LIC identifies the problems well, but what the markets will watch is how nimble it is with the solutions.

Since arraignment under money laundering is a tougher offence, the CBDT hopes it will also overcome its dismal score sheet to prove satisfactorily to the courts that these cases were genuine ones of tax evasion.

There is money to buy the central public sector enterprises, but buyers will need a firm assurance that the disvestment programme will keep environment issues front and centre of their corporate plans.

This month, advertisements for managing directors and the senior management team for the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development or NaBFID, should be out, signalling the start of a financial institution (FI) like no other the country has ever had. For this and other reasons government managers associated with the NaBFID project are convinced it should remain a 100 per cent government-owned entity. This is somewhat different from what former economic affairs secretary Tarun Bajaj said when the NaBFID Bill was being tabled in Parliament earlier this year: "To begin with, it will be 100 per cent government owned.

In stock market parlance, "meme stock" was certainly the word of the year. Coined to mean those stocks that gain sudden popularity on the internet with resultant high prices, it was used to derisively describe the behaviour of retail traders globally who entered the market in huge numbers in the two Covid-19 years. A recent study, "Market Concentration and Retail Participation in India", by the National Stock Exchange economics team led by their chief economist Tirthankar Patnaik shows unlike these impressions, the retail investors, at least in India, have not performed inconsistently.

The Economic Survey released before next year's Budget could become a single volume, reverting to the practice followed till FY14. "There is so much to write about the Indian economy's performance in the past year. "Most of the exciting themes will be covered in what used to be considered Part II," said a senior government official who is part of the preparations for the Survey.

The improved outlook on the Government of India announced by rating agency Moody's might need to be viewed with some scepticism. There is no doubt the performance of the Indian economy has sharply improved from the deep trough it hit last year. But the ability of the second largest global ratings agency to assess an upside and downside before events make everyone wise about India has been dismal for a long time, as the chart shows.

Unlike the race to buy airwaves by telecom companies, airports by infrastructure companies and city gas networks by energy companies, the race to develop super apps by consumer-facing companies in India has not brushed up against any regulatory issues. Officials at the ministry of electronics and information technology and at other regulators are happy they do not have to meddle in who among the Tata group, Reliance Industries Ltd, Flipkart or Paytm will manage to build an app that sweeps in customers. Unlike separate apps a customer uses on her mobile to order groceries, buy food or airline tickets or just make payments, a super app can perform all these functions.

Former CAG Rajiv Mehrishi says Centre has held back a report he submitted to the President, to end what he called "a nightmare of accounts that militates against good governance".

The government wants to complete the operations rapidly, including the actual counting of people, by February next year, reports Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.

Valuers have found almost no assets to pay for their claims against the Videocon group that entered the insolvency process in 2018. But the dissenters suggest that the money is elsewhere, possibly in the group's oil and gas assets, which are not part of the group's bankruptcy case.

It is rare for Cabinet ministers to tick off state-owned companies publicly, yet that was what then petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan did for ONGC. Speaking at an event on June 29, Pradhan said he has asked India's premier exploration company to find fresh oil acreages fast. "Do it yourself through some joint venture (or) through a new business model. But the government cannot permit you to hold resources for an indefinite time." The reason for this stricture is India's rising dependence on imported oil and gas. Or, to put it another way, falling domestic production (see chart: "Crude truth"), especially from ONGC, which faces a simple problem.

From trusted bureaucrat, to Wharton, MNC executive to businessman, and now politician, the man in charge of two weighty ministries is a unique all-rounder with specialist knowledge.

Among all the geographies where Amazon is fighting regulators, India is the only place where its lines are also tangled in a major corporate battle, this one with India's largest company by market capitalisation over the acquisition of Mumbai-based Future Group's retail chain, the country's second largest. No other corporate entity in any country offers a challenge to Amazon's hegemony in a way Reliance Industries does - and the final hearing of an arbitration case filed at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre between the two may decide at least some of these issues. This legal battle between one of the world's most powerful corporations and one of India's most powerful conglomerates could be complicated by a host of other developments.

IT, FMCG and manufacturing sectors are less attractive to foreign portfolio investors

North Block is concerned that when India is trying to attract more investment, putting up restrictions on audit firms could create an avoidable bad advertisement.

People working at the Nigambodh Ghat -- perhaps the busiest cremation site in the national capital in the wake of outbreak of the pandemic -- go about their job with resilience, helping in whatever way possible.

Though COVID-19 will wreak more damage to the finances of the Indian population, the insurance sector is unlikely to get hurt.

While players in the financial ecosystem are opening up to the idea of receivables funding for the sector, this market needs a regulator, which a Parliament panel feels only RBI can provide.

There was the mistaken belief that there was no risk of a second wave anytime soon.