A M Naik, chairman of Indias premier engineering firm Larsen &amp; Toubro, has been arguing for some time that salary levels in India have reached the point where it is cheaper to hire a CEO abroad.

Premium for talent

Business Standard

The last week has served to remind investors that there is no one-way bet on the stock market. When the global economy has been cooling down, and the financial sector in particular has been heading

Buying opportunity

Two quarters have gone by since the Indian software leaders first reported the strong impact of rupee appreciation. It is therefore instructive to compare how they have performed, compared to the two

Doing well, thank you

The third and by far the most ominous outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in two years has once again exposed the countrys vulnerability to this menace, as also the lack of preparedness in

Asking for trouble

The stock market carnage has reached proportions that may have no recent precedent  a stock market drop of more than 20 per cent in no more than seven trading days is what might be called a black

A `black swan` event

The unseemly controversy over the merits or otherwise of awarding the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour, to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti

Why have civilian awards?

That climate change is already upon us and is going to adversely impact various walks of life is now well understood and appreciated by most decision-makers. What should cause concern in India is the

Vulnerable agriculture

The findings of the NGO Prathams latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for rural India are along the expected, even if still disturbing, lines. On the face of it, there is a big improvement

Improving, but not by much

The much-awaited Bill to amend the Forward Contracts (Regulation) Act of 1952, and thereby to strengthen the commodity futures regulator, has been pending introduction in Parliament for nearly two

Boost for commodities trade

Thirteen of the 19 districts in West Bengal are now affected by the dreaded H5N1 bird flu virus. Given the rate at which it is spreading, the danger of the virus engulfing the remaining districts and,

A chief minister on trial

As the supra-competitive and high-spending jamboree of the American primaries builds up to Super Tuesday on February 5, when Democrats and Republicans will get a fix on their presidential candidates,

Fortress USA?

Contrary to the expectations of about half of a sample of market participants surveyed yesterday (and to the desires of a large majority of the respondents) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Y V

Overriding inflationary fears

The parallels are too striking to miss. In 2001, when Reliance Infocomm was setting up a full-blown mobile phone network, as opposed to the limited-mobility one it had been allowed under its fixed

Trai should assert itself

The outcome of the racism charge levelled against Harbhajan Singh by the Australian cricket team may have created more problems than it has solved. Singh has got away with being held guilty on a

Some exoneration, this!

Just a month ago, when Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan and cracked down on courts and the media under the pretext of tackling terrorists, very few people were willing to

Back from the brink

There were few surprises in the GDP numbers for the second quarter (July-September), the estimates for which were released last Friday. Aggregate GDP growth slowed somewhat to 8.9 per cent over the

Expected outcome

When the Constitution was drafted, modern public finance was not known  the first value-added tax (VAT) in the world came about in 1955. This pointed to the direction of change in a modern economy.

More needed before GST

<I>Atithi Devo Bhava </I>(which loosely translates into The guest is god) may be an extreme expression of traditional hospitality, but External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjees admonition to

Guest relations

The ministry of health has done a good job by getting the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) in Pune to do a first-of-its-kind standard treatment guide, which specifies the treatment for 35 common

Target hospitals, not patients

Despite having the worlds largest acreage under flower cultivation, India remains a marginal player in the global flower bazaar. In contrast, Holland, a small country with just 5,000 hectares under

Blighted potential

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia was recently heard grumbling that not much progress had been made in public-private partnerships (PPPs). Since the 11th Plan, over which he

Getting stuck on PPPs

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 264 - Editorial Comment