The Times of India

I am a market-friendly liberal. Yet I found somewhat obscene the boom in stock markets after the December 26 tsunami. Anticipating a reconstruction boom, markets drove up the prices of companies engaged in construction, steel and cement. In Indonesia, which […]

As the death toll keeps rising, it seems certain that the tsunami on December 26 killed more than the 140,000 who died at Hiroshima. A search for culprits has begun, but is misdirected. The real culprit is nature. Ecologists have

I used to ardently support rural employment schemes to reduce poverty. I saw their huge value in droughts, injecting purchasing power into areas hit by income loss. But experience then showed me that such schemes have little long-run impact on

The first six months of Manmohan Singh\’s rule have produced no significant improvement in the quality of politics. But have they produced improved economic policy? Not really. Stock market fears that the government would be captured by the Left Front

How do we sum up Manmohan Singh\’s first six months as Prime Minister? Lots of words and little concrete action. His one clear strategy seems to be a single-minded focus on surviving for a full five-year term, and if this

Many critics think that India\’s breakthrough in information technology (IT) is an elite phenomenon benefiting just a few cities. But I see IT becoming an unanticipated solution to a deep problem: growing regional disparities. Traditional remedies — more cash and

A month ago, the US pharma giant Merck withdrew its best-selling drug rofecoxib (sold under the brand name Vioxx) after tests proved that it doubled the chances of heart attacks, and perhaps strokes. Many US buyers of the drug plan

Experts have analysed threadbare the reasons for George Bush\’s victory in the US Presidential election. But let me highlight one overarching reason. USA has for decades been drifting from a Democratic to a Republican mindset, and Bush\’s victory is just

All Indians will feel a surge of pride that, by taking over the International Steel group, Lakshmi Mittal has become the world\’s biggest producer of steel. On the other hand, Indians should be dismayed that Mittal now owns a score

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regards caste-based job reservations in the private sector as an idea whose time has come. He says he will not impose this by law, but seeks a debate on the issue. Dalit leaders like Ram Vilas