The Indian government has reiterated its refusal to reduce carbon emissions under any new global deal to fight climate change.

The Times of India reported this week that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to accept curbs on India’s rising carbon emissions without insisting they should hinge on new finance and technology from rich nations.

While such a possibility was seen by Western negotiators as potentially helping in getting agreement on a global deal in Copenhagen in December, Ramesh was accused in the Indian media and by opposition political parties of hurting the interests of India.

But Ramesh said on Tuesday India was not going to accept internationally legally binding emission reduction targets, though it was prepared to discuss and make public periodically the status of its domestic climate action.

Should India agree to reduce carbon emissions under a global deal to fight climate change? Or should it ask rich nations to fulfil their commitment to give developing countries finance and technology to fight climate change?

The feud between the billionaire Ambani brothers became public in 2004, and still drags on.

On Sunday, Anil Ambani issued a statement expressing his willingness to end the bitter feud with elder brother Mukesh.

Anil Ambani has taken the support of the media to convey his side of the story.

Through a series of front-page advertisements in major Indian newspapers, Anil recently accused the Petroleum Ministry of taking the side of Reliance Industries.

Earlier in July, he used an annual shareholders’ meeting to lay into his elder brother and the government.

Reliance Industries has welcomed the move by Anil, but said the dispute under litigation was not merely a family matter and hoped “any overtures for rapprochement are in no way related to the ongoing hearing of the case”.

Media reports say Mukesh’s Reliance Industries may not trust Anil’s word after their recent media campaign.

Are you surprised by Anil’s move? Do you think it can help put an end to the Reliance corporate battle?

(UPDATE: Kirsten on Friday denied having any role in  drafting the document and said he was deeply hurt by the quotes being attributed to him)

Coach Gary Kirsten is encouraging the Indian cricket team to have sex to boost their performance in the ongoing Champions Trophy tournament in South Africa, a newspaper reported.

Kirsten put down his thoughts on dietary habits, exercise and the benefits of sex in a document handed over to team members, Hindustan Times said this week.

This is not the first time cricket coaches have resorted to unusual methods to help their teams on the field.

During the 2001 Ashes tour, then Australia coach John Buchanan drew on the teachings of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu — even sliding copies of ‘The Art of War‘ treatise under the doors of cricketers’ hotel rooms.

Former Indian coach Greg Chappell adapted Edward de Bono’s ‘six thinking hats‘ method to prepare his team for important games.

Sexologists approve of Kirsten’s advice, although several athletes and footballers over the years have been asked to abstain from sex before competitive events.

In a country where sex education is still taboo, will Kirsten’s “have sex” document raise moral hackles. More importantly, will it help Team India win matches?

About a year ago, investment banking giant Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy after the U.S. administration refused to support a bailout. The bust triggered a dangerous domino effect which rocked world markets as people’s faith in the financial system plummeted and forced businesses to cut production as recession started taking roots.

The shock waves were felt in India too - the benchmark Sensex fell more than 50 percent in 2008, exports plunged and companies had to resort to ruthless down sizing to weather the crisis.

Reuters India plans a series of stories and analyses on how the world economy has been rebuilding since then. We would like you, our readers, to use the comments section below to share your experiences of the past year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday expelled former finance minister Jaswant Singh from its primary membership for praising Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in a book.

The decision to expel Singh came after the release of his book “Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence” which the BJP said went against the party ideology.

As a visibly upset Singh, a founding member of the party, questioned the decision, the latest controversy to hit the BJP seems to have brought its internal conflicts out in the open.

Many pressing issues haunt the party as it begins its ‘Chintan Baithak’ – an annual brainstorming session.

The BJP was drubbed at the 2009 general election and faced a leadership crisis. Its elderly leaders are perceived as being out of sync with a young vote base and it has had an ideological falling out with its Hindu right-wing parent.

The BJP may need to take a hard look at these issues if it hopes to reinvent itself.

Singh’s book and its fallout have led some liberal thinkers in politics to question the wisdom of meting out punishment to an individual for expressing a personal opinion especially since larger issues like revamping the organizational structure of the party and its revival need to be addressed.

It is ironical that the controversy over Singh’s expulsion happened on the day the BJP top brass met in Shimla to chart out its future course of action after a dismal showing in the general election.

