Opinions and Editorials

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's request for a status report on the railways from Minister Mamata Banerjee — a request more in the nature of a gentle rap — is eerily timely.

It's an irony of sorts. Though bank credit to the corporate sector has declined, companies are tapping other sources of funds with élan. They are tapping equity, corporate debt, qualified institutional placements and the overseas market to fund their working capital and capital expenditure needs. The low-cost advantage offered by commercial paper and bonds, at around 3.

Big banks are a troublesome thing. The world faces some important questions on how to deal with them. There are three incremental paths: (a) better mechanisms for closing down distressed banks, (b) better banking regulation and (c) emphasising a more market-dominated financial system.

It's a classic case of the best-laid plans gone awry. Gujarat CM Narendra Modi's attempts to rescript corporate social responsibility (CSR) in his state by making it mandatory for state-owned public sector units to contribute a portion of their profits to a common kitty specially formed to fund development projects by the state government seem to have come to naught.

We have a deadline of April 2010 for GST (goods & services tax), a deadline first promised in budget for 2007-08. On November 10, Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers released the first discussion paper on GST.  That is a bit late in the day, if the deadline of April 2010 is serious.

After decades of rapid growth and surges in capital inflows, East Asia faced a sudden withdrawal of capital flows and a sharp crisis in 1997-98, which brought the growth in much of that region to a screeching halt.There is a similar debate on capital inflows now after the recent crisis.

While the investment scenario improves and efforts are made to increase the level of infrastructure in India, regulators and intermediaries in the game should be looking at providing reliable data, especially of key market participants like the foreign institutional investor's trades and mutual fund data.

The leading narrative of our time, which places the US and China at the apex of the global power game, demands that special attention be paid to Barack Obama's first visit to China as US President.

How fortunate for us that Manu Sharma cannot stay away from bars. And, bar brawls. Were it not for this inexplicable lure of Delhi's nightlife, this murderer would have probably used his undeserved parole to disappear, with the help of Daddy's money, to some sunny spot for shady people and live happily ever after.

The political buzz in Karnataka is that the temporary patch up between Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and the Bellary brothers was brought about not by the BJP high command in Delhi but thanks to a serpentine intervention.

NO Phyan (in Mumbai), but still so much gyaan, and, guys, guys, give a little dhyaan, no? Mumbai may have been looking at the possibility of a cyclone visit after six decades, but cyclones in November are not exactly an eerie, breaking-news event.

CHARMY HARIKRISHNAN: In your series Continents of Exile, you turned memories—yours and others—into memoirs.

November in London is the month of remembering the millions who died in the two world wars and the many since.

To look alike is a major crisis, especially when people have money. For industry, differentiation in deliverables is essential to increase net worth. The culprit in making all the world's bricks look alike is digital technology. That's when a sense of aesthetics can make a difference.

Democracy lovers, wake up. What you and I value highly is being increasingly devalued. What you and I cherish and pride in is endangered. The danger comes from a familiar foe: corruption.

Forty-five years after Jawaharlal Nehru's death, has history done him justice? Regrettably not. In surveys that rank India's best prime minister, he is placed below his daughter, and on some occasions he figures third. This is preposterous. Only three worthwhile books on him have appeared after his death: Hiren Mukherjee's, The Gentle Colossus, S. Gopal's three-volume biography and M.J.

In 1998 when the issue of including caste in the 2001 census was being debated, I wrote an article, "Can the Caste Census Be Reliable?" in Economic & Political Weekly.

My alma mater of 12 wonderful years in journalism, India Today, just came out with a provocative idea on its cover.

A week might be a long time in politics, but not for a high court chief justice. The new chief justice of the Orissa high court, Bilal Nazki, will in fact serve for even less in this capacity — he will attend court for just three days before retiring. The appointment has surprised even the judge himself, who, reports suggest, was looking forward to an active retirement.

American journalist Seymour Hersh has destroyed his own chances of ever getting a visa to Pakistan. His recent New Yorker article about the US securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has sent Pakistan's journalistic circles into overdrive.