About 1,200 companies have so far declared full-year results for 2015-16, averaging top-line growth of 3.7% in the quarter through March after an 8% decline over the three preceding quarters. But poor corporate health is reflected in the staggering write-offs of bad loans by state-owned banks. Punjab National Bank, the country’s third largest, reported a…
The past few weeks in India have been like drinking from a fire hose. Full-page newspaper advertisements, huge rallies and hosannas from giddy supporters have poured forth as the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party celebrates two years in power. There has also been a deluge of interviews You might also like with senior government ministers, a…
Modi’s war on black money has hit India’s economy. Is the price worth paying? Modi’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Dec. 8 announced a raft of discounts and tax rebates for citizens who used credit or debit cards and mobile wallets for transactions including buying petrol and train tickets, paying tolls or insurance premiums. Government…
Modi’s war on black money has hit India’s economy. Is the price worth paying? One month after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetization of 500 and 1,000-rupee banknotes in his battle against black money, policymakers in New Delhi are finally starting to acknowledge that the shock move has caused immense upheavals, loss…
Not surprisingly for a country obsessed with politics and gossip, the appointment of India’s new central bank chief has already spawned reams of newsprint and hours of television talk-time on what makes Urjit Ravindra Patel tick. Two words sum up Patel: low key. Unlike other deputy governors of the Reserve Bank of India he has…
Indeed, a committee headed by Patel himself in January 2014 made three far-reaching recommendations that seem certain to haunt him. First, it suggested a shift to the consumer price index as the base metric, instead of the outdated and misleading wholesale price index. Second, it called for inflation targeting, and Rajan and Modi agreed to…
CHAITANYA KALBAG, contributing writer NEW DELHI – Although his three-year term as governor of the Reserve Bank of India was one of the shortest in the last 25 years, Raghuram Rajan will leave a pair of very large shoes to fill after his departure on Sept. 4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is taking…
CHAITANYA KALBAG, contributing writer “That is a hard standard for anybody’s commentary to meet, especially if you have a press which is continuously looking for what they think are slights to the government. It is easy to build on that,” he noted as he sought to correct claims that his governorship was one “which has…
Dozens of olympiads and years of discussion and disappointments later, India is still athletically a huge zero, says Chaitanya Kalbag. 1976 promises to be a year to remember: with five Sundays in February, America’s Bicentennial, and the Olympics in Montreal. Right now, July’s looming up on the horizon. The Olympic Games are scheduled to begin…
You’re a member of the Hindi film audience. You see most of the films in town. You listen to the songs regularly on the radio. And you try humming a few bars in your bathroom. How long do you actually remember the words, or the music, of a Hindi film song? Agreed there are…
Authoritarianism may have professedly ended with the Emergency, but it continues to afflict many walks of our life. It has raised its ugly head, from time to time, in the country’s premier educational institutions. Young people, supposedly “tomorrow’s leaders”, are systematically subjected to stifling control, unenlightened concepts of discipline, and any protests they raise are…
Fourteen years younger than VS Naipaul, Shiva Naipaul was born in 1945 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and was educated in Trinidad and Oxford. He began writing in college, and his short stories were accepted for Penguin Modern Stories 4. His first novel, Fireflies, was published at the end of 1971. and his second, The Chip-Chip Gatherers,…
As he leaves India’s central bank, Rajan takes aim at his critics and points out the challenges awaiting his successor NEW DELHI Although his three-year term as governor of the Reserve Bank of India was one of the shortest in the last 25 years, Raghuram Rajan will leave a pair of very large shoes to…
Modi has one job: Get India’s lazy tiger of an economy to roar Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley will have two tough acts to follow when he stands in a few hours to present India’s budget for 2015-16. The first: On Feb. 26, railway minister Suresh Prabhu did a rousing, clackety-clack rendition of the railway…
