India’s Gujarat state aims to be investment draw
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…
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Interview of Kumar Mangalam Birla
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…
WILL THE EUPHORIA REMAIN ?
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…
Letter from the Editor
THERE can be little more excitement for the media than to chronicle political events from inception to climax. Opportunities tend to be rare, but as…
ADB COMES UNDER FIRE FOR LENDING POLICIES
29 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 29, Reuter – The Asian Development Bank’s lending policies came under fire at…
Interview- Mercedes-Benz bullish on India Market
1 December 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Mercedes-Benz India Ltd is bullish about the Indian car…
BankAmerica committed to India wholesale banking
10 December 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 10 (Reuters) – BankAmerica Corp will sell its retail banking business in…
Japanese says Indian bureaucracy very “inflexible”
24 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 24 (Reuters) – Japan is keen on expanding investment in India but…
INTERVIEW-Philips India not slim enough, says MD
29 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 29 (Reuters) – Consumer electronics firm Philips India Ltd has shed nearly…
WIDOW OF INDIRA GANDHI ASSASSIN SET TO ENTER INDIA PARLIAMENT
23 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited CHAMKAUR SAHIB, India, Nov 23, Reuter – Long before Bimal Kaur Khalsa’s motorcade churns into…
BUSINESS NOT TOO WORRIED BY INDIA ELECTION OUTCOME
28 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, NOV 28, Reuters -Political instability in India may be in prospect after…
INDIA LOOKING TO SUBSTANTIAL AID FROM IMF, DONORS, OFFICIAL SAYS
27 August 1991 Reuters News English (c) 1991 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Reuters – India hopes to receive substantial financial aid from a consortium of donors…
INDIA WILL ASK IMF FOR MORE FUNDS – MINISTER
13 April 1992 Reuters News English (c) 1992 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Reuters – India intends to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for more contingency…
Marxist says one-party rule in India is “finished”
15 June 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited CALCUTTA, India, June 15 (Reuters) – India is not likely to see a return to…
INTERVIEW-India’s Tata bets on global market for growth.
9 December 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited BOMBAY, Dec 9 (Reuters) – India’s largest truck and bus maker Tata, riding a dramatic…
INTERVIEW-Hindalco eyes expansion, acquisitions for growth.
9 December 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited BOMBAY, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Hindalco Industries, a leading Indian maker of non-ferrous metals, aims…
Sri Lanka’s garment makers want trade, not aid
9 January 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited COLOMBO, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The only problem Sri Lanka’s intrepid garment makers faced after…
RBI will not allow rupee volatility – Chidambaram.
29 August 1997 14:33 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the rupee’s…
THE JANATA PARTY – Will It, Won’t It, Will It, Won’t It Split?
The Janata Party will soon split. The Janata Party has always been a loose coalition. The Janata Party’s constituents have view-points and ambitions that differ…
Woollen blankets, used clothing clog Sri Lanka aid pipeline.
