Among all the indices that point to the overall economic tempo, the index of industrial production is the most important, for several reasons. The service sector is more than twice as large as

Up again

Business Standard

The spin in the capital on the governments humiliating about-turn on the Indo-US nuclear deal is that this is only a tactical withdrawal before a fresh attempt is made to get the deal through.

The next 18 months

For all its vaunted technical prowess in areas like computer software and pharmaceuticals, Indias research and development (R&amp;D) work has seldom placed it among the worlds fore-runners. This has

Patenting research

Imagine that Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi were students of game theory. Would that have enabled them to avoid the dreadful splattering of eggs on their faces? Perhaps not, because a knowledge of

For want of a theory

After a rambunctious day on the stock market, it is not clear how much of their objective the government and the market regulator have achieved with their late evening announcement of Tuesday. A de

Much ado about little?

Global oil prices are nearly $90 per barrel; the Indian crude basket is more than $80/barrel. The Indian consumer scarcely knows this, though, since domestic oil product prices remain firmly fixed,

Slipping on oil

Asset price bubbles should become the object of monetary policy only when they distort borrowing, lending and spending decisions.


Nitin Desai: The real economy is the issue

The contrast could not be starker. When Nawaz Sharif returned home, there was no one but the police to receive him at the airport. When his rival Benazir Bhutto returned home, there was a massive

A dangerous place

Even by the somewhat relaxed standards of propriety used to allow Reliance Infocomm (as it was then called) to convert its fixed landline licence into a CDMA-mobile one in 2001 (using a series of

Telecom travesty

Recent reports say that Maruti Suzuki India overtook its Japanese parent (Suzuki Motor Corp) in over-all unit sales during the April-September 2007 period. The event is significant because it points

What should scale mean?

It seems quite likely that the contract between Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) and the ministry of civil aviation will end up in the courts, now that both parties have sought legal opinion on

Dial a scandal

Difficult as it may be to believe, India could soon move from the status of a gas-deficit country  even though gas accounts for only 8 per cent of the country's primary energy consumption, against 24

No room for complacency

The International Monetary Fund has ended its annual meetings without doing anything to enhance its credibility and effectiveness. In the process, as Finance Minister P Chidambaram warned in

Who`s afraid of the IMF?

The Internet continues to pose a challenge to Internet service providers (ISPs) and policy regulators. For the last seven years, Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000, stipulated that ISPs will be liable for

Being Net-savvy

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has done well to call a halt to the rapidly expanding role of participatory notes in overseas portfolio investment into India, along the lines

Open it up further

In most cases where allegations of corruption or impropriety are made, and they are made often enough against those in positions of power, from the lowly policeman to a prime minister, the ways of

Like Caeser`s wife

The more you think of India today, the more it brings to mind the opening sentences of Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. At one level, it is hard to be anything but optimistic about India as its economy

Yin and yang

The real strength of the Indian securities market lies in the quality of regulation. In the course of the last 15 years, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has acquired an enviable

Indian securities market among the best regulated

The government and the stock market regulator have sorted out, at least for the time being, the kind of portfolio capital inflows that they want, and made clear what is not desirable. However, if this

Dealing with stagnant exports

The Sensex touched yet another milestone on Monday when it scaled the 20,000-point peak in intra-day trades  a doubling of the level that prevailed 21 months ago. All the people who have been

Makings of a bubble

Most people would agree that the Bahujan Samaj Party chief, Ms Mayawati, will play a crucial role in the next general elections, but the attempt to woo her by clearing her governments proposal to

Don`t Dial just yet

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

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