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), it is a make-or-break election in Assam. Of the four states and one union territory going to the polls in April and May, Assam is the only one where the BJP–having suffered defeats in Delhi and Bihar–stands a decent chance of snatching power. Except in…
The issue of citizenship in India has been rendered very complex by a thicket of laws, rules, and executive fiats. Article 6 of the Constitution says anybody from East or West Pakistan who enters India after July 19, 1948, must apply for citizenship. It is also governed by the Foreigners Act of 1946, the Passport…
The badmen in films only make good punching-bags for the heroes and fight-composers, says CHAITANYA KALBAG. Picture Little Red Riding Hood, seated in a cinema house looking at a Hindi movie. When the drums growl and the shadows lengthen, when the script says it’s time for evil, when the hoi polloi shift to the edge of…
Indians have been hiding money from their rulers for centuries. The best way to secrete your wealth away was to turn it into gold, and either wear it or bury it. Little wonder that India was the world’s biggest gold buyer last year. It consumed 842.7 tonnes. Despite the Indian economy not doing too well…
Zaherra is one of those unfortunates who are jinxed from the word ‘go’. Sometime back she said, “What’s not in a name?” and changed the ‘I’ in Zahirra to an ‘e’. But Zaherra is still lost in the wilderness. She does not even have a Russian fiancé like Katy (Cypher) Mirza, to console herself with,…
“I Think I’ve Just Been Lucky” “I’m what some people call a teenage star. But really. I think I’ve just been lucky. I’m told that I was born on the night of December 28. 1951, precisely at the moment the first star appeared in the sky over Bombay. If so, that star was a good…
Nine Film Personalities Discuss Their Dream Schemes! “India” said James Shepherd in a recent issue of TIME, “stamps out movies like cookies – and most are just as durable.” At once, our film critics, the tribe that revels in dissecting and deprecating nine out of every ten Hindi films that are churned out by our…
Bhindranwale never threatened, just replied to it, says his son The traffic noise from the flyover outside the window was deafening and I could barely hear what Baljit Singh Brar was saying. Brar edits Jalandhar’s Aaj Di Awaz newspaper, aptly named, amid the din. “Where is Bhindranwale’s son?” I had to shout. He pointed at…
It took me eight months to discover that I was living next door to a film person. And that too, because the chap appeared in a “daring, all-clothes-barred” gatefold In a girlie mag. Yes. My neighbour was there in B & W. in all his hairy, slightly paunchy evidence. Undressed. In disabille. There was a…
On four Rock evenings beginning Christmas Eve, a few hundred Bombayites Filled the Bhulabhai Desai auditorium to watch, and to listen to, the Theatre Group weave two and odd hours of phantasmagoric GODSPELL. The musical presentation of the Gospel according to St. Mathew was produced and directed by Pearl Padamsee. GODSPELL, conceived by John Michael…
Has the media lost the plot in the more wired world of today? It was a year bracketed by the Delhi gangrape and the Tehelka train wreck, and you would be hard put to find another period since our colonial masters departed when journalism was in worse odor in India. It is not just the…
A really good film should not be concerned so much with its plot, as with its characters and the interplay of those characters. Though the characters, the intelligent filmmaker aims at establishing in the consciousness of the spectators the elements that would lead them to the idea he wants to communicate; he attempts to place…
Kem Chho, Chandra Bhai? Fine, I see. Thought I’d discover what makes you tick. Tell me what’s doing. Chandra Barot does not answer at once. He’s busy buttoning his cuff. And then: I’m directing Don. And this is keeping me on my toes right now. It’s a fun experience, shooting with Amitabh and Zeenat…
Russell’s films on composers deal with subjects very neurotic and with personal disorders. If they were not neurotic, Russell feels, they would not have written their music. Their obsession endows them with a different kind of vision. Making a biographical film 100 minutes long is quite a tough proposition, Especially when it’s on the…
Round and round the rugged rock, rugged lovers run the race In any formula set-up, there’s nothing better than a few digressions on Young Love. Thus, the director said ‘Let there be romance, and there was a love scene Soft music. A setting sun. Birds chirping, flying home-wards. And a boy and a girl in some woodland.…
