Articles

A month ago, I was asked what I thought of Arundhati Roy and others demonstrating against American bombing of Afghanistan. I replied, “How very American of her”. This might sound paradoxical. After all, the demonstrations were aimed against the US. […]

AGRICULTURE and industry are growing only slowly, but services are growing rapidly. That has been the secret of India’s success in the last decade. But is this sustainable? Many Indian economists think not. Shashank Bhide of the NCAER told this

Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran failed in his bid to prevent a new round of trade negotiations at the November meeting of the World Trade Organisation. A new round was launched at Doha. Yet Maran may have the last laugh, since

Enron, corporate superstar of the US, has gone from dizzy heights to bankruptcy within a year. Starting as a humble gas pipeline operator, it diversified into power plants and water supply globally, then pioneered trading in electricity and gas when

DOES size matter? This is an age-old question, for countries no less than companies. I remember the United Nations used to pass resolutions urging special concessions for small, island and land-locked countries in the 1970s and 1980, to help out

Pundits have been wringing their hands for years about the stagnation of jobs in the organised sector, about the growing casualisation of labour. I think this is an elitist, ill-informed view of employment. It is based on an obsolete 19th

THE BIGGEST potential gain to India from the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation is something India actually opposed – bringing competition policy into the new agenda. This gives India an opening to try and dismantle the cartel that

India Inc looks right now like the Taliban — demoralised, in retreat, and thoroughly uncertain of its future. The NCAER index of business confidence is at a two-year low, having slumped from 107.4 in January 2000 to 82.8 last month.

As Yogi Berra would have put it, it’s deja vu all over again. Eleven years ago, when George Bush Sr launched the Gulf War against Iraq, Indian intellectuals let loose a cannonade of articles on how stupid and dumb Bush

SEVERAL blue chips are in danger of disappearing from our stock markets. Several foreign companies want to buy back all outstanding shares and delist themselves. These include Cadbury, Carrier, Wartsila, Hoganas, Cabot India, and ITW Signode. The government needs to