The data for merchandise exports and imports, released by the ministry of commerce and industry yesterday, reinforce the June pattern by showing a substantial divergence in the export growth rate when

Slowdown in trade growth

Business Standard

It would be easy to dismiss Vijay Mallyas purchase over the last week-end of Spyker, the struggling Formula 1 team, as a fit of personal whimsy by a businessman with a predilection for fast cars and

Winning formula

The political class as well as industry may be under-estimating the growing resistance to land acquisition for the setting up of greenfield industrial ventures and operating mining leases. What began

Distant thunder

The telecom regulator has sought to address many contentious issues, in its latest set of recommendations to the government. Most of the new rules proposed are an improvement on the present state of

Cross-connections still

The Delhi International Airport Limited has passed on to a newly-formed subsidiary its licence to develop the land it received as part of the Delhi airport privatisation. Company officials say that

Structuring PPPs

The sting operation carried out by a TV channel on a Delhi school-teacher who was allegedly inveigling schoolgirls into prostitution, unleashed a sudden bout of anger and street violence. The

Media as police

The balloon has started to go up in Pakistan, where elections are due in two months. When (or if) they are held, they will see the end of President Pervez Musharrafs first elected term. The question

Crunch-time

With the Lok Sabha passing the Competition (Amendment) Bill, there is finally some hope for the countrys Competition Commission, which was set up way back in 2003. The original enactment should have

Ready for action, soon

They say that cricketers should not protest bad umpiring decisions (if they are allowed to, that is) because sometimes a bad decision too goes in their favour, and it works out pretty much even in the

Use technology, please

Stock prices come tumbling down in the US, Europe and Asia, but Indian stock prices continue to climb, and the key indices are not far from their all-time highs. The financial and economic news gets

Has de-coupling happened?

The country may have many things to thank the Indian fashion weeks for: a new lexicon (wardrobe malfunction, diffusion line), eye-candy in the morning papers (and on television), live

Not fashioning a business

After dithering for nearly a year over the enforcement of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the government had to finally yield to the Supreme Courts pressure, and commit that the statute will

Food safety muddle

It is ironic that mankinds understanding of the genome  the genetic material in an organism  is so heavily dependent on inanimate intelligence. Mapping genomes is much more about computational

Studying mankind

Rahul Dravids resignation as the captain of the Indian cricket team has taken everyone by surprise including, it would seem, his father and the Indian cricket team now playing the T20 championship in

Captains, not players

It could only happen in India that mythology, not public interest, holds up development. The sorry spectacle that the Sethusamudram issue has become highlights this in a way that nothing else has done

No bridge to reason

Representatives of the 191 member-countries of the Montreal protocol, currently assembled in the Canadian city to observe the treatys 20th anniversary, have reasons to be satisfied. The production

Advance the deadline

Recent reports, including those in this newspaper, suggest that much of what was seen as Railway Minister Lalu Prasads magic may just be wearing off. At a time when the economy continues to grow at a

Where`s the magic?

The opposition to large retail shops seems to be growing, and broadening to take in domestic retail chains as well as the international giants that want to enter the Indian market. Admittedly, such

Retail reality

The rupees rise above an exchange rate of 40 per US dollar has not been a surprise. After the interest rate cut announced by the US Federal Reserve on Tuesday, this was very much on the cards as the

Back above 40

It would seem that the sub-prime cloud has passed the stock markets by, as the key indices  the BSE Sensex and the Nifty  make new highs. Doubts about a global slowdown have also been pushed aside

More turmoil ahead

Two weeks ago, the Delhi High Court held four journalists working for the publication Mid-Day guilty of being in contempt of the court. The provocation was that they had written articles suggesting

Go easy on contempt

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

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