You may have heard of East African Indian fleeing to Mother England, and Dr. Hastings Banda pelling 40 Malawi Asians Ever heard of an Indian settled in Tanzania who came back to India and turned out to be a much talked-about Hindi film director in Bombay? He is Chandra Barot, a young man in his early…
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team have had a lot of time to polish the report card on their year in power. I woke up on Anniversary Day determined, like Norman Vincent Peale, to feel The Power of Positive Thinking. Whatever the opinion polls or the trolls on Twitter said, we had to be…
An American who acts in Hindi movies? And who’s Indian except for his fair skin and blond hair? “I don’t believe it” was the reaction of most people who met Tom Alter at the recent screening of diploma films arranged by Mr. Girish Karnad, the Director of the Film and Television of India, at Bombay.…
Mr. Girish Karnad, the Director of the Film and Television Institute of India, Poona, arranged a screening of the Diploma Films 1974, on the 1st and 2nd September in Bombay. In his brief introduction Mr. Karnad said the Diploma films were characterised by two points: students made films on subjects which they would not normally…
Rajika Kirpalani did not believe in gods of any kind. Yet she must have been beloved of them, for she died young— too young for those who knew her. While speaking on the telephone on the 1st of February, 1974, she was struck down by a massive cerebral haemorrhage. She was just 24. A year…
Pandit Giriraj is one of the few virtuosos of the “gayaki” school of sitar music in India. He recently completed a two-and-a-half month tour of European cities in mid-November. This tour followed close on the heels of another extensive West German tour of his in early 1974. Giriraj’s winter musical itinerary mostly covered West German…
If you’re the sort of person who expects value for every paisa you spend, go see Sholay, 23 reels and three and a half hours later, you’ll stagger out of the auditorium and gulp in the sweet air outside. Your ears will have been assailed by stereophonic sound (If the theatre had facilities for it),…
The Goan Institute present ed its maiden theatrical production on the 25th of August at the St. Xavier’s School Auditorium. Written and directed by Derek Antao, the play, REQUIEM FOR A PROFESSOR, had a plot which sagged so much that the seams were discernible at times. Lloyd D’Mello, as the ageing Professor Joe Varella, succeeded…
Which party will you vote for? It is a bit like England’s witch trials in the middle ages. You were dunked in water as a test; if you did not drown you were pronounced a sorceress and burnt at the stake. Whichever government you elect, the choice is not clear, clean, and comforting. By now…
Last weekend, just before the first phase of voting in India’s 16th general election opened, a group of people gathered in Delhi for a “nation-building” meeting. For two days they thrashed and turned in their search for a better alternative to the choices facing the nation. They were exercised by the epic corruption and mis-governance,…
Several moons ago, a car driver in Chennai told me the fascinating story of a young man whom he drove around in Coimbatore during the 2009 general elections. At every stop, the driver said, the young man would return with a bulging sack that he would stuff into the boot. The young man was collecting…
Certainly not the growing number of people who believe that “free speech” means a loose mouth and the abuse of certain classes or communities. Imran Masood, Azam Khan and Mulayam Singh Yadav are not afraid of Narendra Modi. Nor is the swelling saffron sena if you believe Ram Rajya is about to dawn. In its…
By Wednesday elections had been held for 438 seats, or four-fifths of the 16th Lok Sabha, and it seemed like a good point to draw breath and take stock of the men and women who will wield power over us for the next five years. Many of us believe that these elections will be decided…
The end of campaigning in Amethi in a cacophony of anger, derogation, and obloquy was briefly leavened by “Twitter joining Rajinikanth.” The Superstar’s followers piled up at the rate of 20,000 an hour. Not even Narendra Modi, one of the Thalaivar’s first followers, could have matched that. Fantasy had trumped politics. As if in affirmation,…
One word summed up the five-week election: certitude. From the very beginning, most of us were certain that the National Democratic Alliance would win power. It is fairly certain that the Congress party will suffer its worst defeat in 16 general elections. Over 300,000 kilometres, 440 rallies, 1,350 holograms, 4,000 chai pe charchas, and a…
