Articles

Death Of The Blue Chip

Chairman Mao once claimed to represent permanent revolution. In fact, permanent revolution is represented best by capitalism, the most iconoclastic form of economic organisation ever invented. Other systems ranging from feudalism to communism protect a decreed system, and regard attempts …

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Realistic Power Reforms?

THE HIGHLIGHT of Yashwant Sinha’s budget was not his tax changes but his promise of second-generation reforms. But implementation lies in the hands of not the finance minister but other ministers and state governments, many of whom pay only lip-service …

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Why This Secrecy?

Of India\’s many colonial legacies, the fetish about budget secrecy is one of the most absurd and anachronistic. A British Chancellor of the Exchequer once had to resign after dropping a hint that the tax on cigarettes might go up …

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The Stock Options Mirage

WE all agree today that preferential allotments of shares to promoters area form of highway robbery that benefits promoters at the expense of small shareholders. But are stock options all that different? They too are preferential allotments, not to promoters …

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The Solution to Dabhol

I am extremely glad that such a row has been kicked up about the power tariff of the Dabhol Power Company, in which Enron has a 50 per cent stake. Not because the company is making extortionate profits: that is …

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IMD Suddenly Looks Wise

The India Millennium Deposit (IMD) scheme, which collected $ 5.2 billion from non-resident Indians in October, was widely castigated as expensive and unwarranted foreign borrowing. But today fears of a global recession are spreading fast. That makes IMD look like …

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