Indians have always been guilty of exhibiting a shockingly high divergence between private and social utility. Thus, they will bathe thrice a day but not pull the chain in a public toilet; they will

Wrong remedy

Business Standard

With the Met office holding out no hope of any tangible revival of the monsoon, at least till July 25, fears of the 2002 drought being repeated are being aired more loudly. 


Drought again

Some of Mr Chidambarams proposals for plugging loopholes and tax evasion, as outlined in his latest Budget, have come in for their share of criticism. One measure that has not received much attention

Please outsource it

There is one thing missing in the list of eight Indian companies that have made it to <I>BusinessWeeks</I> Global 1000: the old family-owned business houses find no place in it.


Rewards of enterprise

Now that Damocles sword of turnover tax has been blunted, there is visible relief in the stockmarkets. The Sensex lost no time in crossing the 5,000 mark, which is significant because it had last

Sensible rollback

Whether the countrys politicians accept the second set of tax proposals by Vijay Kelkar is not really the question to ask. More relevant is what happens if they do not accept Kelkar-II. 


Making Kelkar-II work

The extraordinary events surrounding the Global Trust Bank raise several questionsabout the quality of private bank managements, the auditing process, RBI supervision, and crisis management. 


Breach of trust

The Global Trust Bank (GTB) episode raises a large number of issues relating to banking practices, and banks ability to manage and weather risks. 


Uphill battle

With the government deciding to issue unified access licences last year, most thought the messy legal battle between the GSM-cellular players and WiLL-mobile players was finally over, and the result

The new battle tone

Corporate results for the first quarter of FY 2005 have been excellent, with most companies posting very high sales growth and an even greater increase in profits.


Good times, great results

It is customary to evaluate any leaders contributions soon after his passing. But its probably more appropriate to do so much later, when things have settled down, when his successors have had the

JRD's true legacy

For the millions who felt let down when their savings were lost through UTI, there may be more bad news in the form of a pension bomb thats waiting to explode. 


Pension bomb

Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has ruled out the resumption of foodgrain exports this year. 


Wrong direction, Mr Pawar

The reservation of jobs and of seats in educational institutions for specific categories of people, based primarily on caste, is enshrined in the Constitution. 


Unworkable

The recent decision of a debt recovery tribunal in Ahmedabad to stay the sale of Mardia Chemicals assets by ICICI Bank has confirmed the worst fears of bankers. 


A dead letter

In the absence of a central command that supervises them, members of coalition governments revel in divergent views. 


Finessing the CMP

0Few can beat politicians at the game of inventing euphemisms and coded language. Thus, an utter lack of principles becomes the art of the possible. 


That unpleasant smell

The theory of unintended consequences has been proven once again; Murli Manohar Joshis ill-advised move to bring the Indian Institutes of Management under the active thumb of an ill-intentioned

What next?

As the finance minister who first thought of taxing the transport sector, it would be interesting to see if P Chidambaram tries in the forthcoming Budget to reintroduce his service tax proposal,

Hit the road

As expected, equity mutual funds have had a torrid time in the past month, with all-round erosion in their net asset values. A closer look, however, shows that they have acquitted themselves rather

Not monthly nor income

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltds decision to go in for its initial public offering in Fridays nervous market has come as a pleasant surprise. 


A signal of confidence

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 323 - Editorial Comment