I was hard put on Wednesday to find an advertisement remembering Rajiv Gandhi on the anniversary of his assassination. It was a telling contrast with a few months ago when the newspapers were flooded, just before the elections were announced, with ads extolling UPA II’s achievements. Political parties do suffer huge losses, but nothing has…
The Rajyabhishek in the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt was a sight for sore eyes, and understandably some of us went ape even if we were not among the 4,000 people attending Narendra Modi’s oathtaking. It was still a modest event compared with the 1.8 million people who attended Barack Obama’s January 2009 inauguration. Talking about…
If you believe in signs and omens, all the days and dates this year coincide with 1947, our year of independence (I have Amitabh Bachchan to thank for this nugget). The movie “Great Expectations” was also launched in 1947. That fits in with the sentiment nationwide. The expectations are scary because we have dug ourselves…
It seemed like the rhyming slogans, the election jingles, and the grandiloquence of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto were all that we needed to shake us out of our psychic numbing during the past few years. Alliteration hit you everywhere you turned. Narendra Modi told a small audience last Sunday that we needed to ramp…
Three weeks and counting, and besides a bit of soft power-mongering there is no flurry of executive actions to take away one’s breath. Our impatience is understandable, but then the new dispensation is taking its lumps. Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned party workers in Goa that we will have to swallow bitter medicine if we…
One of my prized possessions is a fossilised limpet, a kind of sea snail that attaches itself very, very tightly to rocks. The fossil must be hundreds of thousands of years old. It must have been prised off a rock with some force, the kind that is trying to get many of our privileged leaders…
To begin with, Modi is under microscopic watch and Deng never was. Modi has a good majority in the lower house of Parliament, but that does not mean lawmakers will blindly rubber-stamp his legislative efforts. If you do the arithmetic the National Democratic Alliance stands little chance of a majority in the Rajya Sabha, even…
Our members of Parliament sowed the wind in the 15th Lok Sabha and are reaping the whirlwind in the 16th Lok Sabha. The last Lok Sabha worked only for 61 per cent of its scheduled time, the worst in the past half-century. The Bharatiya Janata Party was in very aggressive opposition to the United Progressive…
When a little girl named Topsy is asked in Uncle Tom’s Cabin if she knew who made her, she says “I expect I grow’d.” This Thursday, July 10, Arun Jaitley will declare financial independence when he unveils the Union Budget for 2014/15 without the Planning Commission breathing down his neck. True, the budget drafters in…
Change comes stealing in on padded feet in the Narendra Modi government, and change is starting to happen in the offices of his ministers. One of them told me that when he took office, at least eight officials had to sign off on any file that came to him for approval; he has cut that…
This weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Nepal on his third foreign trip in ten weeks. By the end of September, he will also have visited Japan and the United States. Looming large on his itinerary will be China, which he visited four times as Gujarat’s chief minister in his quest for investments.…
We are hopefully in the last of this summer’s dog days, and Sirius (or Svana as it is known in Hindu astrology) will glow a little less brilliantly in the hot night sky. Dog days are said to induce all sorts of mental upheaval, agitation, and unpleasantness. Perhaps that is why much of Europe wisely…
It was a very Hindu week, starting with Raksha Bandhan and ending with Janmashthami, and midway through we were treated to fireworks by Yogi Adityanath, the bold new face of the Bharatiya Janata Party. A five-time member of the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur, he was just 26 when he won his first parliamentary seat in…
Somewhere, through the unbearable din of television and anti-social media this week, I saw one tweet that plaintively asked why we were hearing so much from everybody but not enough from Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Brazil. Our prime minister met the leaders of China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, but coverage back…
It is a war without end, a no-win situation in which nobody can provide answers to some questions: How long will this go on? Which side will eventually prevail? What is the cost to the nation in money, matériel, men?
