You would think that once a broad policy approach is arrived at, after full debate, it would be applied across the relevant sectors. Yet, this is not happening in the media. For years, television news

Free the airwaves

Business Standard

West Bengal has been at the centre of a persistent storm over the acquisition of land for supposedly reasonable developmental objectives. The confrontation between the police and residents of

Omens from Nandigram

On paper, the Indian cricket team is the second-strongest in the World Cuponly India and Australia have four batsmen each with international one-day batting averages in the 40s. The Indian team is

Many lessons

This year's estimated 9.2 per cent growth is particularly impressive as this is despite agricultural growth decelerating from 6 per cent to 2.7 per cent, and this has been more than made up by

Raghav Gaiha & Vani S Kulkarni: Growth, volatility and euphoria

Those impressed with the doubling of Indias engineering graduates over the last four to five years would do well to cast an eye on what is happening in neighbouring China. While the growth is similar

Shanghaied

When Shinzo Abe became prime minister of Japan two months ago, it was widely expected that he would stiffen his countrys nationalist backbone. Many thought such a move was overdue, not least the

Assertive Japan

The latest poverty data released by the Planning Commission, showing faster reduction in poverty in rural areas than in urban concentrations over 11 years to 2004-05, are hard to digest. That the

A prosperous countryside!

India's bank unions have developed an effective force multiplier. They threaten to go on strike just before a string of public holidays. By doing so, they not only get themselves long holidays but

...and eating it too

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which created what is now called the European Union (EU). As the EUs 27 member-countries celebrate the historic event in Berlin, this is a good

Worth emulating

The Sebi board has made progress on capital market regulation by permitting institutional investors to engage in short selling. The fundamental principle of financial markets is that diverse

One step up, one step back

More people are now saying what no one dared to say before, that the emperor has no clothes. The emperor in question is the organisation (or organisations, since there is more than one of them) that

Challenging the numbers

Ever since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the US in July 2005 and he and President George W Bush sprang the surprise of the Indo-US nuclear agreement (the famous July 18 statement), relations

A deal too far?

With Bangladesh defeating Bermuda on Sunday, the worst fears of Indian cricket fans have come to pass. What seemed like another months worth of excuses for doing nothing other than watching cricket,

Portfolio diversification

Market-based economies work best when they function with clearly defined rules, and when the rule-breakers are seen to pay the price for what they did. The alternative scenario is laid out in the

Honour the rules

Less than five months after the government amended the law to allow the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund to be used for subsidising even mobile phones and broadband services in the rural areas,

Connecting Bharat

First, it contributed zero. Then, there was Ramanujan. After that, again zero. Until 2002, Indian mathematics could be summed up in three pithy sentenceszero followed by a solitary 20th century

No longer zero

On the face of it, the ministry of roads and highways proposal to amend the Motor Vehicles Act to increase the permissible highway speed for most kinds of vehicles is an idea whose time has come.

Not so fast

By restricting its major policy action to a 25 basis point hike in the repo rate, the Reserve Bank of India has accomplished two things. One, it has shown that it continues to believe that the economy

A light touch

Whenever the history of Corporate Indias coming of age is written, Tata Steels acquisition of Corus will figure as a landmark event. It is the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company, by a

Celebratory chorus

The Prime Minister has released a mission document for the automobile industry, put together by the ministry of industry and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. The ambition to make India

Why these high tariffs?

The upward revision of the gross domestic product numbers for 2005-06 (from 8.4 per cent to 9 per cent) is surprising mainly because of the sharp increase shown in the growth of the agriculture and

Agricultural blip

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 279 - Editorial Comment