How Deng guided India\’s reforms
There is an old saying about inventions, that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your doorstep. A mousetrap is a device to catch mice. And Deng Xiaoping has replaced the Pied Piper of …
The Times of India
Indians now bring dollars back to India
The absence of a crisis is usually a non-event. But I think the absence of a foreign exchange crisis this year (1996-97) is big news. When India went bust in 1991, it borrowed from every possible source-IMF, World Bank, and …
An Indian Singapore In Africa
Last week, Prime Minister Deve Gowda returned from Davos via Mauritius, a bunch of tiny islands off the shore of Africa. A pleasure trip, you might think, to a tourist center run mainly by migrants from India. In fact Mr. …
Multinational oil on troubled Indo-Nepalese waters
North India is reeling under a power shortage. Yet close by is 83,000 MW of hydroelectric potential in Nepal. This is by far Nepal\’s biggest natural resource, which lies unexploited while its people are mired in poverty. It has a …
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Why Shareholder Value Suddenly Matters
Traditionally, the best business policy in India was to manipulate netas, babus and markets. Manipulating netas and babus yielded contracts, clearances, and financing from banks and financial institutions. Manipulating stock markets raised money at fancy premia from unsuspecting investors. Those …
Who’s afraid of WTO
The World Trade Organisation is vital for India and the world, but needs to be restrained form wandering into fields other than trade. This lesson emerges form the ministerial meeting of the WTO in Singapore. In three respects, the WTO …
India needs the WTO
Mention of the World trade Organisation (WTO) bores most people stiff, as I discovered on returning after reporting on the ministerial meeting of WTO at Singapore. It excites only a few politically minded souls, who view WTO as a forum …
Why Corporate Scams are in the News
Some time ago, finance secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia was asked by businessmen to do something quickly to revive sagging stock markets, which have fallen to a three-year low. He replied that whenever he opened the newspapers in the morning, he …
The Limitations of Cheap Rice
Prime Minister Deve Gowda has promised to give 10 kilos of cereals to every poor family at half the market price. This may cost up to Rs 3,500 crore if fully implemented. This big fiscal burden will be mitigated by …
I say, Chaps, I\’m not a Common Crook
When politicians like Mr P Sangma and Mr Vayalar Ravi complained that judicial activism was getting excessive, I shrugged it off as the ploy of vested interests. I had a similar reaction when businessmen began to complain about raids on …
