Accountancy
It does pay to comply
THE Pensions & Investment Research Consultants (PIRC) survey, Environmental Reporting 2000, shows the disparity between the reporting standards of the 674 All-Share Index companies reviewed. While half of FTSE-100 companies report on environmental improv
ements and target setting, less than 10 per cent of small-cap companies do so, despite governmental exhortations.
Colour scheming
IT WAS a dull afternoon when, as the chairman of the painting committee of the ICAI, I was presiding over one of its meetings. But half the members were dozing in their chairs with the colour charts in front of them. I did not know whether to blame it on
the refreshment or the ubiquitous grey in the Institute premises.
Easy route to acquisition
FEMA, by giving a branch of a foreign company the status of an Indian resident, makes the acquisition of immovable property by the foreign company less troublesome.
Editorial
Plans in disarray
THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S abrupt decision to suspend finalisation of States' Annual Plans for 2000-01 after holding discussions with a few State Governments, including Punjab, Maharashtra and Kerala, has put the entire planning process in disarray. Incid
entally, this development coincided with the fears expressed by the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr. K. C. Pant, that there could be a shortfall of more than 10 per cent in the gross budgetary support of Rs. 3,74,000 crores envisaged for the Nint
h Plan, and that the annual growth target of 6.5 per cent fixed for the Plan period may have to be lowered.
Miscellaneous
Nobody's people
EUROPEAN COLONISERS, for several centuries, traded in slavery. When liberated, the slaves preferred to be in their own land. The cheap substitutes for slaves were shiploads of ``indentured'' (bonded and policed but with a small wage) labourers from Asia,
where wage work was a custom.
Social Summit at Geneva -- Will it take the Copenhagen initiative forward?
FIVE years ago, thousands of development professionals left Copenhagen with the belief that the Social Summit had been different. That this time, action would follow words. Five years later, some of those professionals are gathered in Geneva, to
assess the progress, and the optimism has given way to cynicism.
Reforms revisited
FOR MOST people in the country, there are generally speaking two economic models to choose from. The first is perhaps best represented by the ravaged
Politics
Congress (I): Fall of an empire
THERE IS something vitally wrong with the Congress(I). Either, the present leadership must work a miracle, or the AICC (All-India Congress(I) Committee) must assert itself and present an alternative leadership. Real and meaningful debates have virtually
been shut for long years, and, consequently, the crucial issues stripped of life. It is not possible for the Working Committee to give a lead, as the men who matter are much too enamoured of their loyalty to the leader and skirt the real issues. And tho
se who dare to go public are treated as renegades, and marginalised.
More pits and falls ahead for the NDA
No doubt, the Vajpayee Government inherited grave social and economic problems, which are not easy to solve, even over the medium term. But its bravado and inchoate policies do not lend credibility to its pursuit of socioeconomic goals. There have been h
ardly any new initiatives in employment generation or poverty reduction programmes, says S. Sethuraman.
