The fifth Indo-Asean summit, held in Cebu in the Philippines, may not have been a deal-clincher for India, but the deliberations that took place there are important. Where the much-delayed free trade

Progress with Asean

Business Standard

Just when it seemed that the controversy over changing the Indian patent regime to make it compatible with the global agreement on trade-related intellectual property rights (Trips) is over, the issue

Patent controversy

Lalit Mohan Thapars passing represents the end of an era, in more ways than one. One of the stalwarts of the old Delhi families that dominated the industrial scene in the days of the licence-permit

LM Thapar

The Indian software and services industry has produced results for the October-December quarter that are exceptional, and indeed better than anything in recent memory. The industry seems to be gaining

Software saga continues

Wonders will never cease. Only a few years ago, the finances of state governments looked as if they could never be brought out of crisis. Today, they are looking better than the central governments

Too early to celebrate

The protests against land acquisition in Singur, Nandigram and Keonjhar might not have achieved their objective of subverting the projects for which the land was being taken over, but they have

Learn from Orissa

A welcome development on the fiscal front has been the toning up of tax administration, with initiatives such as the Tax Information Network (TIN). This and other measures have contributed

Administrative asymmetry

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will make its quarterly monetary and credit policy announcement later today, against the backdrop of a buoyant macro-economic environment. If the third-quarter

Agriculture strikes back

The water resources ministrys reported proposal to invest as much as Rs 5,000 crore in 32 districts affected by farmer suicides, with a view to ensuring water security, is a move in the right

Water bodies

The Union Budget that was presented last week has made a major effort to resuscitate India's economy and shown greater fiscal discipline by cutting government expenditure in the current year and promising a lower fiscal deficit in 2013-14. Nevertheless, the Budget can and will be judged on various fronts  what it provides to the private sector; its effect on jobs, the social sector and the environment; and how much it cuts government waste. And in some ways an important prism through which it should be viewed is what the Budget will mean for India's external vulnerability. If India is, as so many fear, vulnerable to a crisis of some sort because of its balance-of-payments weakness, then the Budget should have given greater priority to fixing this problem, and reducing the current account deficit. Unfortunately, viewed from that perspective, the Budget has not done enough.The outlines of India's difficult current account situation are already well known. A sustained rise in the price of

Managing current account

Budget might have far-reaching effects on start-ups

Angels in India

Violent words in political speech will lower the national debate

Careful, Mr Modi

The Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), the government agency responsible for keeping track of how the economy is performing, goes through five phases of estimating how much Indias GDP amounts to

Fine-tuning GDP

It is reported that, in Maharashtra, the last six months have seen no fewer than seven officers belonging to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) leave the service to join the private sector, at

Attrition in government

As has long been known, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. As the ruling emperor of Indian cinema, Amitabh Bachchan will readily provide yet another confirmation of this adage. For no reason

Ethnic politics

The National Sample Survey Organisation, which is responsible for collecting data on household expenditure and employment patterns, has published a summary of the findings of its 62nd Round survey,

Not a pretty picture

The blanket ban on the trade and movement of chickens, ducks and eggs in West Bengal, though intended to curb the spread of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu infection, is unlikely to achieve the

Not the right strategy

The highly vexatious experience of those who use the new expressway between Delhi and Gurgaon brings to the fore some important issues. First and foremost is the basic issue of assessing traffic

NHAI hai, hai ...

On Friday, the government announced the de-reservation of 79 items from the list meant exclusively for manufacture by the small-scale sector. This leaves only 35 items on the list, down to almost

Reservations RIP

Yesterdays performance of Reliance Powers stock, which, only a few weeks ago had astounded observers with the magnitude of oversubscription, must not be seen as just a reflection of the state of the

Signals from IPOs

The worst fears about the impact of the rush for bio-fuels are coming true. Evidence that has now surfaced suggests that bio-fuels based on plant sources may actually aggravate, rather than alleviate,

Bio-fuels not the answer?

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

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