This was has no name. It is more an endless series of skirmishes than a sustained military confrontation. Yet, this war has been raging intermittently for 26 years in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.
Dhanbad’s dreaded Mafia gangs were riveting topics of conversation last fortnight, and for different reasons. Film actor Shatrughan Sinha, with the blessings of the ruling Congress(1), launched a film on the Mafia, swamping the town’s hotels with an entourage of 250. Sinha was not being foolish in filming so dangerous a subject-his chief patron is Laliteshwar Prasad Sahi, Bihar’s health and family welfare minister. And Union Irrigation Minister Kedar Pandey travelled all the way to Dhanbad to inaugurate the shooting of the film.
New Delhi, May 13 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s test launch of its longest-range missile last month triggered this week’s series of underground nuclear tests by India, a senior Indian official said on Wednesday.
In a briefing for Western news agencies hours after India stunned the world with two more underground nuclear blasts, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, set forth the rationale for the tests in unambiguous terms.
“No more tests are planned,” he said.
Calcutta, India, June 15 (Reuters) – The leader of the world’s oldest democratically elected communist government looked back on his 20 years in power, and said he was proud of his achievements in a “capitalist feudalist” society. Jyoti Basu, the 82-year-old chief minister of India’s West Bengal state, told Reuters in an interview late on Saturday…
New Delhi, Dec 8 (Reuters) – India’s Gujarat state aims to be a primary focus for foreign investors, particularly in infrastructure like ports, power and roads, the leader of the west coast province said on Monday. “The word industrialization is humming in Gujarat’s air. Above all the government is investor-friendly,” Chief Minister Dilip Parikh told…
It’s hard to be a couch potato in India because (a) most homes have stiff, unyielding sofas; (b) it’s not easy to set yourself up with a six-pack of beer and a bag of chips unless you go on a major shopping expedition; (c) your wife wants to watch Saraswatichandra threatened by a lynch mob…
MANILA, March 15, Reuters – A 288 million dollar syndicated loan for the Philippines Long Distance Telephone Co marks a major initiative by Manila’s commercial bank creditors to recycle existing debt, bankers said. BOT International (HK) Ltd, Citicorp International Ltd and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp are lead managing the loan. Syndication started…
Nowhere else in India do people engulf you as they do in Calcutta. From the moment you step off your train or plane, and begin the ride into the city, you will be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of them. Your car or taxicab will plough into the slow crowds like some tropical icebreaker. The…
INFORMATION & BROADCASTING MINISTER L.K. ADVANI
‘I Am Not Happy with The Pattern of Newspaper Ownership’
Transindia: Mr. Advani, many people feel today that the Janata Government’s image is quite clean, and that it is innately decent, but that its performance has been quite poor. Would you comment on that?
L.K. Advani: This impression is erroneous, though if people hold that impression, I wouldn’t blame them because we came into office in a situation in which the people expect- ed wonders from us.
Transindia: Mr. Chandra Shekhar, do you think you have one of the most thankless jobs in the country today, what with having to build up a party composed of such varied components as the Janata is?
Chandra Shekhar: I agree that we have had to create a party from scratch. But I would not say that my job is thankless. There are certain advantages which one cannot ignore and there are many difficulties, too.
