One day, many thousand years ago, somewhere near what is now the national capital lived a man named Devabrata. When his father, a king named Shantanu (ahem), a man apparently not known for his fidelity, like many kings of that era and later, fell in love with a fisherwoman’s daughter and wanted to marry her, young Devabrata took a vow that wows India till date: never to marry, to look aft
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India on March 4 rejected the German firm Bayer AG`s appeal of a ruling last year that allowed Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to produce a cheaper generic version of Bayer’s kidney and liver cancer drug Nexavar. This would result in a treatment that more people would be able to afford. Our cover story for September 1-15, 2012 issue went behin
Pharmaceutical preparations containing narcotic drugs continue to be diverted from Indian pharma firms and smuggled into South Asian countries and beyond, says the latest report by the UN sponsored International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). "The preparations containing psychotropic substances most commonly diverted from India`s pharmaceutical industry are benzodiazepines and bup
When economic indicators are not very promising, one thing which can bring cheers to everybody’s life is an entrepreneurial activity in social, cultural, educational and technological fields. These mavericks will bring about new hope and generate new space for creativity to manifest, connection to be forged and empathy to pervade across sectors, spaces and social segments. If this
It’s 2014, just after the general elections and the national debate on who will be the PM is heating up. A look at how the main characters are lined up, and how they act, react and enact the PM-in-the-wings role before the curtains go up on the 16th Lok Sabha. Sonia Gandhi: As chairperson of UPA-37 (it came apart and came together 35 times in the last few months),
In 1999, on a monotonous bus journey from Lucknow to Allahabad to unwillingly (and by my own reason also unnecessarily) represent my father at the wedding of a long forgotten and wholly dispensable cousin, I was woken by the sudden jolt caused by the brakes. Tried more by reluctance than tedium, I angrily asked the bus conductor what we were supposed to do at the roadside dhabha near Pratapgarh
Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, it seems, is carrying the stick he ought to have left behind in the police station when he quit as a constable. On Friday, he threatened to use it — metaphorically, of course — on the ministry mandarin/s who messed up the message of his statement on the rape and murder of three minor dalit girls in Bhandara, Maharashtra. While making a state
The aam aadmi has his own views on P Chidambaram’s budget but he leaves you in no doubt about one aspect of it. When you ask him about the surcharge on the income tax on the super-rich, he grins and there are others as well who join him on this, all grinning and nodding in agreement. There is an added incentive too – the increase in duties on the vehicles that the rich prefer to dri
Finance minister P Chidambaram may have built a Robin Hood-like image for himself by imposing a ‘super rich’ tax on HNIs and corporate bodies while dramatically increasing funds for social sector welfare schemes, he continues to write off huge amounts of tax liabilities of these very super rich too. The statement of revenue foregone, released with the other budget documents,
Finance minister P Chidambaram may have built a Robin Hood-like image for himself by imposing a ‘super-rich’ tax on high net worth individuals (HNIs) and corporate bodies while dramatically increasing funds for social sector welfare schemes, he continues to write off huge amounts of tax liabilities of these very super-rich too. The statement of revenue foregone, relea
1. Tax surcharge on the super rich is a bad idea. That’s because translated on terra firma, the taxman wants us to believe we have less than 45,000 crorepatis. Complete nonsense! The surcharge is a penalty on those who are foolish enough to declare such income. They’ll pay a 10 percent surcharge for their stupidity. That’s nearly 45 percent in di
The recent developments in the ongoing trial of the accused in the infamous Nirbhaya rape and murder case have thrown up new challenges on the possible misuse of the juvinile justice law. The contradictions and subjectivity of the government authorities has added to this possible misuse of the legal provisions relating to determination of age of persons accused in a crime. Amid t
The economic survey, presented in parliament on Wednesday, has a curious new feature: a full chapter on ‘Seizing the demographic dividend’, on how the youth are going to dominate the next decade or so, and what it means for the future of job creation in India. Of course, ‘demographic dividend’ is not a new phenomenon for economists. It has also attracted
On Tuesday, as he started with a flourish, quoting couplets, hemmed and hawed midway through his rail budget speech as the din rose in the opposition benches and wound up with a whimper, almost sheepishly, as fellow cabinet colleague Kamal Nath advised him to wrap up, railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal looked a bit like one those Indian Railway trains. You just cannot set predict them.
Last year, when Dinesh Trivedi as railway minister tried to take some pragmatic steps, his party boss Mamata Banerjee wanted him out, and the PM obliged her. As his successor presented an election-oriented budget today, here we revisit our interview with Trivedi last year. That summer of 1969 was memorable for Dinesh Trivedi, the former railway minister and member of pa
The Hyderabad blasts have revived the debate over national counter terrorism centre (NCTC), former union home minister P Chidambaram’s pet project to create an overarching organization to fight terrorism in the country, which was put on hold last year following widespread protests from the state governments. Chidambaram’s successor Sushil Kumar Shinde urged the state governments the
The trouble with Indian military shopping deals is that when things go wrong they throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cancelling the deal for the $750 million order for a dozen helicopters from Italian defence group Finmeccanica, because of kickbacks is not the answer. Catch the culprits, keep the choppers. Why make the equipment guilty? They did exactly the same thing with the Bofor
It’s still firmly in the realm of conspiracy theories. But some believe the US and Israel formally attacked Iran sometime in the month of June 2010, and both are now at war. There is some uncomfortable evidence to support these conspiracy theorists, and more keeps tumbling out. But it’s still circumstantial at best. In June of that year cyber-security experts discovered an ext
British prime minister David Cameron’s semi-apology during his visit to Jallianwala Bagh massacre memorial on Wednesday has been criticised by newspapers today. They, as well as the news channels, wanted nothing less than a full and formal one. Fine. But why not a few apologies preceding Jallianwala? On March 22, 1739, Nadir Shah, the Shah of Iran (1736–47) a
Amid this ongoing national debate about Narendra Modi being a probable prime minister candidate for India, British PM David Cameron offered some lessons for Mr Modi when he regretted the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (though falling short of an apology). Does it mean that Cameron is personally guilty of what had happened in 1919? Does it lower his moral guard? I think not. Without commenti
