencies could come a cropper.

&#39;Does it make sense to be in the FM radio business?&#39;

Bollywood is breaking out the champagne. Last week, the Maharashtra government decided to equate video and audio piracy with drug peddling, bootlegging and other dangerously nefarious activities and decided that a draconian law, which covers the latter group, would apply to film and music pirates, too. The ordinance, signed by Governor S C Jamir, brought audio-video piracy into the purview of the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (MPDA) Act of 1981, which allows the police to lock up offenders or potential offenders for as long as three months without bail, and up to a maximum of 12 months.

Latha Jishnu: The dangerous business of film piracy

The success of the Nano and Indian Premier League in Business Standard&rsquo;s latest Brand Derby (reported in the Strategist section yesterday) should drive home three lessons for marketers. One, it is now possible for Indian brands to gain instant global recognition. Two, more than the money spent on promotion, it could be the idea behind a product which matters. And three, a great brand can be created quickly.

Not just marketing

The lackadaisical performance of the south-west monsoon has sent a nervous shiver across the country. The likely emergence of El Nino, the name given to the warming of the Pacific Ocean and which often influences the Indian monsoon adversely, coupled with the failure of the monsoon to gather momentum in the key north-western agricultural belt, has added to the worry. Under the circumstances, the assertion by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) that much of the rain deficit in June will be made up in July (which is mostly over) and August has cut little ice. While some sense an imminent drought, resulting in a poor kharif harvest, the agriculture ministry still hopes that agricultural production will be in the normal range. The finance ministry is worried, as a drought is the last thing it would like to cope with during an economic downturn.

Questions on the monsoon

It is tempting and perhaps natural to attribute the post-Budget sell-off in the stock market entirely to the disappointment over the Budget. It is equally tempting to attribute the subsequent rally to the attempts to soothe market sentiment by the finance ministry. However, that would be incorrect.

Abheek Barua: Being fair to Pranabbabu

The country is immersed in a critical debate on how to reform and rejuvenate its higher education, led by a literate and articulate minister Kapil Sibal. Luckily, two major forward-looking reports (of the Knowledge Commission and the Yash Pal committee) provide vital reference points from which arguments can take off.

Subir Roy: Reengineering higher education

Hillary Clinton&rsquo;s visit, which concluded on Monday after a flurry of agreements being signed, demonstrated the positives and negatives of the Indo-US engagement in its current avatar. The positives were more in the nature of the softer aspects of the visit, with the US secretary of state meeting businessmen, students and civil society activists; these encounters underlined the values and linkages that bring the two countries together. On the issues which are at the hard edge of diplomacy, what was in evidence most of all were the mine-fields that the two governments have to negotiate.

Soft sell, hard issues

India&rsquo;s information technology leaders have managed to beat analyst and market expectations by turning in a credible performance in the quarter ended June, in challenging times that show no clear signs of getting any easier. While TCS and Infosys hold back from saying that light is visible at the end of the tunnel, Wipro chairman Azim Premji has struck half a note of optimism by declaring that he sees the &ldquo;first signs of stability in the business as ramp downs start to taper off and volumes start to stabilise.&rdquo; What this stability means is that while things were in some kind of a free fall, with technology chiefs in client companies not knowing what budget would be available for the year, now both the industry and clients know where they stand. But there is no upside, as new projects are nowhere in sight. This is reflected in Infosys cutting both its current quarter and full year guidance, and Wipro issuing a virtually flat guidance for the current quarter.

The tough get going

The head of a law firm spends most of his time studying organisational behaviour in order to maximise returns.

Shyamal Majumdar: A different approach

The foreign secretary, while continuing as the first policy adviser, should delegate policy execution.

Kishan S Rana: MEA's institutional software - A US prognosis

Thanks to a curious procedure for allotting projects under the PPP regime, few want to develop ports in the country.

Michael Pinto: No one&#39;s setting anchor here

Most know private sector firms are a lot more efficient than public sector ones, but a little bit of perspective is required here. According to data from the latest budget documents, public sector firms, on average, pay around a fifth more effective tax rates in comparison to their private sector counterparts. So, while public sector companies paid an effective tax rate of 25.69 per cent in 2007-08, the figure was a lower 21.28 per cent for private sector firms. The average of 22.24 per cent for all firms, of course, was much lower than the statutory 33.99 per cent. The reason for this is the tax benefits claimed, obviously more by the private sector, particularly for export profits under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme (Rs 11,734 crore) and accelerated depreciation (Rs 14,344 crore of taxes were foregone on this account).

Sunil Jain: Tax Advantage

Research shows the US Fed doesn't get its predictions right as often as we would like to believe.

Sumita Kale: The Fed is in the red

All of a sudden, in the space of some weeks, the nation seems to be running up a deficit on its cultural capital. In rapid succession we have lost theatre personalities like Habib Tanvir and Kalindi Deshpande, writers like Kamala Das, painters and sculptors like A P Santhanaraj, T R P Mookiah and Tyeb Mehta and musicians like Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, D K Pattammal and now, Gangubai Hanagal.

Sadanand Menon: A run on the nation&#39;s cultural capital

The debate on state support of terrorism in South Asia should get real, even if governments in the region find themselves unable to do so during formal diplomatic encounters. Indeed, Pakistan President Asif Zardari has made so bold as to break with all his country&rsquo;s lies of the past and admit to Pakistan&rsquo;s role in promoting cross-border terrorism. So perhaps it is time to recognise that no country is innocent, and that this has been the case for the last 60 years. If Pakistan has spent much of the last three decades stoking rebellion and secession in first Punjab and then Kashmir, as also in supporting repeated strikes by Pakistani nationals in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere, if Bangladesh has been supporting terrorist outfits like the United Front for Liberation of Assam (Ulfa), and if sundry players in the region have been supporting Naga and other rebels, the fact is that India does not have a clean record either.

Anyone with clean hands?

Investors in Singapore have to be either terribly confused or terribly impressed. They&rsquo;ve just been told by Surface Transport Minister Kamal Nath that he plans to increase five-fold the pace of construction of highways in the country, to 20 km a day. Mr Nath, who is currently on a trip to South-East Asia, plans to repeat his message in the US and Europe. To convince them, he has outlined some of his plans. These include setting up of 150 exclusive land acquisition wings, reducing the stranglehold that engineers have on the National Highways Authority of India &mdash; engineers typically over-specify projects, making them non-bankable. The minister gives the example of the Belgaum-Dharwad highway where paring of unnecessary service lanes and flyovers has reduced the cost by 40 per cent, from the original estimate of Rs 480 crore. An expressway authority has also been announced.

Hairpin bend ahead

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

Page 880 - Opinion Specials