After months of tepid growth, non-food credit disbursements by banks picked up during the second half of FY 2004, and the last couple of months have seen unprecedented growth. 


Plenty of money

Business Standard

It is now manifestly clear that HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi is up to no good. As long as it seemed that he was fighting the IIM boards only on the issue of lower fees, one could label his

PM must intervene

In less than two months from now, a new government will be in place at the Centre. The first task of the parliamentary leader of the party or the coalition that is invited by the President to form the

A two-point agenda for the next PM

Nabards move to slash interest rates on refinance for loans that are extended to cooperative banks, is essentially a belated bid to correct an anomaly in the banking system that has existed for far

Cooperative credit

With individual and corporate income tax-collections needing to grow at 20 per cent annually over the next four years, and excise at 24 (compared to a much lower 12 and 14 per cent actual growth in

Big brother is watching

The governments move to merge the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) with the State Bank of India (SBI) is an ill-conceived one, and should be dropped without further ado. 


Time to rethink

Two positive developments have created a fresh opportunity for putting the Indian sugar industry on a sound commercial footing. 


Let the market prevail

Stock markets across the world have been weak in March, with the MSCI World Index falling 3.7 per cent in the month to March 22. Likewise, the MSCI emerging markets index is down 2.7 per cent. 


Weak markets

It should not cause much surprise that, among India Incs top companies, the multi-national corporations have been able to increase their share of net profits in the last decade or so, as has now been

Divergent trends

Reports on the atmospheres carbon dioxide content having ascended to a record high, after increasing at an accelerated pace in the past year, should make everyone (and not just environmentalists) sit

Global warming again

The Indian BPO (business process outsourcing) sector is faced with a quality issue, after a few widely publicised foul-ups. This failure rate, say industry experts, is small and well within the

Do as software did

To add icing to what was already a pretty sumptuous New Years cake, the GDP estimates for the second quarter (July-September) of 2003-04 indicated that the economy grew 8.4 per cent over the previous

Let the good times roll

The decision to raise the price for cane to Rs 73 a quintal smacks of populism aimed at appeasing cane growers ahead of the parliamentary elections. 


Sugar-coated votes

It is a good sign that the rise of the Sensex above 6000 has been accompanied not by euphoria but by much soul-searching about the pace of the ascent. 


Fundamental growth

Leningrad may have changed its name to St Petersburg, but the old revolutionary lives on in Leningrad Chowk, Prabhadevi, in the heart of capitalist Mumbai. 


Is another world possible?

For the second day in a row, the finance minister has announced a number of measures that clearly reflect his desire to contribute to the ruling coalitions electoral prospects. 


Populist desk-clearing

The Securities and Exchange Boards discussion paper on margin trading, issued in December 2002, mentioned the ambivalent status of margin trading in the country. 


Filling a gap

Karl Marx termed religion as the opiate of the masses. He obviously did not foresee the advent of television. Its impact on the quality of life has never been so strikingly demonstrated as by the

TRAI-ing television

The November figures for the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), announced on Monday, may lead to a fresh burst of enthusiasm about how well the economy is doing. 


More good news

Instances of even well-intentioned reform measures failing to evoke an enthusiastic response from the states are not rare. 


Nervous reformers

If clarity be the essence of good public policy, the Government of India would fail the most basic of tests. It is not clear if this is deliberate or the result of mental confusion. 


Confusion confounded

Incisive columns and editorial comment by top opinion leaders

Page 352 - Editorial Comment