The governments decision in principle to opt for the Madrid system of international registration of trademarks is a step, albeit belated, in the right direction. 


Signing up

Business Standard

Diplomacy with China is like an official Chinese banquet. You know when it has started but you dont know when it will end, because there are so many little dishes that keep coming along. Nor do the

Chinese banquet

The corporate results season has started, with the first of the fourth quarter results trickling in. India Inc has been able to maintain a heady pace of growth, both in top line and bottom line

Slower earnings growth?

If the first month following the removal of all curbs on the global textiles trade is anything to go by, India has got off to a poor start. 


Loose weave

First, the Pakistani general has changed his public image in India, built on the foundations of his adventures in Kargil and Agra, from a hawk and a smart-aleck trickster to someone who genuinely

Productive visit

The world over it is usual for electoral defeat to result in the top leadership of a political party being replaced by a new one. The principle is the one you get in all team efforts, be it private

Till death do us part

Gone are the days when a post-harvest dip in prices, followed by an off-season spurt, was seen as something you had to live with in agro-commodities. 


Checking farm volatility

The Indian BPO industry has received a rude shock with the arrest of a few employees of a leading BPO company for financial fraud. Frauds happen periodically everywhere, particularly in organisations

Shock for BPO

In an even more dramatic development, pack leader TCS has reported a flat fourth quarter. As the subdued Infosys forecast and news of IBM missing its guidance have come together, the question is: has

IT remains buoyant

In three days time, the finance minister, P Chidambaram, will move amendments to the Finance Bill. Among the many things taxpayers will look forward to are his decisions with regard to the two new

Drop them

Politics, it has been said, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Last or not is open to question, but in India it is certainly a refuge for scoundrels. No place is safer. 


Snafu

The initial bunch of quarterly corporate results has been very upbeat, but its early days yet and judgement should be withheld on whether the fears about a deceleration in profit growth were

Healthy companies

In deciding on what petroleum product prices should be, the issue is not whether Finance Minister P Chidambarams duty changes for the oil sector were revenue neutral or not, though it is true that

Time to come clean

The Union Budget and the Reserve Bank of Indias Roadmap for Presence of Foreign Banks in India and Guidelines and Ownership and Governance in Private Banks will have a significant impact on the

Consolidation time

What the governor of the state did, by swearing in Sibu Soren as chief minister, is one of the most blatant violations of Constitutional norms in recent years. 


Undo this hijacking

It is true that excise duties on petrol have been cut from 23 per cent to 8 per cent, but this has been more than made up by the new impost of Rs 5 per litre on petrol. All told, even after allowing

Not sweet crude

Lalu Prasad's Budget announcement to allow the private sector into what was hitherto the monopoly of the public sector Container Corporation of India (Concor) finally appears to be taking shape. 


Keep it on track

The governments move to clamp down on oil and gas companies making premature announcements about the results of their exploratory efforts is long overdue. 


Capping speculation

In all countries that practise a separation of powers, there is, from time to time, friction between the legislatures and the courts. This usually happens when one steps on the corns of the other. 


Territorial imperative

The telecom regulator decision to slash tariffs for international bandwidth by as much as 70 per cent could not have come at a better time for the countrys BPO units, which increasingly face margin

Kind cut

The strong defence of genetically modified (GM) crops by Nobel laureate Norman E Borlaug, hailed as father of the Green Revolution, is essentially commonsense. 


GM crop potential

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 362 - Editorial Comment