After spending nine years trying to defend an indefensible taxation law, the government has introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha to reduce the chances of retrospective tax demands by the authorities. This is a welcome act and should have been done much earlier, avoiding the humiliations that India has faced in international arbitrations challenging tax demands made under the retrospective clause. The next step, says the top edit, is for the government to be generous in its settlements with the companies that have been affected by an action that it accepts has been counter-productive for India’s development.