View Articles

The Union Government in the Ministry of Law and Justice has taken up a proposal to amend the Court Fees Act to provide for raising the revenue for the services tendered in corporate dispute resolutions in the Supreme Court of India. This follows recommendations of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Law and Justice.

When the likes of business barons such as R V Kanoria, Ranjan Bharti Mittal, Y K Modi, Sidharth Birla, Harshavardhan Neotia, Jyotsna Suri and Puneet Dalmia share their wonderful experience of doing business in West Bengal with fellow members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry at a West Bengal government investment road show in Delhi, those who have been going by the old perception of a political and industrial strife-torn state leading fight of capital are naturally in for a highly pleasant surprise. For a change, it was the business community, mostly from outside the state who ventured big investment in West Bengal, batting for the state before other fence-sitting investors. No state industrial investment road show in the country has witnessed is known to have witnessed such a positive response from entrepreneurs doing business in a state.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”

The certificate given by the RSS to the Narendra Modi government that it is moving in the “right direction” has come in the nick of time for the BJP.

After the ritual row over Lord Jagannath's Nabakalebara including the Brahma Paribartan fiasco and matter relating to the alleged involvement of the ruling party leaders with the fake godman Sarathi Baba, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's sleepless nights are not over. The state is faced with a breakdown in the law and order and security situation.

Why change only the name of Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi? Why not change the name of Tughlaq Road? Mohammed bin Tughaq too was a tyrant like Aurangzeb. Remember how the Tughalqi farmans were feared. Akbar too was a Muslim. Why must a road exist after his name? History cannot be changed by renaming roads after Muslim rulers. The BJP has picked on Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to rewrite New Delhi’s history by renaming a road after him. Newspaper reports revealed that the name of Aurangzeb road has been changed to APJ Abdul Kalam Marg and the signboards too was repainted. The change in name does not mean anything; not it is going to change history. The least that can be said is the move is shortsighted.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A week is a long time in politics. Ask Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) general secretary, Vellappally Natesan. He would nod in vigorous agreement, albeit a bit ruefully.

With West Bengal Assembly polls now only months away, political alignments between the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC) and other parties are shifting fast.

Hindi in Devanagari script is the official language of the Indian Union government and some state governments. Hindi derives its primacy from numbers. According to the 2001 census, 41.03 per cent of the population was Hindi speakers. However, the census definition of Hindi is extremely wide and people are counted as Hindi speakers even if they don’t call their language “Hindi”. Census Hindi includes Western Hindi (but not Urdu), Eastern Hindi, non-Maithili Bihari languages (including Bhojpuri), Pahari languages and Rajasthani languages – even if the speakers did not report their language as “Hindi”. These numbers don’t do justice to the real diversity of the languages that are counted as “Hindi”. I have often experienced this first-hand. Let me recount an example.

Finance Ministers and central bankers from G-20 nations meet in Ankara (Sep.4 & 5) against the background of weakening global growth prospects due to rising volatility in financial markets, as amplified recently when China's stock prices tumbled, followed by currency devaluation. But the question is whether any effective joint actions by advanced and emerging economies would emerge from these deliberations at a critical moment in the post-crisis era.