"The Indian stock market today has the potential to lift all boats across the entire social spectrum of the country and this potential needs to be exploited to the fullest if the government wants to realise the dream of reducing the poverty rate to single digit."

This is not from a research paper of an amateur Indian economist. Neither is it Captain Haddock speaking in his usual inebriated stage. Nor is this another typical gaffe of President Bush. In fact, this is the editorial comment - yes editorial - comment in the official journal of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in its December 2007 issue.

If the Satyam-Maytas imbroglio had the entire investor community question the very concept of corporate governance, the latest one involving the Securities and Exchange Board of India has shaken the very confidence of the investor community in the Indian capital markets.

In a bizarre turn of events -- straight from Ripley's Believe It or Not -- that would stun the entire world of finance, Indian market regulator Sebi finds itself in the eye of an unprecedented storm.

What is interesting as well as appalling to note is that the needle of suspicion at this time points out that manipulations seem to have taken place right inside Sebi's office in Mumbai.

Consider the sequence: The chairman and managing director of Pyramid Saimira, P S Saminathan, announces his intention to acquire approximately 25 per cent stake in the company from two other co-promoters. (See: Letter forged, says Sebi)

Copyright, interestingly, is often interpreted as a right to copy by Indians.

Let me elaborate. Most Bollywood movies are in effect Hollywood hits remade, with a mother or sister character added to indigenise the same. Scrape them a little, compare them a bit or even give them a cursory glance, and you would know instantly what I mean.

This is not restricted to the world of cinema. In fact, most of our 'well researched, extensively debated and heavily studied' reports of some of the high-power committees appointed by our government are not original works. Bluntly put, they are adopted, or adapted, from reports on the same subject already published in other countries, mostly Western countries.