As Bal Thackeray once said, Indians don't just cast their vote.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Voting your caste

Business Standard

Importing the US system of food regulation to India could prove injurious to health.

Latha Jishnu: Unwholesome regulations on food

We were having lunch in a village near Jodhpur when we saw the pretty village belle wearing a colourful mirror-work skirt and lots of silver jewellery. Tattooed wrists, musical anklets and all, she sashayed past us with the aplomb of a superstar on the red carpet. &ldquo;I just love the way Rajasthani women carry off their clothes,&rdquo; said my friend admiringly, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t she gorgeous?&rdquo; Just then, a young man with a luxuriant moustache walked in. Dressed in traditional local garb with a majestic turban, he looked like a proud king of yore.

Geetanjali Krishna: Marwari pop, anyone?

The company of millionaires, or billionaires, even if they&rsquo;re &ldquo;friends&rdquo;, can be pretty daunting, especially if they&rsquo;re liberal about sharing their bottomlines following a swig, or two, or three, of $650 JW Blue Label &mdash; &ldquo;only for special occasions&rdquo;, wink-nudge-wink &mdash; given that they usually peg their whiskies &ldquo;at $200 a bottle, max&rdquo;. They might spring $3,000 for a special label of cognac, but given Delhi&rsquo;s unfortunate slumming with Black Label as the ultimate lifestyle arbiter, they have had to &ldquo;train down&rdquo; their palates to keep company with their less fortunate friends. It&rsquo;s a cruel toss up, but I&rsquo;m happy to report, based on my findings of the previous evening, that most will not trade their friendships even if they have to subsist on less than Gold Label.

Kishore Singh: Blue Label for the blues

Bimal Jalan and other public-spirited individuals have set up a Public Interest Foundation, which is leading a pre-election campaign to keep criminals out of politics.

T N Ninan: Encouraging the fringe

Ah yes, Holi, joyous spring celebration, India&rsquo;s famous Festival of Colours, a time to sing, dance and make merry with bright colours and music. I spent it the traditional way, holed up at home with a depressed friend, doors and windows shut against the sound of human joy.

Colour me bad

One of the most abused terms in the world of fine dining has to be &ldquo;fusion&rdquo;. It may now be acceptable to cook your pasta with a dash of cumin at home &mdash; and admit as much. Or to raid your refrigerator at midnight to come up with your own versions of sandwiches, hummus with paranthas, or even spaghetti bolognaise &mdash; using Maggi noodles and left-over mutton curry, as Mumbai-based restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani, who owns the Mocha caf&eacute; chain, admits to rustling up.

On the menu

A movement for promoting green buildings picks up pace in India, promising to reduce the high level of carbon emitted by the brick-and-mortar buildings.

Sreelatha Menon: Sustainable Zoom Zoom!

Last week, the Chinese National People&rsquo;s Congress, a 3,000-member body that substitutes for a parliament, and which meets once a year, was provided an assessment of the state of the Chinese economy by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

Chinese tensions

&ldquo;Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.

David Banister: Dilemmas of sustainable transport

Counterfactuals from such flawed structures cannot form the sole basis for successful policy analysis or advice, with or without the benefit of hindsight.

Caroline Baum: Greenspan forgets where he put his asset bubble

The announcement of the schedule for the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha has set in motion the process for the Indian people to elect a new government that can serve them and the country better.

Vote for a people's alternative

Given that returns from equities will come only in the long run and alternative investments are not faring that good either, investors just have to go by historical trends.

Keep the faith

The present crisis of confidence in the audit profession among users and stakeholders, arising from recent market events has to be addressed in a fair manner.

The right medicine?

The Supreme Court has held that the DRT Act and SARFAESI Act do not per se create preceding charge in favour of banks, financial institutions and other secured creditors, while, a specific stat-utory charge will prevail over rights of any other secured creditor.

Is secured creditor really secured?

It has come to be known from an official source during a recent seminar that the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers of States has got the VAT tariff worked out and is on the way to finalising the details on the same pattern as in the Harmonized System of Nomenclature (HSN) also known as Brussels Trade Nomenclature (BTN). I am writing to say that this will be quite a retrograde step.&nbsp;Making things completed and difficult to work upon is not a good policy at all.

Disaster if VAT tariff is harmonised with HSN

Readers have sent in responses to last week&rsquo;s column on Finance Ministry&rsquo;s imperious attitude towards exporters under the Duty Free Import Authorisation (DFIA) scheme. I deal with some of their doubts here.

CBEC needs to make up its mind on modvat, cenvat

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of the income tax department and ruled that the foreign exchange earned by transferring the right of exploitation of films outside India by way of lease is admissible for deduction under Section 80HHC of the Income Tax Act 1961. According to the department, movies/films are not goods. Hence Section 80HHC cannot be invoked which grants benefit only to sale.

Exchange earned on films abroad can get I-T deduction

The prolonged arguments between the government and the organisers of the Indian Premier League (IPL) over the need to postpone the second edition of the popular Twenty-20 tournament underline the degree to which big money has moved into the sport. It is now unequivocally clear that the tournament should be postponed, which raises the spectre of outright cancellation.

Padding up for safety

Election predictions have a horrible way of going wrong. Still, it would seem safe to hazard the guess that, despite all the promising noises being made by all concerned, the Third Front does not look like it is going anywhere in a hurry.

More mansabdari

Developed nations must invest in confidence-renewing measures like the Marshall Plan.

Robert J Shiller: Winning the confidence game

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

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