The Times of India

It looks as though the Enron drama is going to have a happy ending. Many details of the re-, negotiation are secret, but certainly the total project cost has been stashed, its size has been expanded, and the levelised power tariff may plummet to just Rs 1.89 per unit, against the earlier Rs 2.62 per […]

A part from the government and business, non-government organisation (NGOs) are rising as a third major force in the socio-economic scene. We have 20,000 to 30,000 NGOs handling around Rs 3,000 crores per year, two-thirds from foreign donors and most of the balance from the central and state governments. The staff strength of NGOs runs

Most people are worried, even alarmed by the sudden drop in the value of the rupee en late October. Panicky {businessmen are predicting a forty-rupee dollar by the end of the year (which is pure rubbish). But I welcome the rupee crisis. In India, governments go into torpor when there things are going smoothly, and

THE latest gyrations on the swadeshi issue are bizarre. Sundry groups, some of whom are Hindu nationalist, are attacking Kentucky Fried Chicken as junk food. Shiv Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray has declared he will not allow such food to be served in Maharashtra. Hindu nationalists remain silent on one basic issue—that the very concept of

Another Gandhi, Jayanti has arrived. The great man’s ideals have largely been forgotten. The one saying of his that has suddenly become fashionable, and is repeated endlessly by the greens, is that nature has enough for everybody\’s need but not enough for everybody\’s greed. Charles Darwin, author of Origin of the Species, would have told

Much of the economic reforms so far have been half-baked, but in one area our economic structure has truly been transformed. Exports, which used to be only 5 per cent of gross national product (GNP) in the 1980s, have now risen to 10 percent of GNP.That is a major achievement. In the absence of any

For decades, we have regarded large power stations as essential and small generating sets as expensive stand-bys, to be used only when grid power fails. This is why we have been so keen on setting up new megaplants, of which some (like Enron\’s) are mired in controversy. Yet the power cost, project cost and construction

Dear Mr Gopinath Munde, As head of the committee that suggested scrapping the Dabhol project of Enron, you must be a happy man today. We all agree with you on the need for transparency. But surely transparency demands that your Munde Committee report should be made public for scrutiny. Luckily, I have been able to

It\’s official, straight from the horse\’s mouth. At a training camp for Congress Party workers, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao bemoaned the fact that his partymen had become slaves to power and alienated from the people. Voters have known this for ages, but apparently the message has finally trickled up to the top. Well, Mr Rao,

Forbes, the US magazine, has just produced its annual list of the wealthiest people in the world, and the top position goes to Mr Bill Gates. This whizz-kid\’s computer software company, Microsoft, started as a subcontractor to IBM and soon afterwards thrashed IBM and every other rival. The most remarkable thing about Mr Gates is