Master of his Game
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…
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R. K. Narayan
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,…
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…
Letter From The Editor
THERE are, said the poet Wallace Stevens, 13 ways of looking at a blackbird. The essence of that particular truth came home forcefully last fortnight…
U.S. IN QUANDARY OVER MANILA SUGAR RE-EXPORT PLAN
8 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 8 – U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng is in a quandary over a…
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…
INDIA LIBERALISING AT OWN PACE, MINISTER SAYS
1 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 1, Reuter – India is loosening controls on industry, investment and imports but…
DESPITE FEUD, SAN MIGUEL RIDES HIGH ON BEER BOOM
9 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 9, Reuter – Thirsty Filipinos drank nearly a billion liters of San Miguel…
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…
PHILIPPINES WELCOMES U.S. SUGAR QUOTA INCREASE
26 July 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 26, Reuter – The Philippines welcomes a decision by the U.S. Department of…
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…
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…
INTERVIEW-India hopes to cut oil imports with new discoveries.
11 December 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 11 (Reuters) – India hopes to reduce its dependence on imported…
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…
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…
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…
10 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business
They say nothing sharpens our minds as much as high danger or a threat to our survival. We are prepared to stand and fight when…
Manila Unloads Sugar Stocks to curb price rise
17 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 17 – The Philippines” Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has ordered all its reserve…
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…
Manila Shake-up Will Restore Investor Confidence Minister
18 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 18, Reuter – President Corazon Aquino’s shake-up of top posts in her government…
Debt Repayment Ceiling Seen Hurting Philippines
24 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 24 – Any ceiling on debt repayments imposed by the Philippines would cut…
Philippines Poised for Risky debt showdown
28 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 28 – The Philippines is poised for a risky showdown with its…
Philippine Debt Accord Hangs in Balance
25 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 25 – The Philippines’ recent debt restructuring hangs in the balance after a…
The Best Companies to Work for
From the Editor At Business Today we write about companies all the time. Often, it is a top-down view. We meet the Chief Executive Officer,…
Not Measuring Up
From the Editor Exactly two years ago we ran a cover story on India’s skills crisis. This was just after Subramanian Ramadorai was named Adviser…
Turning Turtle
From the Editor In 1908, when Henry Ford began making his revolutionary Model Ts on an assembly line in Detroit, there were 241 carmakers in…
Philippine PESO falls to record low
8 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 8 – The Philippine peso plunged to a record low of 20.850 against…
India’s Best CFOs
From the Editor Business Today’s team of reporters was putting finishing touches to the BT-YES Bank Best CFO Survey starting on page 57. The 14…
Ready For Battle
From the Editor I remember sticking an aluminium one-yen coin and a copper one-US-cent coin to my computer screen in Tokyo around the mid-1990s and…
The Luxury Issue
From the Editor Looking down at my bowl of gazpacho at dinner one recent night. I realised that I do not own a single moustache…
Manila Races to Finalise Pivotal Debt Case
22 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 22 – The Philippine Central Bank and creditors of a private fertiliser firm…
Missing Murthy
Letter from Editor Within the space of a week, I met N.R. Narayana Murthy for a long and friendly conversation at his airy venture-capital office…
Broken IIT
From the Editor Many, many moons ago, I used to visit a cousin pursuing his B.Tech. programme at IIT Madras. The campus was beautiful; of…
India’s Coolest Start-Ups
From the Editor The US Congress stepped back just in time from the fiscal cliff, but Indian sensibilities about the Delhi gang rape and killing fell…
Philippines to Borrow Sugar From Thailand to meet sudden rise in Demand
20 November 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Nov 20 – The Philippines will borrow between 30,000 and 100,000 tonnes of…
How I Did it
From the Editor Companies and human beings are surprisingly similar. Over a long period of time we build an intricate geodesic dome of habits, rules.…
Philippines Expects Minimal U.S. Sugar Quota Cut
25 November 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Nov 25 – The Philippines has been warned that the United States is planning…
The Best Companies to Work For
From the Editor It was a bracing week: I started and ended it with conversations with honest men whose cleanliness shone through. Both had had…
Hooks & Crooks
From the Editor I remember a composite satellite photograph of the world taken at night time. One country stood out like a black blotch on…
India’s Best CFOs: Tips From The Finest Financial Brains
From the Editor I have a confession to make. Many moons ago, I studied to be an accountant and despite one of the world’s toughest…
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…
Deconstructing HCC
From the Editor The deeper we sail into the economic doldrums, the greater is the wonderment that there is so much locked-up promise in India…
Low On Gas
From the Editor There are times when we at Business Today chafe at being a fortnightly. There is so much happening in business and the…
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…
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…
India’s Best Banks
Pity the modern banker, who is described in one of the stories in this issue as “pin-striped”. In India, of course, some of the most…
India’s Most Valuable Companies
If you look down from a helicopter at any of India’s teeming cities you will see millions of people scurrying around using every known form…
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.…
Modi Unlimited
Coasting down the six-lane highway from Ahmedabad to Gandhinagar, wheels barely touching the asphalt, it is tempting to forget that you are in the India…
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…
Hindustan Unilever Is Working Up A Lather
“Chamko… kapdon ke liye behtereen sabun. Bar-bar, lagatar. Chamko. Kapdon mein chakachaundh chamak lane ke liye. Khushbudar, jhaagwala-Chamko.” Romance blooms when charming salesgirl Deepti Naval…
The haze before dawn
Do you know what a “dominant undertaking” is Suresh Krishna does. The Chairman and Managing Director of Sundram Fasteners lived every day with the provisions…
India’s Skilling Field
“Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up…
Are We Disaster Ready?
