The year ahead is expected to be very critical for markets and would have a lot at stake. Domestic investors will track the US fiscal cliff dialogue hoping that American lawmakers find a solution to prevent $600 billionplus in tax hikes and spending cuts in January.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma is now spoken of as a strong contender for the job of India's finance minister if Pranab Mukherjee goes up Raisina Hill to Rashtrapati Bhavan. He met Business Today the day before a trip to Brazil. Excerpts from the interview:

The US pitches for India opening up its lucrative multi-brand retail for foreign investors, an issue the UPA government had deferred for lack of consensus among its coalition partners.

Britain's chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne took up the Vodafone issue with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday but it turned out that the UK had done exactly the same thing to bring entities based in tax havens under the tax net.

In an interview with Josey Puliyenthuruthel and Goutam Das in his wood-and-glass office at the Wipro headquarters in Bangalore, Premji talks about the fightback, how his company needs to make incremental changes next, how he sees Wipro in the future, and the role of his son Rishad.

With the three-day Indian Economic Summit beginning Sunday, Suman Layak writes how corruption keeps pace with a booming economy. The bad news, he says, is there are few signs of it being reined in.  Live stream

History has an eerie way of repeating itself and memory of the pain of busts, according to economist John Kenneth Galbraith, is perhaps the best regulator.

He's the man the ad world loves to hate but Sandeep Goyal knows how to grab attention.