29 November 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India’s Congress party swept to electoral victory in three key states on Sunday, raising the prospect of a power struggle with the Hindu nationalist-led central government. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said she was in no hurry to oust the…
29 November 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India’s wounded Bharatiya Janata Party should ram through an agenda of bold economic reform in the aftermath of its humbling in three key provincial elections, a senior official of the rival Congress party said on Sunday. Voters spoke with…
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 market despite the nation’s “feel bad” economy, managing director Till Becker de Freitas said. “There is a ‘feel bad” factor which is not reflected in reality. I know a lot…
10 December 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 10 (Reuters) – BankAmerica Corp will sell its retail banking business in India but remains committed to its wholesale banking business in the country, a senior bank official said on Thursday. “The bank will continue its wholesale banking business in India,” Josephine…
29 March 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 29 (Reuters) – At least nine people died in two north Indian towns hit by a severe cluster of earthquakes early on Monday, police said, and more casualties were expected as news trickled in from the remote mountainous region. The first powerful…
25 April 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, April 25 (Reuters) – What do a former housewife who speaks Italian-accented Hindi, a former movie glamour girl now dubbed a “Revolutionary Leader”, and the world’s longest serving elected communist leader have in common? All three unlikely partners have struggled over the…
18 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 17 (Reuters) – Sonia Gandhi spent 16 years observing India’s most consummate political chess player – her mother-in-law – and on Monday showed she knew a gambit or two. Faced with a revolt by three veteran colleagues, the Italian-born Sonia handed…
26 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 25 (Reuters) – Afghan mercenaries, likely commanded by Pakistani army officers, have dug themselves into high positions on India’s side of a ceasefire line dividing Kashmir, a senior Indian defence official said on Tuesday. Three weeks of sharp skirmishing has raised temperatures…
24 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 24 (Reuters) – Japan is keen on expanding investment in India but finds its bureaucracy extremely inflexible, a senior Japanese official said on Thursday. Nobuaki Tanaka, deputy director-general in Japan’s Foreign Ministry, said India accounts for a minuscule 0.25 percent of Japan’s…
28 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 28 (Reuters) – India’s Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral has caused anger and confusion in both his country and neighboring Pakistan with an apparent about-face on talks with Muslim militants in Kashmir. Gujral stunned friends and foes alike on Saturday by announcing during…
26 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 26 (Reuters) – India on Wednesday launched its first peacetime air strikes in Kashmir and warned Pakistan not to interfere as New Delhi used force to dislodge guerrillas. The raids marked the worst turn in ties with Pakistan since the neighbours tested…
27 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 27 (Reuters) – India was on a roll on Wednesday. It unleashed a stunning series of air strikes against Muslim guerrillas holed up in the hostile heights of Kashmir. It successfully test-fired a naval version of its short-range surface-to-air Trishul missile, joined…
28 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 27 (Reuters) – India suffered a sharp reverse on Thursday in its air strikes against high-altitude intruders in Kashmir but lashed out angrily at Pakistan for its “hostile and provocative” act of downing two Indian jet fighters. The bitter foes stood close…
27 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 26 (Reuters) – India unleashed two waves of air strikes on Wednesday to flush out guerrillas dug in on its side of a Kashmir ceasefire line, sharply raising temperatures on the nuclear-armed subcontinent. The use of air power was India’s first…
29 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 28 (Reuters) – India suffered a second setback on Friday in its air campaign to root out infiltrators from its part of Kashmir when guerrillas brought down an attack helicopter with a Stinger missile, killing all four crewmen. The use of the…
29 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 28 (Reuters) – India suffered a second setback on Friday in an air campaign to root out infiltrators from its part of Kashmir when guerrillas brought down an attack helicopter with a Stinger missile, killing all four crewmen. The use of the…
30 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 30 (Reuters) – A top Indian official said on Sunday it was up to Pakistan to “undo what it has done” in Kashmir if the nuclear-armed neighbours were to step back from a growing confrontation over the Himalayan territory. “When other…
20 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, NOV 20, Reuters – Whoever wins this week’s Indian elections will face some knotty economic problems, but analysts believe the nation will continue to open up to the world. “Liberalisation will have to continue whichever government comes in. This is economic reality,” said…
1 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 1 (Reuters) – India will not halt its air and ground assault against “infiltrators” in Kashmir even if Pakistan’s foreign minister arrives in New Delhi for talks on the crisis, senior Indian officials said on Tuesday. “There is no pre-condition” for the…
21 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 21, Reuters – The leader of an increasingly powerful rightwing Hindu party said on Tuesday that India faces instability if the opposition alliance he backs wins this week’s elections. Lal Krishna Advani of the revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was harsh in…
