The 100-year-old fertiliser industry has seldom faced as many problems as it is beset with today. Virtually nothing seems to be going well for this sector, which, at one stage, had made the country

Fertiliser famine

Business Standard

In recent days, three distinct announcements have come out, highlighting the low quality of financial sector policy in India. The first element was an announcement from the RBI about financial

Regulatory issues

With Grameen Banks founder, Muhammad Yunus, getting his Nobel Peace Prize a few days ago for his pioneering role in spreading micro-credit in Bangladesh, the entire movement has just got another push

Nobel cause

In the years ahead, we wish to focus on building a much deeper and wider relationship with Japans business and industry. Our economic relations presently fall far short of the potential. I have been

Catch up with South Korea: Manmohan Singh

The extension of the time limit for duty-free import of wheat by the private trade, from December-end to February-end, is an entirely inconsequential measure though it does reflect the governments

The wheat shortage

When China became the 143rd member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) five years ago, the world hoped the giant economy will lift the veil of secrecy and deal with the outside world in a

The Chinese divide

Everybody will have his own list of the defining events or developments during the year just gone by. Here is our take on two things that 2006 will be remembered for on the economic and business front

Defining developments

When the National Commission on Farmers (NCF), headed by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, mooted the idea of putting agriculture on the Concurrent list of the Constitution so as to bring it under the direct

Pushing agricultural reform

When the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) changed its frequency of monetary policy announcements from twice to four times a year in 2005, it was clearly motivated by the perception that the economy would

Hiking, and not hiking

His fellow-economists are still to digest Surjit Bhallas thesis (articulated in this newspaper last month, and fleshed out at a session in the capital on Saturday) that investment levels in India

Guaranteed success?

The governments indecisiveness on several critical issues concerning the sugar sector is likely to be costly for the sugar industry and sugarcane growers. These issues include lifting the ill-advised

Sugar problem ahead

The United States has an electoral system that allows the people to pass judgement on the government once every two years in a way that no other system does. President George W Bush, who has been in

A push for Bush

The Index of Industrial Production for September, released last Friday, provides yet another indication that the economy is on a faster growth track than most projections would have us believe. The

A great first half

Reports that indicate a rising concentration in the atmosphere of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, toluene, butadiene and others, are as revealing as they are alarming. They signal a

New pollutants

The employment market in India resembles in some ways the product markets of old, when there were artificial shortages of scooters, gas connections, telephones et al. If the country now faces a

The scarcity mindset

When the water resources ministry in New Delhi asked the states to enact laws for regulating the exploitation of groundwater, on the lines of the model Bill that was circulated to them, no one

Before aquifers go dry...

Milton Friedman, the 1976 Nobel laureate in economics, passed away last week at the age of 94. He will be remembered as the progenitor of the monetarist school of macro-economics, which can

The Friedman legacy

The US Senates resolution, designed to facilitate the Indo-US nuclear deal, has the characteristic of allowing both sides of the debate within India to claim victory. Those in favour note that the

Curate`s egg

With the leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum pledging to take the lead in the revival of the stalled global trade talks and similar voices emanating from other

Reviving Doha

The lack of long-term thinking on edible oils is jeopardising the viability of this sector. While domestic oilseeds growers are dismayed at the poor returns, the vegetable oil industry is unsure of

The other oil crisis

Budget games appear to have begun in full earnest. Over the years, they had dwindled in interest levels, what with the finance ministrys rather rigid insistence on boring ideas like fiscal

Fiscal playground

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 365 - Editorial Comment