Opinions and Editorials

Whichever way one looks at it, there is no escaping the fact that President Barack Obama's first Asian tour beginning this week is about coping with the rise of China and its irrevocable impact on the political and economic structures of Asia.

The goods & services tax, due to be implemented by April 1, 2010, will not only be a major accomplishment in rationalising and reforming indirect tax structures, but will also promote the goal of creating a genuine single market in federal India.

At TED India, sleep was a waste of time, and missing a day was criminal: I realised that within minutes of striking a conversation with marine biologist Charles Anderson and neurophysiologist Aditi Shankardass on the bus en-route to a TED party.

There is a touching innocence to the manner in which communications minister A Raja went about tweaking procedures to ensure that companies like Unitech and Swan Telecom got scarce 2G spectrum on a preferential basis, which later attracted foreign investors into these companies at huge valuations.

Over the past few years, businesses have given more and more prominence to intellectual property. Today, valuing the IP of a business is relevant in almost every aspect of corporate activity, be it mergers & acquisitions, assignments and licensing, enforcement and even day-to-day activities of maintaining accounts.

The first discussion paper on GST that was released on Tuesday is the first official communication on dual GST that is intended to be introduced in India in 2010. As its heading suggests, the paper is perhaps the first of such discussion documents.

"I can't believe you're talking about Europe!" My friend's exclamation followed descriptions of my experience this summer in Cubulcut, a small village in northwest Romania, where I had spent half of a six-week stint volunteering as an English teacher.

Writing a few words on a complex subject is a challenge. I prefer a common sense review of the issues as Bhola, a plain Joe, might see things—because climate change threatens communities everywhere and it requires Bholas to adjust and adapt.

Warren Buffett's recent planned $27 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe has been described as an "all-in wager on the economic future of the US".

At the recently concluded TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Mysore, our junior foreign minister, Shashi Tharoor, spoke about how India would dominate through soft power.

Among the changes introduced by the Securities & Exchange Board of India on Monday night, the most significant is the plan to mandate half-yearly disclosure of balance sheets by the Indian corporate sector.

More than 40 years after bank nationalisation and the establishment of regional rural banks in 1975, over 120 million households in the country are outside the purview of the formal financial sector.

Any relationship between neighbouring countries is likely to be thorny in parts—there are usually issues of shared borders, resources, migration and the like.

The IMF semi-annual review is out and Oliver Blanchard, the IMF Chief Economist is quoted saying: "A decrease in China's current account surplus would help increase demand and sustain the US recovery. That would result in more US imports, which would sustain world recovery."

Disinvestment has been a glowing controversy ever since we first spoke about it several years ago. It came in the form of privatisation to begin with, which raised the hackles of the left parties as anything 'private' was looked upon with suspicion. Coincidently, anything 'private' was looked at by the policymakers as being progressive.

Alang is an Indian success story. In 1983, the first vessel was beached here for breaking. In the intervening period, business volumes have not only overtaken the Mumbai and Kolkata ports where shipbuilding used to be concentrated in India, but Alang has actually emerged as a leading shipbreaking yard in the world.

I am often besieged by queries from laymen asking me if a film is a hit or flop. When I utter 'flop' a puzzled look gets thrown back, followed by a remark that goes somewhat like this: "But I heard/read that the film grossed 50 crores worldwide so how are you calling it a flop?"

On Friday, wholesale sugar prices in Kolhapur—one of the biggest trading centres in India—touched Rs 34.43 per kg, a jump of almost 2% in a single day.

Of all the innovations that have shaped our lives in recent years, none has been more influential than the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

It seems the stress of fiscal profligacy has finally pushed the UPA into unveiling an ambitious plan for divesting government stakes in PSUs.