At a time when other companies are announcing a billion-dollar mark in sales, Reliance Industries has underlined its size by announcing more than a billion dollars in net profits. 


Impressive performance

Business Standard

War degrades and de-sensitises. By how much depends on how the armies view each other and how strongly discipline is enforced. 


Not liberating conduct

The first crop of bank results for 2003-04 has justified the recent uptrend in bank stock prices. 


Beyond the easy money

The public sector company newly formed for conducting a farm insurance business (the Agricultural Insurance Company of India) is projecting business worth a whopping Rs 60,000 crore in 10 years,

Foolish scheme

The experts have said that these elections are about lots of things. Development, for instance, as opposed to stressing Hindutva. Shining and non-shining India, to take another clash of perceptions.

T N Ninan: What voters want

A good idea, in order to remain good, has to be implemented consistently well. This means it has to be implemented in a flexible manner to account for situational dynamics. 


Structural adjustment

The Assembly election results in Andhra Pradesh are a minor earthquake, not just because they have routed the most highly rated chief minister in the country but also because of what they portend for

Political quake

With the situation in Iraq becoming messier, Opec holding together, and Asian demand continuing to rise, one of the first things the next government will have to do is to raise domestic oil prices in

Delayed oil shock

Two weeks after the scandal erupted over prisoner abuse in Iraq, some things are obvious. The issue is not an isolated case of a few rogue soldiers, as was first argued. There were systemic causes,

Desert storms

What kind of government should the country expect? Assuming that the allies of the Congress accept Sonia Gandhis leadership, the first question will be settled and India will have the unique

What kind of government?

Indias communists need some elementary lessons in economics. First, this is a market economy and not a command system. Whether they like it or not, markets therefore are central to the way the system

Foot in mouth

Given the contradictions in the Congress alliance, its perhaps no surprise that there has been delay and difficulty in finalising the shape of the government; not just the Cabinet portfolios, but its

Unstable alliance

Manmohan Singhs rise to the highest office in the land is testimony to the many virtues of Indian democracy. Despite the rough and tumble of the process, the end result is usually something that the

The right choice

Sonia Gandhi stands today as the tallest Indian. Never before has someone at the threshold of the countrys highest and most powerful office decided to not take the final step of getting sworn in by

The tallest Indian

The new council of ministers reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the new coalition that is in office. It has a good mix of dalits, tribals, Muslims, backward castes and farmers representatives,

No sense of renewal

The draft Common Minimum Programme (CMP) that has been circulated by the Congress to its allies in the United Progressive Alliance is, like all such documents, a dogs breakfast.


A dog's breakfast

No one in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet has better reformist credentials than P Chidambaram. So it was predictable that the stock market would respond positively to the announcement that the prime

Backing a reformer

The Securities and Exchange Board of India says that its draft regulations for hedge funds aim to provide a limited window to this growing segment of the asset management industry. 


Timely move

After the drama of Sonia Gandhi stepping aside and proposing Manmohan Singh as prime minister, the knotty task of putting together a coalition government has proved to be drawn out and messy. 


Now get going

It is difficult not to notice the post-election contrast between West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on the one hand and several Left leaders in New Delhi on the other. 


One Left, two voices

The new governments reluctance to lose control over the public sector banks is nothing new  the previous administration too had made it clear that the public sector character of these banks would

Banking contradictions

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 325 - Editorial Comment