Articles

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 […]

Back in 1981, I remember veteran politician HN Bahuguna distributing handouts giving his reaction to the budget immediately after the budget speech. To the naive, it looked an admirably fast reaction. But I realised that Bahuguna must have drafted his

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

Dear Ashok Singhal, I agree fully with you and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that something must be done about the appalling quality of water in the Ganga. Once regarded as amrit, it is better regarded today as sewage. What I

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

After the Gujarat earthquake, the Prime Minister has ordered a review of the Tehri Dam, which lies in a seismic area and could also suffer a major earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale. I think the review should conclude

It is often said that humans are the biggest threat to the environment. True. But it is also true that the biggest threat to humans is the environment. The Gujarat earthquake has shown, like hurricanes and droughts before it, that

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

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

The US is not on par with banana republics where the winner of a presidential election is known long before election day. But the US Supreme Court has just said in an amazing verdict on the Bush-Gore dispute that Americans