In his Budget speech, Mr Chidambaram announced that some products would be taken off the small-scale reservation list. This has now been notified for 108 items, bringing down the number still reserved

Road to redemption

Business Standard

Sebi had imposed a deadline of April 1, 2005, for companies listed on stock exchanges to comply with the requirements of Clause 49 of the listing agreement. Primarily, these related to the composition

Reaching beyond grasp

Over the last couple of weeks, the price of crude oil has begun to rise to the peaks it had scaled during 2004, before subsiding to less threatening levels. 


Oil shock, Part II

India&rsquo;s 64th Republic Day celebrations threw up some interesting points to consider for those who are responsible for the country&rsquo;s security. As always, the parade in New Delhi down Rajpath stressed the Indian state&rsquo;s military might.

Securing the Republic

The government, according to recent newspaper reports, finds itself unable to clear the mounting subsidy dues of the fertiliser industry &mdash; the budgetary allocation for this purpose has already exhausted. This is as much a reflection on the shocking flaws in the Budget-making exercise for this financial year as on India&rsquo;s misguided fertiliser subsidy policy.

Budgeting for failure

The suicide earlier this month of internet activist Aaron Swartz, 26, has, in tragic fashion, highlighted lacunae in the laws governing electronic copyright and computer crime, which he spent his life campaigning against. He was a prodigy. At 14, he helped to develop the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) standard, which distributed blog posts, working with Sir Timothy Berners-Lee&rsquo;s World Wide Web Consortium.

Crimes and victims

The Union Budget for 2012-13 was met with dismay in some quarters because it appeared to allow the tax authorities excessive discretionary power. The general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR) and various retrospective amendments to tax laws together gave the impression that the government was willing to allow its tax inspectors to skirt close to the borders of harassment in order to maximise its revenue &mdash; anything went, the sense was, in order to fix the fiscal deficit problem.

The wrong remedy

On January 27, the day after nation-wide celebrations of India&rsquo;s 64th year as a Republic, Justice J S Verma indirectly confirmed on television a shameful fact that the anti-rape protests on Raisina Hill underlined in December: that there aren't too many mainstream politicians interested in representing women&rsquo;s rights as an issue. In an interview to Karan Thapar on the television channel CNN-IBN, Justice Verma revealed how apparently detached the government was from the three-member committee he headed, that had been tasked to suggest ways to strengthen the rape laws. First, he said, his committee had had no dealings &ldquo;at all&rdquo; with Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde in the month it took to prepare the report &ndash; nor, for that matter, after it was submitted. Neither Mr Shinde nor Home Secretary R K Singh, he said, were present to accept the report when it was submitted on January 23; it was received by a joint secretary in the ministry.

Voices for women

It seems that the woes afflicting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka can become terminal. The party was plunged into yet another crisis with the resignation of two ministers owing allegiance to former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa. What is more, at least 13 MLAs have sought to resign their Assembly seats. So far the resignations of 12 of them have been received by the Speaker of the Assembly; one has been rejected on technical grounds.

Karnataka's costly politics

The GDP numbers for the second quarter (July-September) of the current year, released last week, yielded no negative surprises; it did, however, have some positive ones. 


Manufacturing punch

After guar seed, it is the turn of sugar to witness a speculation-driven price surge. The striking similarity between these two situations is that both the commodities are traded, albeit in small

The sugar surge

What, precisely, are &ldquo;monopolistic practices&rdquo; in a world that is moving online? Can the same institutions drive our thinking about monopoly, online and off? Perhaps not. Google was the first business to leverage internet search to drive advertising. Its insight has translated into continuing dominance, through relentless innovation and a willingness to explore and embrace the new.

A whole new game 

The new minister for information and broadcasting (I&amp;B), Manish Tewari, has set up a high-level committee under prime ministerial advisor Sam Pitroda to examine the future of Prasar Bharati, the giant state-owned organisation that takes up almost two-thirds of the I&amp;B ministry&rsquo;s budget, and which controls Doordarshan television and All India Radio (AIR).

Doordarshan made anew

On Sunday, quietly and with the minimum of fuss, the process of land acquisition for Posco&rsquo;s steel project in Odisha began again, after a break of more than a year. It is far from clear what, if anything, this delay achieved, other than forcing investors to lose money, depriving locals of the cash that acquisition would bring them, and further souring India&rsquo;s steel output, employment and investment climate.

Need for more action

One of the United States&rsquo; largest and best-known think tanks, the Brookings Institution &ndash; which has often been called the world&rsquo;s most influential &ndash; has decided to open an India branch, which will be led by the former India head of the Shell Group of Companies, Vikram S Mehta.

Charge of the think tanks 

The Union Cabinet cleared the Lok Pal Bill on Thursday, and it is likely to be introduced in Parliament during the forthcoming Budget session. The Bill, which aims to set up a watchdog body to deal with corruption in high places, and which failed to pass the Rajya Sabha amid dramatic scenes in December 2011, has had several major changes made to it following prolonged scrutiny by the Select Committee in Parliament.

Step forward for Lok Pal

The National Common Minimum Programme states, "The UPA government will consider the creation of a Backward States Grant Fund that will be used to create productive assets in these states", the

Graft Fund?

Fortune, it has been known for some time now, favours the brave. So in retrospect it comes as no surprise that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan has won such a stunning election victory.


The Koizumi Effect

The Allahabad High Court judgment quashing the de-licensing of the sugar industry should not be viewed as a setback to the liberalisation of just the sugar sector. It has much wider ramifications, as

Challenge to de-licensing

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) announced the suspension of registrations with the Market Participants and Investors (MAPIN) database. 


Good riddance

Even if you leave aside the issue of power shortages and allegations of faulty electricity meters in Delhi, one issue that stares you in the face is that much of the problem could have been predicted

Roosting chickens

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 419 - Editorial Comment