The new government of Manmohan Singh has been making all the right noises since its formation on May 22. President Pratibha Patil&rsquo;s address to Parliament has left nobody in doubt that Manmohan Singh in his second term as prime minister is keen on a purposeful action plan and quick results. The focus is on improving governance and implementing reforms to achieve inclusive growth.

A K Bhattacharya: Reforms without change

Business Standard

A Cabinet reshuffle in New Delhi but celebrations in Geneva! That&rsquo;s what happened when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced some major changes to his Cabinet for the second term. Getting &ldquo;rid of the commerce minister, who was widely blamed for scuppering trade talks under the Doha Round in Geneva&rdquo; figured prominently in The Economist. For liberal socialists like Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organisation, and other western commentators, it was a moment of celebration.

D Ravi Kanth: Celebrating Kamal Nath&#39;s exit in the West

The latest statistics released by the Supreme Court regarding cases pending in the various courts in the country point to the stupendous task before the new law minister. The 100-day agenda declared by the government includes a roadmap for judicial reform to be outlined in six months and implemented in a time-bound manner.

M J Antony: Endless wait for justice

The Budget cannot afford to ignore 'inclusive growth' but innovative measures can generate employment while creating economic assets.

'Will financial constraints choke the social agenda?'

When cargo is unloaded from an Etihad Airways plane at Frankfurt airport a few weeks ago , customs officials show unusual interest in a consignment of medicines from India. The medicine is in transit to Denmark, although the final destination is the Republic of Vanuatu which, in case you are curious, is a Y-shaped archipelago of 83 volcanic islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It is among the less developed countries and for the islands&rsquo; small population the shipment of medicines would have gone a long way.

Latha Jishnu: Dealing with nasty EU customs

More and more people around the world are inclined to believe that the worst of the economic crisis is over, and that the signs of recovery are in the air. In India, the sense of optimism has been reinforced by the rather unexpected political outcome, which potentially frees the government of the many constraints it operated within during its previous term. Anticipation is building up about a breakthrough Budget, which will add momentum to the virtuous circle of evidence and expectations. However, before the book is closed on the meltdown, it would be prudent to do a reality check on the state of the economy, toting up the negative signals along with the positive.

Reality check

When the then finance minister, P Chidambaram, observed in his 2007-08 Budget speech that weather-based insurance could be a promising risk mitigation scheme for farmers, he would not have known how events could turn out. The test has come with the Aila cyclone, which has caused large-scale devastation in West Bengal, one of the five states where weather-based insurance cover is available to farmers. Going by media reports, while the crop damage is reckoned at over Rs 500 crore, insurers may have to pay only around Rs 7 lakh by way of compensation. The catch lies in the technicalities &mdash; that the bulk of the crop damage was due to winds and tides and not rains, which at most places measured a tad lower than the threshold level after which the claim becomes due.

Taking care of farmers

India, China, Brazil, South Africa and other middle-income countries (MICs) are appropriately using the financial crisis to push for reform of the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions and, in particular, for changing the voting shares of countries on the Boards of the IMF and World Bank. The logic of such reform &mdash; Belgium and the Netherlands having the same weight as China &mdash; is indisputable. But, in the case of the World Bank, such changes alone will not fix much.

John Briscoe: Reforming the World Bank - Not so easy!

India Inc has ignored the equal treatment approach to reward its top performers with handsome pay hikes.

Shyamal Majumdar: Talent at a premium

It is almost certain that the government will announce during the Budget session of Parliament a schedule for providing national food security to everyone below the poverty line. This was one of the Congress party&rsquo;s biggest promises during the Lok Sabha elections, and a law is to be passed that makes 25 kg of rice every month at Rs 3/kg a justifiable entitlement for all poor families. Since there are some 50 million such families, the subsidy in such a programme has been calculated at Rs 50,000 crore&mdash;rather more than the Rs 31,000 crore that was spent last year on the rural employment guarantee programme. Before the government plunges into implementing its promise, it needs to consider alternative options.

Cash, not grain

Government is back. At least that&rsquo;s the lesson I draw from the new UPA Government&rsquo;s major policy statement, the President&rsquo;s address (PA) to Parliament last week. Roughly speaking, the two decades 1985-2004 saw the progressive dismantling of government controls over foreign trade and payments, industry, prices, finance, capital markets and investment. The tax system was substantially reformed.

Shankar Acharya: The Leviathan returns

India needs to urbanise more quickly and this can be done by making smaller urban centres a magnet for rural migration.

Sanjeev Sanyal: Small-town India holds the key

Fourteen years after the poet Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine others were hanged for protesting against Nigeria&rsquo;s environmental practices in the oil-rich Niger delta, Royal Dutch Shell has finally blinked. In a landmark settlement on Tuesday, the world&rsquo;s third largest company agreed to pay $15.5 million in an out-of-court settlement ahead of a court case by relatives accusing it of complicity with that country&rsquo;s military regime in human rights abuses.

Kanika Datta: Big Oil slips on the little people

Business confidence in India has seen a dramatic improvement in the last two months, primarily after the results of last general elections that brought a more stable coalition at the centre. The Purchasing Manager&rsquo;s Index (PMI) for India increased for the second consecutive month in May to touch 53, reflecting the expansion of manufacturing owing to strong domestic demand.

John Samuel Raja D: Domestic demand is picking up

At this stage of the economy's recovery process, the US can ill afford a further sell-off in treasury prices.

Akash Prakash: The US bond sell-off

Just like burgers and big cars, the American system of &lsquo;publish or perish&rsquo; is slowly engulfing the world and, in the process, meeting with resistance from some quarters.

Sumita Kale: Research versus teaching

Theatre artist and political activist Habib Tanvir remained relevant till his last breath. It is interesting Habib saab departed on June 8, even as his group was in the midst of planning activities to celebrate 50 years of Naya Theatre, the energetic company of actors and musicians he set up in 1959 with his wife Moneeka Mishra. Moneeka departed in 2005 &ndash; soon after the wonderful tribute paid them by the Prithvi Theatre Festival when a bunch of their plays were presented and enough resources raised to fund a revival of the immensely influential 1954 play &lsquo;Agra Bazaar&rsquo;.

Sadanand Menon: A theatre that taught without schooling

The finance minister has an unenviable task. After years of buoyant revenues, Mr Mukherjee faces the once familiar challenge of squaring the fiscal circle. He let the fiscal deficit slip last year, and no one complained in the crisis environment of October-March. Now, informed observers will look for some kind of re-balancing as reassurance that the fisc will be pushed back on to even keel, in stages. At the same time, expectations from the new government are high.

Budgeting in difficult times

The plea by an edible oil industry body for fixing an indicative price band within which the domestic prices of cooking oils are allowed to float without any import tariff modifications, makes immense sense. Such a band would be delineated while keeping in mind the interests of both oilseed growers (remunerative prices for their produce) and consumers (cooking oil at reasonable prices).

A price band for oilseeds

The wealth created by public enterprises should be shared with the people through a purely retail divestment.

Prithvi Haldea: Make it a truly public offer

Okay, I&rsquo;ve been going on about this wine and that, and how the aroma and taste must be both complex and balanced to signal a &ldquo;good&rdquo; or even a &ldquo;great&rdquo; wine.

Taste and tell

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