The Man From Malgudi It took me some time to discover Rasipuram Krishna Swami Narayan’s house. Yadavagiri, the suburb of Mysore City, where Narayan stays, is an incredibly quiet area, with long, neat streets, tree-shaded bungalows lining them. It was late afternoon, and the neighborhood was just emerging from its siesta. “R. K. Narayan?” asked…
Few of us know that KUMAR MANGALAM BIRLA, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, produced the critically acclaimed Hindi movie Black. Or that he has taken up pistol shooting as a hobby. Or that his teenage son is a keen photographer, but he knows a thing or two about pictures and lighting himself. Most of…
‘Is Drinking A Ritual “? Then I Think ‘It Is Better to Close Our Diplomatic Missions!’ The appointment is at 1 pm at the Prime Minister’s Office in South Block. These imposing stone buildings, a few hundred yards away from Rashtrapati Bhavan, contain the offices of most of India’s government leaders. A surprisingly courteous Reception…
The Government Is Helping Create A Privileged Class!’ Professor C.N. Vakil, eminent economist, formerly Director, School of Economics and Sociology, University of Bombay, and Director, Central Board, Reserve Bank of India: “The Janata government was suddenly thrust into power, and there was hardly any coherence between the various constituents of the Party. So decisions were…
Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy has seen it all: bootstrapping an enterprise with what is loose change today, going on sales calls riding pillion on a Vespa scooter, walking away from a GE deal because it was leaving little profit on the table, setting up India’s first mega software campus, making India’s first Nasdaq listing,…
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.” – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Gandhi must have been passing through an extremely clairvoyant phase when he came up with this statement in the Thirties. In the thirty years that have passed since Jawaharlal Nehru was sworn in as the first Prime Minister…
Poor Manmohan Singh is caught between the Pros and the Cons. The Pros in the Opposition are telling the prime minister, who has never seemed sullied by money politics, that he should be resigning. The Congress, led by A. Raja, is telling him that he is allegedly complicit in the 2G scandal. The sad part…
Eighteen hours after Haryana Governor Ganapatrao Devji Tapase committed the most undemocratic faux pas in India’s political history, he was cowering on a sofa in the Chandigarh Raj Bhavan’s large reception hall. “This is Haryana!” yelled apoplectic Lok Dal MLAs, eyes blood-shot, neck veins bulging, pressing around the diminutive Tapase in a knee-touching, eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation.…
Been away from India for some years? Planning to go back this year, family in tow, for a long vacation? If the answer is ‘Yes’ to both questions chances are you’d like to meet old friends, and relatives; to visit remembered places; most of all, you’d love to ‘do the country’—a trans-subcontinental jaunt to catch…
CONGRESS PARTY PRESIDENT- BRAHMANANDA REDDY “We Will Return to Power Soon” Transindia: Mr. Reddy, many people feel that the Congress Party has had a great past, but does not have a great future. Would you like to comment on that? Brahmananda Reddy: That the Congress Party had a great and glorious past is accepted by…
“Going in quest there of, one of our Soldiers, a Youth, killed a Tigre-Royal; it was brought home by 30 or 40 Combies (Koonbee), the Body tied to a long Bamboo, the Tail extended…it was a Tigre of the Biggest and Noblest Kind, Five Feet in Length beside the Tail, Three and a Half in…
Violence is an unfortunate fact of life in Delhi University. That was bloodily emphasized on February 16 when Dilip Simeon, 32, history lecturer at Ramjas College, was savagely beaten up by six men on his way to work. The lecturer’s multiple fractures came as the flash-point of an acrimonious feud between college Principal Dr. Kartar…
Union Home Minister Prakash Chand Sethi has elevated the art of governance to a fine degree of pettifoggery. Political interference in the bureaucracy is not unusual, but Sethi is exhibited a penchant for intervention in personnel promotions. In the process, he has heightened the siege mentality of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS), which is constantly…
“I have said that we will never take to nuclear weapons even if this country is going to be destroyed in the absence of (such weapons). I will not take to it, even if the whole world takes to it.” …
So much is being written about political prisoners in India these days, that the layman might succumb to the temptation of focusing more on the issue than on its human aspect. Jayaprakash Narayan’s Prison Diary, as well as that of Snehlata Reddy, for instance, have offered some glimmer of the goings—on behind India prison walls.…
The Right Honorable Enoch Powell, PC, MBE, has been a major catalyst in racialist ferment for a long time now. Powell, who celebrated his sixty-fourth birthday on June 16, has had an illustrious career. He received his M.A. degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. Between 1937-39, he taught Greek at the University of Sydney, New South…
