The Times of India

I am delighted that the pioneer of microfinance, Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank, has won the Nobel Prize. Disclosure norms oblige me to report that I have co-promoted two microfinance institutions, Arohan in Calcutta and Sonata in Allahabad. So I […]

Three years ago, I thought Indian economy was trapped in a neo-Hindu growth rate of around 6 % per year. I was wrong. Growth has averaged 8% in the last three years, and looks set to hit that level again

Critics of globalisation have long claimed that the West controls the world financial system and uses this to help Western multinationals to dominate the world. Think again. In the first nine months of 2006, Indian companies have made foreign acquisitions

Some conspiracy theorists will have you believe that everything in the Middle East is about oil, including the US invasion of Iraq. But the fact is that, three years after the invasion, the Americans have not acquired any Iraqi oilfield.

Laloo Yadav, who as Chief Minister presided over 15 years of economic and social stagnation in Bihar, is suddenly being lionised as a management guru. As Railway Minister, has transformed Railway finances and performance. The middle class remains shocked that

Industrialisation has displaced millions of people and spawned terrible rehabilitation failures. Fresh in public memory is the death of 13 tribals at Kalinganagar, Orissa, resisting displacement by Tata Steel. The problem will worsen as industrialisation deepens. Recently 150 Special Economic

The pesticides-in-cola saga continues. The Health Ministry\’s expert committee says Coke and Pepsi are safe, and has trashed the testing methodology of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the NGO that claimed to have found pesticide in colas up to

When economic reforms began 15 years ago, I expected a new division of labour, with the public sector and private sector each focusing on what it did best. The government, I believed, would focus on law and justice, a second

The Reserve Bank of India is worried about a bubble in real estate that may burst. Property prices have doubled or tripled in the last two years, although rents have risen only slowly. The slow rise of rents suggests that

For years I have argued that India needs police-judicial reform more urgently than further economic reform. Virtually nobody with resources is convicted beyond all appeals. When wrongs are not redressed and the guilty not penalised, basic human rights are violated.Adverse