India Inc.s sales figures for the January-March quarter show some slowing of the pace of business growth. The net sales of 1,875 listed companies (excluding banks and financial institutions), as

Continuing good news

Business Standard

Going by newspaper reports of the allotment process for land in Noida, a Delhi suburb that lies in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, it is no surprise that UPs new chief minister should want to take a

Approve, then disapprove

This is not the first time that glossy presentations which promise a power havenwhere deficits give way to surplusesare doing the rounds. At the beginning of the last five-year plan, a similar rosy

Jam tomorrow

The National Development Council (NDC), which met in New Delhi on Tuesday to deliberate on issues facing the farm sector, has broadly endorsed the strategy chiselled out by the Planning Commission. In

A long haul

The Supreme Courts ruling on the government initiative to reserve 27 per cent of the seats in institutions of higher learning for the other backward castes (OBCs) has met with the expected

No room for reason

The majority view (which means not universally held) was that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would step on the brakes once more in its quarterly monetary policy announcement, due at the end of April.

Early to rise

The large corporations who are participants in the wheat trade have been informally requested by the Central government to not buy wheat from Punjab and Haryana. The context is that last year, firms

Seeking a monopsony

Laurence Wilfred (or Laurie) Baker, who died on Sunday a month after turning 90, is commonly hailed as the pioneer of low-cost housing although he should be remembered more holistically as the

A unique architect

A committee report that does not have the chairmans signature is an oddity; it is even stranger that the chairman (Percy Mistry, in this case) should resign at the very end of the committees labours

Sans chairman, still valid

Storm clouds have gathered lately over the Indian information technology sector. The Budget did not help, by bringing software export earnings within the purview of the minimum alternate tax, raising

Software uncertainties

Though packaged as an anti-inflationary measure, the decision to scrap the 16 per cent countervailing duty and 4 per cent special additional duty on the import of cement appears to be an act born of

Favouring importers

The government has moved finally to correct some of the more egregious problems with its hastily announced policy on special economic zones, but not everything that needs to be corrected has been

Untidy patchwork

The 14th Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, to give it its full name) summit has gone off along more or less expected lines. India made some host-like announcements, such as a

Business as usual

The Forbes list of the worlds billionaires, published a few weeks ago, threw up an interesting fact: that the Ambani brothers (Mukesh and Anil) have grown their wealth and improved their rankings

Divide and grow

If you put politicians in charge of something, they will naturally and inevitably try to do things that pander to public opinion. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)why control, pray?is

Reforming in a crisis

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has shown itself up in pretty heinous communal colours by releasing a compact disc full of communal propaganda of the worst kind. It does little credit to either the

Not the solution

This years wheat harvest is likely to yield a bumper crop, following increased acreage, but Indian agriculture remains in crisisfoodgrain production at 208.3 million tonnes in 2005-06 was lower than

Twiddling their thumbs?

Few politicians are inclined to believe economists when they argue the counter-intuitive point that what are seen as pro-consumer policies are in reality anti-consumer since, over the medium-to-long

Pro-consumer indeed

The reported move by the National Bee Board to set up a honeyfed (on the lines of the milkfeds and markfeds) for galvanising the marketing of honey deserves a cautious welcome. While smooth marketing

Lacking buzz

There is an old adage in the world of advertising: if a product is good, it will perform. The digital-technology based iPod has been so good that it has sold a 100 million pieces in about

Ending musical deprivation

Economists, philosophers, political scientists, politicians, retired civil servants and countless others have all along said that developing countries are short of capital, technology, institutions,

Royal statements

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 276 - Editorial Comment