Two weeks ago, the Delhi High Court held four journalists working for the publication Mid-Day guilty of being in contempt of the court. The provocation was that they had written articles suggesting

Go easy on contempt

Business Standard

The Reserve Bank deputy governor, Rakesh Mohan, is credited with coining the phrase lazy banking to describe the behaviour of banks which, in the past, preferred to invest their money in government

Who does the lending?

India may be a young country, with half the population under the age of 25, but it also has an ageing population, with about 75 million elderly persons, a large proportion of them poor and many of

Legislating family obligations

In an extraordinary measure, the British government last week guaranteed all the deposits of banks in the UK, a step prompted by the fear that the run on Northern Rock, a mortgage lender with a

Practice vs precept

For those looking for confirmation that the Congress is inclined towards dissolution of the Lok Sabha before its terms ends in 2009, a very heavy straw in the wind floated in through the window on

Election season

That means the winner is always right. Indias win over Pakistan on Monday, in the first twenty-over (T20) World Cup cricket tournament, has thrown up several winners. The first winner is the idea

Jo jita woh Sikandar

The first projections of the likely crop output in the current kharif season, put out by the agriculture ministry, should be understood in their proper context. On the face of it, the numbers point to

Bleak crop outlook

What should have been a serious bid to enter Indias booming mobile telephony market, with the biggest and the best in the world participating, has been reduced to a garage sale where all that matters

Grand sale - four days left!

You, quite simply, [are] ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. ... I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer [our] questions ... I do expect you

As welcome speeches go...

Rupert Murdochs acquisition of Dow Jones, which (among other things) publishes The Wall Street Journal, the worlds largest financial newspaper, is primarily a consequence of the companys

Murdoch`s crown jewel

There was little doubt that the rupee appreciation of the last four months would have a significant impact on both exports (slowing) and imports (accelerating). The trade figures for June, released by

Beginning to hurt

The Indian judicial tradition is that comment on the quality and nature of a judgment is freely permitted, provided motives are not attributed to the judge in question. Even allowing for that leeway,

Speaking out of turn

Indias engagement with (and now to?) the United States, solemnised through the so-called 123 agreement, has underlined the countrys increasing manifestation of what in international relations is

Where is our soft power?

If you build a bunch of nuclear power plants, using materials and technology taken from someone else, and if all that can be recalled if you indulge in any of several actions including nuclear testing

A deal worth pursuing

The proposals in the discussion paper on the National Security Exception Bill cannot be faulted. India, like several other countries, has multiple security threats and it is well within its rights to

Why not ban FDI instead?

A few months ago, the long-standing problems of global imbalances appeared to be abating, with a soft landing involving a dropping dollar and slow US GDP growth. Now, fears about global

Volatility dangers

On Tuesday, the government announced a cap on the amount of money that Indian companies can borrow abroad. This channel of capital inflowsexternal commercial borrowings, or ECBshad contributed

Sensible but stop-gap

The All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to approach state governments and ask them to close roughly 150 unapproved institutions. Some of these institutions are undoubtedly

A new role for Arjun Singh

The Asian Development Bank report on inequality in Asia argues that inequality is increasing across the continent and leading to a lower rate of poverty reduction while also hindering growth. It is

Wrong end of the stick

The cyclical ups and downs in sugarcane and sugar production have now caused a major problem for the sugar industry, and will inevitably cause one for millions of sugarcane growersespecially in Uttar

Crisis coming up

Kishore Biyani, managing director of Pantaloon Retail and chief executive officer of the Future Group, says he will set up 1,500 fair price shops (or FPS) all over India in the next two years. The

Private FPS chain

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 269 - Editorial Comment