2 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 1 (Reuters) – India’s External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said on Tuesday there would be “no relenting” on air and ground operations in Kashmir, and accused Pakistan’s military of connivance with “armed intruders”. “There will be no relenting on any ground operations…
21 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited Calcutta, Nov 21, Reuters – The six Bengalis splashing around a fire hydrant inches from cursing bus-drivers in the evening traffic are worried about their daily bath. “Election? What election? I have a holiday on polling day and plan to visit my mother,” says Barun…
13 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 13 (Reuters) – India and Pakistan, daggers drawn in Kashmir, held a dialogue of the deaf on Saturday. The stand-off set some Indian newspapers speculating whether they were on the path to a wider war. India is waging a costly air and…
22 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, NOV 22, Reuter – Political instability likely to result from this week’s elections could dangerously slow India’s economic growth, economic analysts said. They said the new government could also face a resource crisis brought on by plunging foreign exchange reserves, unbridled domestic demand…
17 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 17 (Reuters) – India’s Finance Secretary Vijay Kelkar said on Thursday the economy was on a high growth path and was expected to grow at over six percent in 1999/2000 (April-March). “The economy is now on a higher growth path. In 1999/2000,…
22 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Reuter – Political instability likely to result from this week’s elections could slow India’s growth dangerously, analysts said on Wednesday. They said the new government would also face a resource crisis brought on by plunging foreign exchange reserves, unbridled domestic demand and a…
29 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 29 (Reuters) – Consumer electronics firm Philips India Ltd has shed nearly a third of its staff over the past five years, but is still not slim enough to achieve optimum shareholder value, its chief said. Asked if Philips India, 51 percent-owned…
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 dusty view across the Punjab countryside, the waiting crowds are chanting militant Sikh slogans. Khalsa, widow of one of prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassins, has come to symbolise the anger…
4 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 4 (Reuters) – India’s commanders are fighting with “one arm tied behind them” as they contain battles in Kashmir within Indian territory and resist the temptation to widen the theatre of combat, senior defence officials say. In conversations over the weekend with…
24 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited LUDHIANA, India, Nov 24, Reuter – At least 26 people were killed on Friday on the second day of India’s general election, taking the death toll in the three-stage poll in the world’s largest democracy to 60. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi meanwhile brought his campaign…
8 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 8 (Reuters) – India’s army has recaptured key points in Kashmir and eased the pressure on a strategic highway, but there are still more than 1,000 infiltrators clinging to high ridges, a senior defence official said on Thursday. Painting a detailed picture…
24 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited LUDHIANA, India, Nov 24, Reuters – Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wound up an exhausting election campaign on Friday, addressing a sparse crowd standing up to its ankles in mud. Chief rival Vishwanath Pratap Singh ended his campaign jubilant. “Congress will be routed,” Singh told…
18 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 18 (Reuters) – Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh on Sunday urged Pakistan to endorse the “inviolability” of a military control line in Kashmir and halt support for Islamic militants in Indian territory. “Inherent in the inviolability aspect of the LOC is certainly…
26 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited CHANDIGARH, India, Nov 26, Reuters – India’s bloody general election entered its final stage on Sunday with an exit poll from earlier voting predicting that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi faces major losses. The survey, conducted by the independent India Today magazine, forecast neither Gandhi nor…
27 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 27, Reuter – A giant petrochemical project could hold a clue to whether India’s main communist party will throw its weight behind Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as he heads towards an election defeat. Gandhi’s Congress party appeared on Monday to be…
28 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, NOV 28, Reuters – Political instability in India may be in prospect after inconclusive national elections, but industrialists and economists said they expected business to carry on as usual. They said industry’s energetic growth over the past five years had generated its own…
27 August 1991 Reuters News English (c) 1991 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Reuters – India hopes to receive substantial financial aid from a consortium of donors next month, Finance Secretary Sriranga Shukla said on Tuesday. Shukla, in Tokyo for talks ahead of the September 19-20 meeting in Paris, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World…
13 April 1992 Reuters News English (c) 1992 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Reuters – India intends to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for more contingency funds, although foreign reserves are at a very comfortable level, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh said. Singh, who has spearheaded a series of sweeping reforms that have turned India’s socialist economic…
6 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NAMBLA, India, Aug 6 (Reuters) – The people of Nambla are sitting ducks in the world’s deadliest game of target practice, and their fear hangs in the air, thick with the smell of cordite. At least 500 Pakistani shells have landed in this once idyllic…
