Civil War
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…
FEELIN’ GOOD
IT IS GOOD THAT WE ARE FEELING BUCKLED UP AT THE BEGINNING OF 2018. Major economies expect growth in tandem for the first time since…
Interview- India’s Sinha wants to go for growth
2 June 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 2 (Reuters) – India’s Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha put up a spirited…
Interview- India targets not just “hope and prayer”
3 June 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 3 (Reuters) – India’s fiscal targets for the current year are not…
The Dauphin and the Figurehead
Timing is everything, and with a number of state elections soon, leading to the general election next year, cynicism and opportunism are manifest. The Congress-led…
Earthy Tales
Last week I was on a flight to Mumbai About two hours in, the captain announced that there was unseasonal heavy rain ahead and it…
READING THE BAR CODES
“UPON MY WORD: India’s prisons are stuck in a time warp” STRANGE HOW time’s machine travels back and forth at warp speed. Two hundred and…
INDIA, THE CLASS ACT
With this kind of rebellious example, how will fair play and righteousness prevail? Won’t the lower castes get out of hand? In this decadent age,…
Not Measuring Up
Exactly two years ago we ran a cover story on India’s skills crisis. This was just after Subramanian Ramadorai was named Adviser to the Prime…
Eight Innovations That Delighted Consumers and What India can Learn From Them
I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet, in time, by labour, application, and con- trivance, I found at last that I…
India’s Coolest Start-Ups
Some things were on a fast track as the heat dragged us into the dog days of June, and some were on a slow track.…
Home Truths
And now at the end he found himself in his own house, on his own half-lot of land, his own portion of the earth. That…
NOT SELLING VOLUMES
It was a browser’s dream come true kilometres of books that took hold of the bibliophile’s heart-strings and did not stop tugging for hours. For…
From Flood To Trickle
Large advertisements in Delhi newspapers-last fortnight announced that Mother Dairy was being forced to dilute the fat content of milk supplied to the capital’s citizens…
Spate Of Senseless Tragedies
Qutab Minar, the 72.5-metre-high monolithic tower that Iltutmish built 750 years ago, witnessed two shocks in its hoary life-span. In 1368, it was struck by…
MIRAGE IN THE DESERT
Within a few years from now, the westernmost and thirstiest fringe of Rajasthan, along the Indo-Pakistani border, is going to be brought to life by…
Interview: Anil Agarwal
“Everybody is going to die, but I am going to die last.” He started out as a scrap trader in Patna. Today, with a personal…
Panic Button
Reading An Account of the Great Fear, or Grande Peur, that swept across France in July and August of 1789, I was struck by the…
TOO BIG TO FAIL
Independence Day is a good excuse for some economic chest-thumping. We should be proud that lndia is a free-enterprise democracy. Imagine the world’s burden if…
Glass Half-Full?
We can hope that in the run-up to the next general election we will not suffer the type of jolts to our nervous systems that…
TELLING NUMBERS
Look Carefully at all the Headlines, screaming or otherwise, that are popping up these days about corruption. How many of them feature women? Study after…
The Dog’s tail
There is no loophole that has not met an Indian taxpayer. A Hindi proverb says you can never straighten a dog’s tail (kutte ki poonch…).…
ELEVENTH HOUR
In India If you Book a Plumber to come And Rescue You from a flooded bathroom, chances are you will get a call at 11…
Clutching At Straws
We are so frozen in the headlights of the on rushing slowdown that even a flicker leads us to believe that we have seen friendly…