Accountancy
Half-baked
MR ARUN Jaitley has been making all sorts of noises, be it about the transfer of IPS officers or the removal of the Governor. And the reasons are not far to seek: He had dropped out of the CA course.
Seeds of chaos
THE new Section 86 inserted in the Companies Act, 1956 permits a company to issue either or both of the following two types of equity shares: ``a) with voting rights; or b) with differential rights as to dividend, voting or otherwise in accordance with s
uch rules and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed.'' The use of the word `or' gives the impression that these two are mutually exclusive.
Countdown to the convergence
THE integration of global capital markets and the inevitable consequent need for the harmonisation of accounting standards to facilitate cross-country listings as also the meaningful transmission of information to investors/other third party users of fin
ancial statements have combined to lend a fillip to the reconciliation of various International Accounting Standards/US Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (IAS/US GAAP) issues.
Banking and Finance
Risk management by commercial banks -- Time to hammer out the chinks
ONE of the important decisions taken recently by the RBI panel on banking supervision, under the chairmanship of its deputy governor, Mr Y. V. Reddy, was on the risk management strategies of commercial banks. The group took a hard look at the present pra
ctices and concluded that the situation called for a greater understanding by bank managements and boards of the risks involved in their operations.
Economy
Eleventh Finance Commission -- North-Eastern States' weightage still low
FINANCE Commissions are appointed not only to work out a framework to allocate tax and duty collections among the States but also to help them cover their non-Plan revenue deficit by devolution of grant-in-aid. Recently, the revenue deficits of States ha
ve grown alarmingly, financing more than 21 per cent of the States' revenue expenditure. The ratio was just 8 per cent in 1990-91. The combined revenue deficits contributed more than 60 per cent to their gross fiscal deficit in 1999-2000, compared to abo
ut 30 per cent in 1990-91.
Editorial
Cell sweepstakes
THE VACATION OF the stay by the Madras High Court sets the stage for the finalisation of the third and final round in the bidding process and grant of licences for the fourth cellular operator across the country. The immediate fallout of the completion o
f the final round of bidding is that the prospect of the Government moving towards a `single converged licence' for all services -- basic, cellular and Internet -- has receded to the background. This round held the key to the `consolidation game' which h
as been taking place in the cellular arena.
Health
Why cadaver transplants are still few
DESPITE the cadaver transplant legislation being passed by the Central Government in 1994, ``a pathetic number of heart transplants -- less than 20 -- have been done in the country,'' says Dr K. M. Cherian, Director of the Institute of Cardio-Vascular Di
seases run by the Madras Medical Mission in Chennai. ``Of these, nine have been done by our hospital and the rest by all the other cardiac centres in the country put together''.
Miscellaneous
In good humour
WHILE none can dispute the significant strides made by English humour writers over the years, greater heights could have been scaled if Britain's social climate had been free of taboos and constraints.
MTV: Twenty and thriving
THE airwaves were full of the UTI scandal and the Prime Minister's threat to resign this week. ``They are not interested in the welfare of the people,'' declared Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, on CNBC, while referring to his opponents. ``They are o
nly interested in politicising the issue''. He had a point. In this country, everything is up for grabs when it comes to gaining political mileage -- even Phoolan Devi's murder. If you were watching STAR News just a few hours after her death, you would h
ave heard the presenter telling Samajwadi leader, Mr Amar Singh, that they simply could not allow him to politicise her death so soon after it had happened. Good for them!
Politics
Clearing the clouds, PM style
THE gloom that descended on gripping the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), triggered by the reported offer of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to quit the high office seems to have lifted with the reassuring remarks Mr Vajpayee himself made
in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
