The biggest buy-out in the history of the steel industry may have given a foretaste of what the new century holds. The deal has ended with a person of Indian origin beating a Russian to acquire the

Steel king

Business Standard

The governments decision to get the state-owned oil-marketing companies to re-start their programme to dope petrol with ethanol to the extent of 5 per cent is to be welcomed. This will provide the

The ethanol challenge

The official indices on inflation show that prices are under control  with inflation levels hovering around the 5 per cent mark. However, most individuals find that items of common consumption have

Saving household budgets

Tata Coffees buyout of US-based Eight OClock Coffee is a deal of only $220 million, less than the $430-million its parent firm Tata Tea paid for UK-based Tetley six years ago. The deal is

A time for blends

Earlier this month, the Planning Commission released its draft approach paper to the Eleventh Plan, entitled Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth. A disclaimer says that the document is yet to

Plan bottlenecks

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has done itself no credit this past week, and certainly not improved its reputation for effective investigation of scams followed by appropriate penal

Stumbling again

Reports in the newspapers suggest that the government has decided to review the scheme for special economic zones (SEZ), with a view to fixing a minimum size that is substantially greater than what

Dichotomy in laws

When some analysts speculated on the $100 per barrel of crude oil several months ago, they were dismissed as doomsdayers. Most people believed that the ceiling would be reached far below that level

Oil slick

It is possible, as the Leader of the Opposition LK Advani has charged, that the communications ministers brother, Kalanithi Maran, asked for a third of the shares in the Tata-Star TV Direct-to-Home

Conflict of interests

Have poverty levels increased in the country, or fallen? Has employment growth picked up, commensurate with the faster GDP growth, or is the country still seeing jobless growth? In other words, is

Right to statistics

The conditional permission granted for the import of genetically modified foods in the new foreign trade policy, unveiled by the commerce ministry in the first week of April, has created more problems

Genetic rules

If anyone thought that the Indo-US nuclear agreement would have smooth passage, reality has begun to bite. This is not surprising; from the beginning, it had been clear that getting the relevant

Tough deal

It is unfortunate that the battle for radio spectrum frequencies, on which mobile phone signals travel, has boiled down to a fight between Ratan Tata and the rest of the industry, with the government

Tata vs the rest

By writing to the government on the issue of free trade agreements (FTAs), and having the fact leaked to the media, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has certainly focused attention on the issue. Though

The larger context

One of the dangers of opening up the economy is that a part of Indias capital market gets exported. According to Barclays Capital, Indian companies raised Rs 17,136 crore through FCCBs and another Rs

Welcome step

When the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange became nationwide exchanges, the exchange business was changed forever. Suddenly, an exchange no longer had a little monopoly by being the

Don't fix it

The direction given by the Gujarat High Court to the Vadodara municipality to demolish all encroachments, and the stay granted on its operation by the Supreme Court as a result of the communal rioting

Define duties

It is a pity that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as reported in newspapers, remained non-committal through his meeting with Knowledge Commission Chairman Sam Pitroda on the question of jobs

Reserved status

Commerce Minister Kamal Nath is a man to admire as he sees no contradiction in exhorting industry to achieve higher and higher export growth targets and, at the same time, threatening to cut off its

Back to the future

Last weeks World Bank report on greenhouse gas emissions should be viewed with caution. Prima facie, it holds India and China responsible for driving up these discharges by 15 per cent, fuelling

Political statistics

After a day of turbulent trading ended with a net gain on Indias stock markets on Tuesday, the question can be asked: Is India an island of virtually limitless gains on the stock market, while the

Nervousness everywhere

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 293 - Editorial Comment