Farmer suicides and distress in the countryside have taken on the dimensions of a national scandal. What farmers need most of all is assured water for irrigating their crops; indeed, many suicides by

Failure in irrigation

Business Standard

The retail game has barely begun, and the new players are already rewriting the rules. The chain stores are buying at the farm-gate, perhaps to ensure adequacy of supply, and in the process making it

Retail revolution begins

A key area of interest in Finance Minister P Chidambarams Budget speech next week will be the action he outlines for introducing a national level goods and services tax by the target date of April

Towards a dual GST

The report of the R A Mashelkar-headed technical experts group (TEG) has been embroiled in bitter controversy ever since it was presented to the government over a month ago. But the charges of

Start afresh

Whatever anyone may have thought about how the internet would develop and grow in India, reality has emerged with unexpected contours. In other countries, the internet will become ubiquitous. It will

Internet challenge for India

Rarely does the railway minister announce the day before D-day that he is going to present a good budget. Seeing the revised numbers for the year that is about to close, his upbeat mood is easily

Sustainable growth?

Bankers can be forgiven for rejoicing at their unexpected good fortune. The Reserve Bank of India has been trying to suck liquidity out of the system and restrict banks ability to lend on, but the

Rex is lex

A lot of attention has been focused on central government finances and the ability of the government to adhere to the rather strict requirements of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management

State of solvency

When legends fade into the evening mist, it is hard not to feel the pangs of parting. Shane Warne, peccadilloes notwithstanding, was one such legendwith a record 700 wickets in Test cricket. He came

Legendary spin

As the utterly gruesome murders of as many as 30 children in Noida (neighbouring the capital) show, horrors never cease in India. Even if one argues that the occasional outrage is inevitable in a

Something is rotten

The finance minister and his team are now engaged in formulating the Union Budget for 2007-08. This will be the UPAs governments fourth Budget, and the last one in which it can hope to undertake

Don't be minimalist

Pouring the last bucket of concrete for the Sardar Sarover dam on the Narmada river in Gujarat, as was done by the states chief minister on December 31, may have technically completed the civil

A dam is not a canal

Until the 1970s, milk was in short supply and used to be rationed. Then came Operation Flood, and India is today perhaps the worlds largest producer of milk. Until 2001, telephone connections used to

Market education

Throughout practically all of history, and across kingdoms and nation-states, one of the most actively debated issues has been the responsibilities of those entrusted with enforcing the law and

Why not online FIRs?

The Hurriyat is preparing to visit Pakistan. The coming weeks may see a settlement of the dispute over the Baglihar dam. The ambitious railway line to Srinagar is nearing completion and one section

Positive developments

DLFs public share issue may or may not do well, but from a public policy perspective the important point is that, since the company filed its first draft prospectus last year, it has increased the

How to prevent Singurs

The employment and earnings numbers for the US economy during December suggest that the tide may be turning as far as growth performance is concerned. The number of non-farm jobs rose by 167,000,

A soft landing

Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Rakesh Mohan coined the phrase lazy banking to describe banks not chasing customers to lend to, preferring instead to invest in safe Government of India bonds. Perhaps

Unproductive laws

Pratham shook up the world of education in India with its path-breaking survey in 2005, and it has now released the 2006 report. The findings of this report are striking and important. In rural India,

Educating the government

The cure may, at times, be worse than the disease. That would now seem to be the case with tamiflu, the drug used more than any other for treating and preventing the dreaded bird flu  caused by the

Tamiflu vs bird flu

When the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for October 2006 was released last month, the numbers came as a shock to many people. The year-on-year growth rate was far below expectations, provoking

The momentum returns ...

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

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