According to Business Standard's latest editorial, India needs to be more open to international trade despite some valid criticism from trading partners. The editorial acknowledges that tariffs in India are high with the trade-weighted most favoured nation tariff at 12.6 per cent, significantly higher than trading partners. While India has concluded FTAs with the EU and UK, the country still requires substantial tariff rationalisation to participate effectively in global value chains. The analysis notes that over 50 per cent of global trade occurs in intermediate goods, making high tariffs particularly problematic for India's manufacturing competitiveness.
According to a new IMF report cited in Business Standard, India needs stronger, sustainable and inclusive growth, with regulation identified as a key constraint. The editorial emphasizes that while India has made progress through bankruptcy reform, GST implementation, and improvements in logistics and infrastructure, businesses still face excessive compliance requirements, inspections, filings, permissions and overlapping regulations. These costs particularly impact smaller firms, requiring a shift toward simpler, more predictible and transparent rules that enable firms to invest, grow and create jobs.
As reported by Business Standard, the second editorial examines Delhi's municipal failures following recent building collapse incidents. The analysis reveals that deaths from unsafe structures reflect broader governance issues including unauthorized construction, poor enforcement, corruption, weak accountability and overlapping authority. The editorial argues that Delhi's civic agencies operate primarily in response to disasters rather than proactive prevention, requiring stronger inspection systems, transparent building records, clear responsibility and action against officials who allow violations to continue. Urban rules cannot function effectively as mere paper safeguards while risks accumulate in concrete and steel infrastructure.
According to M S Sahoo and Raghav Pandey's column in Business Standard, personal guarantees in insolvency law face challenges due to enforcement gaps. While personal guarantees are designed to reassure lenders and improve recovery when corporate borrowers fail, their effectiveness depends on timely, predictable and fair enforcement mechanisms. The authors argue that insolvency law must clarify the counterfactual value of guarantees and align recovery processes with commercial reality, preventing situations where guarantors can delay proceedings, avoid liability or exploit gaps between different legal forums.
According to Ishaan Mital's review in Business Standard, the hospitality sector demonstrates the principle that growth and trust emerge from systems that work when tested. The analysis of The Night Manager by Nakul Anand highlights how hospitality experiences appear effortless but depend on discipline behind the scenes including training, staffing, service systems, maintenance, management and attention to detail. This example reinforces the broader theme that effective rules and systems must function reliably in practice rather than simply exist on paper.