When I lived in Tokyo in the early 1990s, children at my daughter’s school could clamber into an “earthquake truck” for a foretaste of what…
The Takeover Man
Most of us are cursed with poor memory. We need episodic markers to help us measure our lives from one significant remembrance to another. Our…
The Most Powerful Women In Indian Business
Early this month I travelled to Agra to walk barefoot around the Taj Mahal, the only wonder of the world that stands in honour of…
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…
India’s Best Fund Manager
Have you heard the story about Warren Buffett, the 215 millionaires, and the coin-flipping orangutans? It takes some telling and you will have to buy…
Brats at Work
H for Hitler. A for arrogant, R for rascal, I for idiot …” I’m sure many of us remember the “Hari Sadu” commercial about the…
India Economic Summit
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…
Tyre Prices – Vastly Over-Inflated
Tyres are one essential commodity over which the Government seems to exert no control whatsoever. In the last six months prices have risen twice. And…
The Tightening Noose
Rope-Making On Summer nights all over north India. people put out hundreds of thousands of cots in the open air to sleep on Most of…
BHEL – Power Problem
Even since Bharat Heavy Electricals limited (BHEL) Set up its prestigious Research and Development (R & D) Division in August 1978, the corporation has been…
FIREFILES CAUGHT IN A LOGJAM
Without second-generation reforms and a drastic overhaul of its institutions, India is condemned to mediocre income and growth. As befits an ancient land, India is…
THIS YEAR WE WILL FALL SHORT OF THE TARGET
It has been two years since you took charge. How are you tackling the skilling challenge? The scale of the problem is huge. A combination…
Uncertainty Principle
A disgraced Ranbaxy has a long and expensive journey ahead before it regains the trust of global and Indian customers. By E. Kumar Sharma and…
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…
WE LOST THE PLOT
Kishore Biyani reveals why he sold a controlling stake in his flagship Pantaloons stores to the Aditya Birla Group in a candid conversation with Chaitanya…
HOW TO DO A MANAGEMENT BUYOUT AT 30,000 FEET
The next time you are flying somewhere, do not bury your nose in a book or plug in your earphones. Take a good look around.…
Interview: Osamu Suzuki
MARUTI WILL NOT END Simmering unrest among contract workers at the Manesar (Haryana) plant of Maruti Suzuki exploded in violence and arson on July 18;…
Interview: Upendra Kumar
“There are companies which are defying the law…. We have taken a series of measures.” In the 20 months he has been Chairman of the…
CEO COMPANSATION
SWIMMING IN IT Until July 1991, directors at Indian companies could not be paid more than ₹15,000 a month. Commissions as a percentage of net…
WHO WILL CAST THE FIRST STONE?
The Jan Lokpal Bill may need to move from idealism to realism; the solution may also lie in granting independence and teeth to existing agencies…
“WE WERE LEADER BUT WE WERE NOT LEADING”
HUL contributes just 6.3 per cent to Unilever’s global revenues. Where does India stand among emerging markets? Manwani: Emerging markets are not just important; they…
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…
Lemmings or Llamas?
The US is on life support, and Asian creditors led by China, which holds $1.16 trillion of US treasuries, control the intravenous drip. Asian central…
Most Powerful Women in Business
“In India, I See a Lot More Acceptance of Gender in the Workplace” Do you think the India-US CEO Forum you are a member of…
Great Stress Test
It’s good we now have a GST, but its design is another matter Since you all love acronyms for the Good and Simple Tax and…
Waterless World
How melting Himalayan glaciers and Chennai’s dry taps are connected Time was when ‘Glacial Speed’ used to mean ‘very, very slowly’. That has changed forever.…
Hell For Leather
Shutting Kanpur’s tanneries has not helped the Ganga much Hell for leather means to run very fast, but the leather industry in and around Kanpur…