8 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 8 (Reuters) – India rejects fears by “yesterday’s imperialists or today’s new imperialists” that it may not be able to handle its nuclear arsenal, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said on Saturday. Asked to comment on Western fears that India and Pakistan lacked…
31 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 31 (Reuters) – India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Monday he had “irrefutable evidence” that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been kept in the dark by his military commanders about the Kashmir infiltration. But Fernandes, speaking to Reuters in an…
31 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 31 (Reuters) – India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Monday he was sure Pakistan’s military chiefs would not resort to the use of nuclear weapons against India because they would “liquidate” their own country In the process. Asked if the Kashmir…
13 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 13 (Reuters) – Watching vanquished Islamic guerrillas retreat to Pakistan, India’s top general fears they will return as Islamabad reverts to running a “proxy war” in Kashmir. Chief of Army Staff General Ved Prakash Malik said comments by Pakistan’s political leaders in…
18 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 18 (Reuters) – India’s military intelligence chief said on Sunday that Pakistan’s foray in disputed Kashmir had been “tactically ambitious, but strategically a disaster”. But India would have to keep troops in the area to fend off future attacks, Lieutenant-General R.K. Sawhney…
5 September 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 5 (Reuters) – Little more than half of 166 million eligible voters took part in the first round of India’s general election on Sunday in a poll widely predicted to deliver the first majority government in 15 years. Five people died in…
22 April 1993 Reuters News English (c) 1993 Reuters Limited TOKYO, April 22, Reuters – One of the architects of India’s radical economic reforms said on Thursday the changes sweeping the country were irreversible despite recent religious and political strife. “Now there is no doubt about the permanence and irreversibility of reform. You cannot re-erect…
15 April 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited ISLAMABAD, April 15 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s foreign minister on Tuesday warned India of massive retaliation if it tried to launch a pre-emptive strike on his country, arguing that Islamabad had a more advanced missile programme than New Delhi. Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri described as “irresponsible”…
21 September 1994 Reuters News English (c) 1994 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Sept 21 (Reuters) – India’s new telecommunications policy will open the domestic market to foreign firms, end a century-old state monopoly and aim to provide 60 telephones for every 1,000 people by 2000, a minister said on Wednesday. India now has 9.64 telephones per…
6 February 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 6 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s Kashmir region said on Thursday he did not think a nuclear war would erupt on the subcontinent over the disputed territory. “I think India has never thought of using a nuclear option, and Pakistan would…
26 March 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 26 (Reuters) – Salman Haidar will be an immovable object facing a resistible force when he sits down this Friday for India’s first talks with Pakistan in three years. Haidar, India’s Foreign Secretary or seniormost diplomat, inspires strong feelings, not all warm,…
27 May 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 27 (Reuters) – India is determined to grant autonomy to state-controlled television and radio, Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy said. Reddy, a leader of the Janata Dal, the largest group in India’s ruling centre-left coalition, told Reuters in an interview late…
15 June 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited CALCUTTA, India, June 15 (Reuters) – India is not likely to see a return to one-party rule, a leader of the current ruling coalition said. Jyoti Basu said his Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), which has made a success of multi-party politics, had valuable…
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 return to profits and fuelled by new global ambitions, expects to see explosive growth starting in 2006, a senior executive said on Tuesday. Ravi Kant, executive director of the commercial…
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 to expand its aluminium and copper capacity through expansion and acquisitions to attain global reach, its managing director said on Tuesday. Hindalco is the flagship of India’s third-largest conglomerate by…
28 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 28 (Reuter) – India’s Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral performed one more of his apparent policy flip-flops over the weekend, this time over the sensitive issue of Kashmir. Gujral stunned friends and foes alike on Saturday by holding out an olive branch…
11 December 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 11 (Reuters) – India hopes to reduce its dependence on imported crude to half its requirement in seven years from 70 percent as a result of new domestic oil and gas discoveries, Oil Minister Ram Naik told Reuters on Thursday. “This…
14 August 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (Reuters) – India’s leaders gathered in their parliament’s majestic Central Hall on Thursday night to relive their nation’s “tryst with destiny” a half-century ago. The vast domed chamber, its thick warm air stirred ineffectually by ancient fans, was packed with lawmakers…
15 August 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (Reuters) – India put on a dazzling show of fireworks, laser beams and parades capped early on Friday by a solemn ceremony in parliament that relived the moment 50 years ago when the subcontinent won independence. Thousands of people led by…
