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

Business Standard

They say that governments take the right decision, after having tried out all the alternatives. That may well be the case with the wholly unnecessary business of reserving seats for people from the

Supply-side solution

Whats in a name, some may ask in an echo of a Shakespearean question which asked whether a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. A lot, if a recent communication from the All India Council for

Be Indian

The proposed policy to allow foreign airlines to buy into Indian carriers will restore sanity to an irrational policy put into place some years ago, whereby companies already in the business of flying

Correct flight path

The UPA government is about to complete two years in office. Those who would have been its loudest cheer-leaders when the government was formed, will now be a largely disappointed lot, primarily

Hopes belied

It is a sign of the times we live in that after appearing to have moved to the backstage worldwide during the last half of the 20th century, religion has moved right back into public discourse. This

Much ado about nothing

Anyone who has read the series of news reports this newspaper has run on the findings from the National Sample Surveys 1999-2000 round will agree there is no case for reservations of the sort being

Conspiracy of silence

The Budget speech this year had the enigmatic sentence We shall now take steps to create a single, unified exchange-traded market for corporate bonds. There are two ways to interpret this sentence

No separation

The headline numbers would probably gladden the hearts of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) leaders and encourage them to come up with more revival schemes for public sector undertakings (PSU).

Down the drain

There is a strong consensus that India is vulnerable owing to the large mass of FII investment in the country. The evidence is, however, increasingly falling into place about a rather different set of

Not FIIs

A study by an international executive search firm says that the average age of India Incs top leadership is coming down, and has dropped by as much as nine years in the last five years. While a

Quick maturing

There has been speculation about why Subir Raha did not get an extension of his term as chairman of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). Media reports suggest that, more than the TNR Rao report

Too much 'security'

The Left Front government first came to office in West Bengal in the summer of 1977, and has won five subsequent elections, all by a landslide. No other state government in India has been in office

Bankrupt after 29 years

The rush of international acquisitions by the leading Indian pharmaceutical firms marks the latest phase in the development of companies like Ranbaxy, which has just completed a triad of acquisitions,

Expanding footprint

Perhaps its customary. But the look of acute apologia on the faces of those involved in the decision to hike the tuition fees of IIM-Ahmedabad was hard to miss. N R Narayana Murthy, chairman of the

Why the hand-wringing?

The indefinite strike at the State Bank of India has entered the third day but there is no sign of a rapprochement between the striking employees and the management. By taking over the SBIs

Enough of pampering

There is enough evidence to suggest that corruption is among the most important reasons for countries remaining poor and backward. So, anyone involved in multilateral funding to help remove poverty

Bank on them

It is an irony that we often need multilateral institutions like the World Bank to remind us of our own resources and their economic potential. This happened again when a World Bank report released on

Managing forest wealth

India has limits on FII (or foreign institutional investor) ownership of a company, implemented in a sensible way. The total ownership by all FIIs of a company is tracked. When the limit is reached,

Not another quota raj

The protest fast by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader, Medha Patkar (since arrested and hospitalised), is not without provocation though one can quarrel with her chosen method of protest. The

She has a point

Indian companies are busy on deal street, merging and acquiring like never beforein fields as diverse as telecom and aviation, pharmaceuticals and software. Some weeks, there is more action overseas

Like marriage

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

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