Do you think the expulsion of Singh, a veteran national level leader with a career spanning three decades, is yet another example of the BJP losing the political plot? Will it be able to resurrect itself in time for the next election?

With the number of swine flu fatalities in India touching double figures on Tuesday, panic is slowly setting in.

Schools, malls and cinema halls in Pune are already shut and nearly a thousand people across India have tested positive for the virus.

The H1N1 flu outbreak, declared a pandemic on June 11, has spread around the world since emerging in April and could eventually affect 2 billion people, according to WHO estimates.

But is India ready to tackle the outbreak?

More supplies of flu drug Tamiflu and testing kits are being imported and private hospitals are being asked to help state-run hospitals cope with a surge in people rushing to get tested.

Some also feel that the media hype over swine flu is causing needless fear.

On Tuesday, the Hindustan Times said the common flu could be killing an estimated 572 Indians every day, much more than H1N1 flu — in most cases, infection has been mild and patients have fully recovered.

So is there really cause for panic?

By C. Uday Bhaskar

(C. Uday Bhaskar is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst. The views expressed in the column are his own)

The joint statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt on the sidelines of the NAM Summit has generated considerable comment in both countries and is being interpreted across a wide bandwidth that ranges from outright condemnation to cautious cheer.

India and Pakistan are now back to formal engagement — albeit in a brittle manner with many caveats after the composite dialogue, that goes back to January 2004, had been put on freeze by India after the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 2008.

It is instructive that this modest breakthrough came on the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit, which marks the first high-level political contact between the Obama administration and the UPA government after it was voted back to power.

The operative part of the statement is contained in a mere 18 words that read as: “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.”

Critics in India have flayed Singh for his seeming ‘capitulation’ and invoked the criticism that he is ‘weak’ — a charge leveled against him during the early 2009 campaign phase.

In Pakistan, the joint statement is being perceived as a victory for Islamabad which had long sought this decoupling of action against terrorism (a euphemism for the investigation in the Mumbai attack) and the composite dialogue.

Some sections have compared PM Gilani’s performance to that of an astute captain who has won a crucial cricket match — allusion to Pakistan’s dramatic T20 victory at Lord’s in June.

A more objective assessment of the joint statement would suggest that yes, India was perhaps more conciliatory in what it conceded — but on balance this statement is a tightly drafted diplomatic win-win textual compromise for both leaders in a prickly domestic political environment.

India and Pakistan need to engage at the official level on many issues — none more urgent than terrorism — and the circle has been squared in a reasonably satisfactory manner.

Pakistan’s insistence that Mumbai is linked to the abiding and unresolved issue of Kashmir has been set aside (though India has accepted a neutral reference to Balochistan) and is now committed — once again — to deal effectively with the Mumbai investigations.

Singh made a detailed statement in parliament asserting that Islamabad is expected to deliver on Mumbai first — and that some progress has been made by way of a dossier having been received that admits to the role of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the ‘mastermind’ Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

With this renewed commitment the Zardari-Gilani combine has infused some slender traction into the Mumbai investigations and justified Singh having gone the extra mile.

But will this be sustained? Past history and the unresolved politico-military contradictions within Pakistan do not augur very well. In 1972 when the Shimla pact was signed, PM Indira Gandhi was generous beyond compare with PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and in retrospect, India could be charged with having squandered an emphatic military victory by way of the politico-diplomatic gains that accrued to it.

To that extent PM Singh has also been more conciliatory and accommodating with PM Gilani than what his domestic critics would have grudgingly endorsed. Will the tangled and zero-sum history of Indo-Pak dialogues repeat itself — or will this prudent gamble-cum-investment by Singh pay off?

The answer to this conundrum lies to an extent in the visit of Hillary Clinton and the posture that the Obama administration proposes to adopt vis-à-vis terrorism and Pakistan.

In Delhi’s perception, the anti-India establishment in Pakistan has made a distinction between the good and bad terrorists. The latter include those who target the vital interest of Pakistan. But the former who target India are either tacitly encouraged or allowed to exploit the loopholes in Pakistani law and remain free.

The manner in which the Hafiz Saeed case is being prosecuted is illustrative. It is astonishing that Pakistani law ostensibly does not prohibit linkages with the al-Qaeda and yet the U.S. sees Pakistan as a principal ally in the war on terror.