8 January 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited SAMMANTHURAI, Sri Lanka, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Sitting cross-legged on the cramped, bucking floor…
ANALYSIS-Sri Lanka’s economy does not take tsunami lying down
7 January 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited COLOMBO, Jan 7 (Reuters) – More than 30,000 Sri Lankans lost their lives when the…
Growth and the challenge of compensating the losers
INDIA’S ECONOMY is barrelling along at a growth rate of over 9 per cent, savings rates are up, investments are up, more jobs are being…
India’s Infosys set to launch ADRs
3 December 1997 22:32 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Software firm Infosys Technologies Ltd is poised to…
FOCUS-India parliament leader bullish on democracy
7 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The speaker of India’s parliament said on Sunday democracy…
INTERVIEW-India can’t be ignored – A.T. Kearney CEO
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Global investors cannot afford to ignore India, but Indian…
The Rainmaker
The Mac II, launched on March 2. 1987, cost $5.500 and was the first computer with a colour graphical interface. Three years earlier Apple had…
India’s Best B-Schools
Spare a thought for Indian business schools’ Class of 2013. These young women and men will be heading out into a world where financial well-being…
Superhero Dreams
Song sung blue Everybody knows one Song sung blue Every garden grows one If you are of a certain vintage, you will have been moved…
New Business Families
The day this issue of Business Today went to press, IBM Corporation completed one hundred years. What started as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, manufacturing computing scales,…
Shine On, You Crazy Diamonds
I remember back in the 1970s, when a new India was just over a quarter of a century old, Geoffrey Moorhouse, in his foreword to…
Philippine Interest Payments Seen Rising
8 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 5 – The Philippines’ interest payments on its foreign debt will increase by…
Manila Debt Moves Could Disrupt Growth
30 July 1987 Reuters news (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 30 – Foreign debt has suddenly become a dirty phrase in Manila, but any…
Civilians Cheer as Fighting Rages at Manila Military Camp
28 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 28, Reuter – Buildings blazed and streets shook in Manila today in the…
Business Sees Coup Attempt As Warning to Aquino
31 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 31 – Manila’s stock markets held steady in the first session after Friday’s…
Breakout Companies
Raghuram Govind Rajan is a lucky man. Two weeks into his new job as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India his friend Ben Bernanke,…
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…
Turning Turtle
In 1908, when Henry Ford began making his revolutionary Model Ts on an assembly line in Detroit, there were 241 carmakers in the United States.…
Cheat Funds
Sometimes India’s economy resembles a rambunctious teenager brought up short by a finger-wagging headmaster. Our finance minister can now recite with his eyes closed a…
India’s Best CFOs
Business Today’s team of reporters was putting finishing touches to the BT-YES Bank Best CFO Survey starting on page 57. The 14 men and one…
God of Big Deals
Most of us are lucky if we get fifteen minutes of fame. You can be famous, but not rich. Fame is fleeting, and unless you…
Watch Your Step
Three economists are gazing at a glass half full of water. The optimist sees a glass half full. The pessimist sees a glass half empty.…
How I Did it
Companies and human beings are surprisingly similar. Over a long period of time we build an intricate geodesic dome of habits, rules. principles, emotions, likes…
The Best Companies to Work For
It was a bracing week: I started and ended it with conversations with honest men whose cleanliness shone through. Both had had something to do…
Best B-Schools
The word “flurry” is used to describe a sudden blast or gust, or a sudden commotion, and it. has been used frequently to label the…
How Samsung Moved Nokia’s Cheese
Competition is fierce and kicking in India, not least between business magazines. Which is why we love being flies on the wall as we watch…
Are Indian CEOs Overpaid?
The day before this issue of Business Today hits news stands, America will vote for a new president. The day after you invest less than…
INDIA : Return To Normalcy
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s dramatic announcement on January 18 that the Emergency in India is being relaxed and that elections to the Lok Sabha will…
Deal Chahta Hai
A laughter club in Mumbai is forced to “zip it” because a humourless neighbour is disturbed, not long after a 63-year-old cartoon unleashes a cleansing…
MRS GANDHI Vs. THE CHALLENGERS
Speaking about the 1971 elections to a Newsweek correspondent, Mrs Indira Gandhi had said: “I am the real issue in this election.” In 1977, too,…