Optimism is good, but let’s not be foolhardy. It is good that we are feeling bucked up at the beginning OF 2018. Major economies expect growth in tandem for the first time since the global financial crisis of 2008. World trade is seen growing at a decent clip after two slow years. Commodity prices are firming…
6 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 6 – The options available in solving the global debt crisis had broadened dramatically with U.S. government backing of a Mexican plan to retire a large part of its foreign debt, Philippine Finance Secretary Vicente Jayme said. “I feel that the Mexican package…
7 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 7 – The Philippine government will issue treasury bills and notes totalling 29.8 billion pesos in 1988 and depend mainly on domestic resources to finance its projected budget deficit of 27.1 billion pesos, Finance Undersecretary Victor Macalincag said. The government planned to float…
17 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 17, Reuter – Monday’s local elections are billed as President Corazon Aquino’s last step in returning the Philippines to democracy, but bloody campaigning has left many here wondering if there has been genuine change. Analysts polled by Reuters said the elections would bring…
13 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The resemblance to Indira Gandhi is eerie—the sari draped over the head, the dark glasses, the high-pitched oratory, the imperious wave of the hand. Even her signature “Jai Hind!” (Victory to India) at the end of every campaign…
19 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 19, Reuter – The Philippines has emerged from a tumultuous year with democracy apparently firmly in place after Monday’s local elections, but there is no euphoria among analysts over the country’s economic prospects. The economy has turned in its best growth in seven…
14 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 14 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s main opposition party said on Saturday he was the target of a series of car bomb blasts that killed at least 31 people, wounded up to 100, and triggered rioting and arson in the…
20 January 1988 The Globe and Mail B24 English All material copyright Thomson Canada Limited or its licensors. All rights reserved. The Philippines has experienced its best growth in seven years, but it still faces a daunting array of problems. Analysts say President Corazon Aquino must now demonstrate that she can manage the economy. …
15 February 1998 The Washington Post A30 Copyright 1998, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved The leader of India’s main opposition party said today he was the target of a series of car-bomb blasts that killed 32 people, wounded as many as 100 and triggered rioting and arson in the city of Coimbatore. The…
22 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 22, Reuter – The United States is committed to helping the Philippines achieve economic recovery by stepping up investments, keeping its doors open to imports, and maintaining the flow of aid, Ambassador Nicholas Platt said on Friday. He told a meeting of American…
16 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Indian voters queued up early on Monday to cast their votes as the world’s largest democracy launched the first phase of a mid-term election that is widely predicted to return another hung parliament. At least 250 million adults are…
22 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 22 – Sugar industry officials said the Philippines might not be able to sell extra sugar to the U.S. because the U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) was delaying the issue of guidelines for a re-export plan approved by the U.S. Congress. Sugar Regulatory Administration…
22 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (Reuters) – “Watch this space.” The website of India’s 112-year-old Congress party promises to introduce the “most popular, most charismatic and most dynamic political figures” in India—but there are no names. “This section will be up soon,” the page says limply.…
25 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 25 – Developing nations are more likely to attract foreign investment by easing curbs on share ownership and employment of expatriates than through incentives such as tax holidays, said William Ryrie of the International Finance Corp, a soft-loan arm of the World Bank. …
1 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 1 (Reuters) – Indians waited uneasily on Sunday for official results from a drawn-out election that looks set to confirm their worst fears of more political instability in a hung parliament. State television Doordarshan forecast large gains for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya…
27 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 27 – The yen’s rapid appreciation has led many Japanese companies to step up investments in the Asia-Pacific region, but the expansion has been tempered by a variety of obstacles in host countries and Japanese fears of an unchecked outflow of capital, a…