Like the Pakistani policy, the U.S. is equally culpable of having followed an ambiguous approach towards terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Some transgressions get the Nelson’s eye – whether it is Hafiz Saeed or A.Q. Khan — or the ‘truth’ as revealed by President Zardari about the Pakistan establishment having supported and nurtured terrorism and religious radicalism.

It is time to ‘reset’ many South Asian policy buttons and the Clinton visit is an opportunity to clear the clutter. Distorted narratives about state support to terrorism, religious radicalism and nuclear proliferation must be jettisoned and the moderate civilian constituency in Pakistan enabled.

The Indo-Pak joint statement in Egypt has laid the foundation in a tentative manner and this must be strengthened in the Clinton visit.

Mamata Banerjee’s railway budget for 2009-10 appeals to the common man. She has introduced cheaper tickets for the poor and kept passenger and freight tariffs unchanged, bringing cheer to the millions who use the world’s largest rail network daily.

Banerjee, who took over as the new railway minister, underscores the Congress party-led government’s focus on “inclusive growth” after it was re-elected in May.

In her budget speech on Friday, she said there were plans to introduce 57 new and 12 non-stop trains, upgrade 50 stations to international standards, have air-conditioned double-decker trains, build a 1,000 mw power plant to power electric locomotives, and resume issuance of tax-free IRFC bonds.

The country’s rail network carries more than 18 million passengers and more than 2 million tonnes of freight every day on a backbone of outdated technology. Do you think the railways can execute this daunting task and make train travel in India more comfortable?

By iTrust Financial Advisors (www.iTrust.in)
When it comes to our personal finances, the annual budget is not really worth that much attention. Every year expectations build up that major tectonic shifts will happen that will impact our personal finances.

This year is no different. In fact, the expectations are even higher given the outcome in the general elections. The usual items populate the wish list of changes that are being talked about by pundits.

Here’s a quick compilation of items, by personal finance category, that could have an impact on our personal finances. But do keep in mind that not all of these could happen, or happen in the magnitude that they are expected to.

Stocks and Trading
Phase out of securities transaction tax and commodities transaction tax. The impact of this could be that trading could become marginally cheaper than what it is today.

Mutual Funds
Nothing major expected here. The big change, not a part of the Budget, was SEBI’s new policy on zero entry loads for mutual funds, i.e., no more fees paid out of our money to sellers of mutual funds.

Insurance
The Life Insurance Council of India has asked for a separate limit for deduction under Section 80C for long term instruments like insurance. If this were to happen, the impact of this could be that one will get a higher annual amount for your tax deduction.

There is also talk of limiting the service tax on ULIPs to only the fund management charges. If this goes through, the impact will be to reduce the overall charges levied on one’s ULIP.

Home Loans
The annual limit under Section 24 for tax deduction on interest paid on an outstanding home loan is expected go up fro Rs 1.50 lakhs to Rs 2.50 lakhs. This will result in saving of up to approximately Rs 30,000 depending upon one’s marginal income tax rate.

Additionally, there have been strong demands for the deduction to begin as soon as loan repayment begins. Currently, the tax deduction is possible only when the home has been fully constructed.

Small Savings Schemes
The interest rate regime on schemes such as NSC, KVP etc. is expected to be brought in line with the prevailing market rates of interest. A reduction of 0.50% - 0.75% in the rate of return is expected. The impact of this will be that the returns from these small savings schemes will not be that appealing compared to other fixed return instruments such as debt funds, or even bank accounts.

Household Expenses
Petrol and Diesel prices have already gone up by up to 10% as of the announcement on July 1, so the impact on our transport costs will clearly be felt.

Additionally, if LPG subsidies are also changed, they will likely impact our costs of operating our kitchen.
The Budget is clearly a guessing game for policy watchers, so lets see what happens on July 6 and how many items end up impacting our personal finances in a really meaningful way.

The Delhi High Court’s ruling that homosexual sex among consenting adults is not a crime is expected to boost an increasingly vocal pro-gay lobby in India that says a British-era law banning gay sex is a violation of human rights.

The current law bans “sex against the order of nature”, and is widely interpreted to mean homosexual sex in India.

The High Court ruling applies to all of India, but can be appealed at the Supreme Court.

In a country where gay sex has been a taboo, will the court ruling have any bearing on how conservative Indians view homosexuality?