Reuters News 5 September 1997 English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 6 (Reuters) – An Indian bureaucrat who wrote two biographies of Mother Teresa remembers her as a woman with a mischievous sense of humour who wielded formidable administrative skill to control her worldwide organisation. “It was a very special morning,” Navin Chawla…
29 August 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the rupee’s volatility had subsided and the policy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was to intervene to prevent volatility and speculative activity in the market. “The value of the rupee will be…
15 October 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Queen Elizabeth’s visit to India was hit by fresh controversy on Wednesday after an apparent misunderstanding over the protocol of her giving a speech in a provincial capital. British officials told reporters the Indian government had cancelled the speech…
16 September 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 16 (Reuter) – India’s government, clearly alarmed by a fiscal deficit that was threatening to soar out of control, moved on Tuesday to boost revenues with a host of steps including a jump in import tariffs and a cut in federal spending. …
20 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 20 (Reuters) – India faced the prospect of fresh elections on Thursday as the country was convulsed by a frenzy of political gamesmanship. The only real question appeared to be when, not whether, the new polls would be held. “It may happen…
30 September 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 30 (Reuters) – A militant group in Kashmir on Tuesday said an exhumed body was that of the group’s leader and not one of four missing Western hostages as suspected. The chief of police in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state said forensic…
19 October 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Oct 19 (Reuters) – India looked back in frustration on Sunday at a visit by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth that read like a “how not to” catalogue of perceived insults and diplomatic missteps. The state visit, to mark India’s 50th year of freedom from…
16 October 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Oct 16 (Reuters) – Queen Elizabeth’s tour of India slid deeper into controversy on Thursday with sources close to the Indian government charging that Britain’s ruling Labour Party had a “hidden agenda” to create an independent Kashmir region. Even as British officials scrambled…
“In India, I See a Lot More Acceptance of Gender in the Workplace” DuPont Chair & CEO ELLEN KULLMAN in conversation with CHAITANYA KALBAG. Edited excerpts: Do you think the India-US CEO Forum you are a member of has managed to get things moving a bit in terms of a more positive attitude towards bilateral…
In a spirited panel discussion moderated by Business Today editor Chaitanya Kalbag, Yashwant Sinha, MP and former finance minister, M. Damodaran, former SEBI chairman, Satya Poddar, Partner, Ernst & Young, Samiran Chakraborty, Regional Head of Research, Standard Chartered Bank and Nilesh Shah, President, Corporate Finance, Axis Bank, shared their views. Edited excerpts Chaitanya Kalbag: All…
27 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 27 (Reuters) – “May you be the mother of a hundred sons.” That benediction has been called down upon generations of Hindu brides in India, but the country’s junior health minister Renuka Chowdhury has a new mantra: “One is fun.” Some demographers…
29 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India woke up on Saturday to a lame-duck government and a political crisis that only deepened after Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral’s resignation. Newspapers were cynical about what lay ahead and ran banner headlines like “Experiment Coalition: Abort, Fail,…
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 too widely. The Janata Party was a short-lived experiment in democracy. Opinions like these began to rotate slowly in the air when hardly a few months had passed after the…
“Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.” …
Suddenly that unsporting term, Race, reared its colored head above the British horizon towards mid-1976. 19-year-old Dinesh Chaudhuri, and a Palestinian friend, were stabbed to death in London’s Woodford area on May 21. Gurdip Singh Chaggar, another teenaged Sikh youth, was killed on June 4 in Southall. On June 12, a white youth was murdered…
This mid-December afternoon, the Ear detects the rumble of Old Man 76 gasping through his last lap, and the first stirrings of Childe 77. Here are some optimistic predictions for the twelvemonth ahead disregarding the doomsday projections of Malthusian midwives who expect 1977 to be stillborn: The Labor Party in Britain will label Margaret “Thatcher…
In his first media interaction since The Walt Disney Company took over UTV, RONNIE SCREWVALA, now turned employee, tells CHAITANYA KALBAG and AJITA SHASHIDHAR how he intends to take the company to greater heights. How difficult was it to transition from a successful entrepreneur-driven company to being a part of a large global company? UTV…
‘I have to follow capitalism’ It is like being thrown about in an ideological cocktail shaker. You get off a gleaming passenger jet and drive over a soaring expressway to the 227-year-old Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata to meet a very capitalist communist politician. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee says there is no place for…
Despite the crisis, a clear message must be sent to the investor community that India is open for business. There was an initial spurt of excitement after the new Reserve Bank of India governor was announced. Professor (Raghuram) Rajan is obviously highly accomplished. But there is only a very limited amount the central bank can…
“I use the word ‘blue collar’ purposefully at Xerox. It is the heart and soul of most economies” URSULA BURNS is the first African-American woman Chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 company and she wears that badge with some pride. Her logic for that is simple: she needs to inspire others-and get some mileage…
