The Times of India

India is firmly in the grip of vote-bank politics. So, the clamour for job reservations for scheduled castes and tribes in the private sector will grow as we approach the state election in Uttar Pradesh next March. The clamour will […]

The UN Human Development Report 2006 paints a dismal picture of social development in India, which ranks just 126th out of 177 countries. We must be cautious about glowing predictions that India will soon become a global economic superpower. Without

Globalisation has for the first time in history made poverty an advantage. It obliges companies to search the globe for ways to cut costs. The lower the wages in any country, the more competitive production there is, other things equal.

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