India promoted Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to accelerate economic development by creating islands of investments that were provided preferential treatment in terms of facilities and taxes. The initial objective was to promote exports but this has effectively expanded to include growth and employment in general.

Mahesh Vyas: SEZs aren't delivering, time to scrap the scheme

Business Standard

Human emotions are as measurable as prices. The challenge is documenting an emotional time series.

The pattern of belief

The National Consumer Commission has directed Agricultural Insurance Co Ltd to fully compensate a potato farmer without arbitrarily introducing a &lsquo;reduction factor&rsquo; in the insured amount.

Agricultural insurance: Can't introduce reduction factor

High base, not deficient demand, is responsible.

Certainly not deflation

In the past three months, global asset prices have rebounded sharply: stock prices have increased by more than 30 per cent in advanced economies, and by much more in most emerging markets.

Nouriel Roubini: Financial gain, economic pain

Now that the Bombay High Court has rejected the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas&rsquo; (MoPNG) attempts to help Mukesh Ambani&rsquo;s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) wriggle out of its 2005 contract to supply 28 million metric standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) of gas to Anil Ambani&rsquo;s Reliance Natural Resources Limited (RNRL), the pressure on it has increased several times over.

Sunil Jain: Choking on gas

The economic data are ambiguous, inflation could rise again and a steepening yield curve could derail growth.

A V Rajwade: A shaky recovery

From what Union Finance Minister and Chairman of Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers have given to understand after their recent meeting, it is clear that the Government is quite serious about ushering in GST in 2010 April. This is just one Budget away. But what is singularly lacking so far is any positive information about the exact nature of GST and the road map to achieving it.

Budget 2009: What it should do for GST 2010

The Mumbai-based India Rising Fund (IRF), the venture fund for investment in the defence sector in India, the first of its kind and also the only one to be registered with the Sec-urities and Exchange of India, is caught in a quag-mire of interpretation iss-ues, i.e. whether their investment proposal is subject to sectoral caps.

Fund's foray into defence sector in a quagmire

A recurring issue in service tax law is regarding the effective date of coming into force of various provisions, as contained in the Finance Act 1994. These provisions could pertain to introduction of new conditions and definitions as also changes in the underlying rates of taxes. This article seeks to briefly discuss this issue.

Effective date of applicability of service tax provisions

My friend Hugo Roberto Diaz, a telecom services entrepreneur from Guatemala, narrated this story to me last week at a gathering of fellows of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. The venue was, where else, at Aspen, Colorado, 9,000 feet above sea level.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Why MSM will have to work harder

This time round, Manmohan Singh has less choice when it comes to selecting bureaucrats for key jobs.

A K Bhattacharya: The search continues

In a world replete with paradoxes, it is not unusual to witness big surprises. Despite the severe economic hemorrhaging that began almost eight months ago, workers have not stormed the streets. While they have got a raw deal from the worsening recession, the real culprits &mdash; the investment banks &mdash; are being fed with a silver spoon. So far, around $5 trillion have been spent on restoring these failed financial powerhouses. But no such big amounts are being talked about when it comes to rescuing workers ravaged by the recession.

D Ravi Kanth: Labouring over capital

It is hard to see who among the participants could have emerged with much satisfaction from the two-day meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party&rsquo;s national executive. Meant to discuss the party&rsquo;s poor showing in the Lok Sabha elections, and the way forward, the last word was said by the gentleman who almost certainly will not lead the party in the next elections.

Out of sync

This newspaper has consistently opposed the government&rsquo;s policy on special economic zones. The plethora of market-distorting tax giveaways, the liberal mix allowed of &ldquo;processing&rdquo; and other areas in a zone (which helped convert some into real estate projects rather than export zones), the minimum and maximum sizes stipulated without economic logic, the administrative difficulties that would be there in dealing with hundreds of &ldquo;no-tax&rdquo; zones, all these made this a thoroughly irrational policy that had little to commend itself. And if none of these arguments carried weight, there was the additional outrage that all that was required of the tax enclave was that it be foreign exchange-neutral! Even after the inevitable group of ministers tweaked the model, SEZs continued to be quite lucrative as real estate deals.

SEZzzzz

The groups that merged to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist) a few years ago were on the government&rsquo;s banned list; that did not prevent them from forming a consolidated Maoist grouping and spreading their zones of influence and control. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was banned for a while after the Babri Masjid was brought down in 1992, but showed no signs of having suffered on that account. The Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi) has also been banned, but seems to be active nevertheless. To cite these examples is not to argue against the imposition of a ban (which has become a needless point of dispute with the Left Front government in West Bengal).

Banning is a first step

Unlike the US and China, India may need to start fiscal consolidation soon.

Arvind Subramanian: Fiscal prudence, now and here

The apple economy of Himachal is getting hugely destabilised. Lower snowfall and higher temperatures are making it difficult to grow apples at below 6,000 ft where they have been grown for almost a hundred years. The Gangotri glacier, which ensures a perennial flow in the Ganga, is melting.

Subir Roy: Growing in a responsible way

The Supreme Court demands exceptional courage from officers to resist pressure from above.

M J Antony: Dilemma of obedience

Using tax rebates to induce investment will favour sub-optimal projects that are not related to either local or global demand - it'll take India back to the '80s.

&#39;Should the investment allowance be brought back?&#39;

Activists of various kinds, but particularly those dealing with health issues, are having a tough time of late. They are spending long hours poring over the unlikeliest of documents to gird up for their next big battle. The documents are trade agreements between nations, rife with convoluted legalese and bureaucratic caveats, and whose fine print can tie even lawyers in knots. In particular, it is the deceptively-named free trade agreements or FTAs which are engaging a whole lot of activists here and abroad because these remarkably comprehensive pacts &mdash; they cover everything from investment and banking regulations to labour and agriculture practices &mdash; carry hidden threats to the well-being of millions of people in poor countries.

Latha Jishnu: Vicious sting in the tail of FTAs

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