The Best Advice I ever Got
When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, let it be …
How TCS Toppled RIL
What a fortnight it has been. We have plumbed new depths in animus and acrimony. Not a day goes by without a shrieking melee, either…
THE NEW DEAL IN NEW DELHI
There had been many signs of the anti-Congress wind in the final days of the 1977 election campaign, but its magnitude amazed the canniest political…
Pain: A Triple Whammy in 2012 Flat Income, High Prices & Shrinking Wealth
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is…
Prem Ji Is Back
By the time this issue of Business Today hits the news stands, voting for new governments in three Indian states will be completed. The seven-…
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.…
India’s Best CFOs
I once knew a Chief Financial Officer who took a course in “Interpersonal skills. Asked why he needed to learn to get along better with…
Budget Deficit
I remember when I was a child eating the only canned peas available then. They were hard, bland and left a metallic taste in my…
Buy Me, Buy Me Not
Stock markets and their behavior are an inexact science. Technical analysts will study head and shoulders patterns, Fibonacci retracements, stochastic oscillators and sundry chicken entrails…
Going Nowhere
I remember my first car with great fondness. It was a Fiat 1100D, and I crashed it barely a month after my wife and I…
When we invented the weekend newspaper
Hindustan Times on Saturday was launched on June 3 last year. It was a unique product and an unqualified success. Unique, because no other newspaper…
Arriving in the 21st century
I Experienced my epiphany about consumer media a couple of years ago on a Tokyo subway When I lived in Japan in the mid- 1990s,…
New Age Guru peps up India story believers
“When you were five years old, you were happy nearly all the time. Somebody had to make you unhappy Now you are 30-plus and have…
BAHUGUNA’S BLITZ
If Politics is the art of deception, the Congress(I) symbolises its highly developed state. After crying itself hoarse about its inability to conduct the Garhwal …
Reserve Bank-Money to Burn
Of all the functions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), there is one routine task crucial to the health of the economy: incinerating the…
Signs Of The Times
There was the baby-faced ex-pilot, all thumbs as he handled the controls in his political flight simulator; the rough-spun son of the, soil, a man…
Spoil Of Sycophancy
For all those journalists who think they belong to a thankless and poorly-paid profession, there is hope on the horizon. It comes from the latest…
Laldenga’s War-Dance
Events In Mizoram seems to be moving Inexorably towards a resumption of Insurgency The cease-fire agreement, which came into effect at midnight on July 31…
Uttar Pradesh – Peace of The Graveyard
I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun. Yes it is. Vishwanath Pratap Singh had cause to be…
Ends of Justice
Gauhati and Jorhat and small batches people took out processions in protest against the decision to hold the elections. Even political parties opposed to the…
Sharing Losses
Last week-end the seesaw battle being waged by Swraj Paul to take over Escorts and DCM slowed to a less suspenseful motion when the London-based…
Trouble Brewing
Gurdeep Singh Chadha – “Ponty” to those who nod at or fear him – is not an easy man to know. Many say the tax…
INTERVIEW Y.C. Deveshwar
YOGESH CHANDER DEVESHWAR has been with ITC for nearly 43 years. The past 15 years as chairman and chief executive. Having turned ITC into a…
TOILET -TRAINING INDIA
On September 25, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the Gates Foundation’s Global Goalkeepers Award in New York for his leadership of the Swachh…
BANK THE RESERVE
The Reserve Bank Of INDIA (RBI) IS the best-run company in India: transparent, diligent, accountable, and (ostensibly) independent. Its official capital is a paltry Rs…
SHOW ME THE JOBS
The government is striving mightily, but the needle is moving inexorably lower on the jobs meter. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and the…
A FIRST-RATE PROBLEM
India’s economy is lurching like a car with two flat rear tyres. The monsoon has been better than expected: a bumper kharif crop is expected,…
CLOSE,, BUT NO CIGAR
Finance Ministers take on a certain air when they think things are going swimmingly and nothing can rock the economy when it is cruising along.…
FINGER ON THE PULES?
Two-thirds of Indians depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. As our farm crisis deepens, the government is tinkering around the edges by pushing irrigation, rural…
KEEP THE BALLAST
Narendera Modi’s first term in office will be bracketed by malodorous stand-offs with two governors of the Reserve Bank of India. The bad blood between…
VIRAL FEVER
Start exercise your smartphone thumb, because the next big election will be fought on our mobiles. The latest Internet and Mobile Association of India survey…
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…