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 created, and inflation appears to be under control. So have we hit our stride? Have we chanced upon the right development model for the huge, tumultuous democracy that we are?…
India must construct an enlightened climate change policy ‘Food Prices set to rise as floods ruin crops’. ‘Prime Minister promises aid to flood victims’. Does that sound like a recent edition of the Hindustan Times? Wait a minute. These headlines are from a British newspaper. A week ago, I was walking through a huge tropical…
The Civil Services still remain a big draw Fresh out of South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi made a particularly strong speech in Benares in February. He was gloomy about Indians earning the right to self-governance. He said a British member of the “much-abused” Indian Civil Service (ICS) had asked him to put in a good word…
“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 fifty-one years ago, Siraj-ud-Daulah demonstrated what an overcrowded prison can do to human beings with the Black Hole of Calcutta. “Figure to yourself, my friend, if possible, the situation of…
The old city is giving way to a new bright-eyed metropolis Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!” Outside, Ambassador taxis were inching along the flooded street. The electricity would go the moment you hung up your…
The utter oddity of 21st century India still dancing to the tune of caste 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, common men follow the right paths out of fear if that were destroyed, where could we…
19 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 19 (Reuters) – India’s lack of “grit” in pursuing its costly military foray into northern Sri Lanka may have led to Rajiv Gandhi’s 1991 murder by a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber, New Delhi’s former envoy to Colombo said on Wednesday. “If…
28 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India’s Congress party switched off the life support system of the minority government on Friday, but in the process may have hastened its own death throes. Twice in the past 13 years Congress has ridden to power on a…
3 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Software firm Infosys Technologies Ltd is poised to become the first Indian firm to raise new capital through American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), chairman and managing director N.R. Narayana Murthy said on Wednesday. The blue-chip Infosys announced on Tuesday that…
7 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The word “pundit” is Sanskrit for “learned man,” and in India they were busy at the weekend trying to divine what lay ahead for the world’s most populous democracy. This much was clear — no single party was likely…
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 had taken deep root in his country a half-century after independence, and all parties would speak the language of economic reform will go ahead,” Purno Sangma, speaker of the Lok…
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – India’s main opposition group will block the full convertibility of the rupee, favour foreign investment only if it goes into infrastructure and shake out state firms if it wins power, its chief planner said on Monday. Jay Dubashi, chief…
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Global investors cannot afford to ignore India, but Indian companies need to prove that they can compete in developed markets, Fred Steingraber, chief executive officer of A.T. Kearney Inc., said on Monday. “I don’t think anybody is prepared to…
9 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 9 (Reuters) – India will accelerate its drive to increase electricity generation and is looking for huge funds to meet the nation’s power deficit, Power Minister Yoginder Alagh said on Tuesday. “Between now and March it will be faster and not slower,”…
18 May 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 18 (Reuters) – India is looking to become a major oil products exporter while it aggressively chases foreign petroleum assets and sharply boosts imports of gas, the “fuel of the 21st Century”, its oil minister said on Wednesday. Mani Shankar Aiyar also…
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 by these Neil Diamond lines, sung on a hot August night almost exactly 40 years ago. This steamy August, India has been convulsed by the sudden expelling of decades of…
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, time clocks, and even coffee grinders, quickly grew into Big Blue, a vast global presence in computing under Tom Watson. Senior and Junior, building its power on the mainframe. Like…
Reuter News Agency 18 December 1984 The Globe and Mail BHOPAL, India (Reuter) – More than half the poison chemical remaining at a Union Carbide plant has been neutralized, but thousands of city residents refuse to return home to the site of the world’s worst industrial disaster. Arjun Singh, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh State,…
Reuter News Agency 9 March 1986 The Toronto Star SRINAGAR, INDIA — “The large-scale arson, pillage, plunder and desecration of our temples in last month’s attacks was aimed at creating conditions for the mass exodus of Hindus,” says Hindu Action Committee leader Bal Krishna Handoo. “If we quit Kashmir we will be handing it on…
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 his “Calcutta” wrote: “The imperial residue of Calcutta, a generation after Empire ended. is both a monstrous and a marvellous city. Journalism and television have given us a rough idea…
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 we are cornered. Twenty-two years ago, when we were staring into the abyss, we pulled a reformist rabbit out of our socialist hat. But it took just about five years…
From the Editor These are extraordinary times and we witness extraordinary phenomena. Three weeks before the Union Budget, when finance ministers customarily crawl under their carapaces, the honourable Member of Parliament from Sivaganga delivered a rousing speech on national security. What he said, with feeling and not a little frustration, was that we Indians seem…