V. Vaidyanathan takes wing with a $17 million stake in a star NBFC By Chaitanya Kalbag 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. And if you happen to be sitting next to Vembu Vaidyanathan, a wiry, fast-talking…
Quit moaning and hear the good news, folks! India is going to be the world’s largest beef exporter in 2012, beating out Australia and Brazil with 1.4 million tonnes of buffalo meat hoofing it to distant shores. You may think the domestic economy is all blood and gore, but it is not. Last weekend, it…
Maruti will not end Contract-Worker System Simmering unrest among contract workers at the Manesar (Haryana) plant of Maruti Suzuki exploded in violence and arson on July 18; one HR executive died, and 96 employees were injured. Suzuki Motor Corp Chairman Osamu Suzuki made a point of visiting Manesar and meeting every injured worker during a…
There are companies which are defying the law…. We have taken a series of measures, says SEBI chief In the 20 months he has been Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, Upendra Kumar Sinha has taken several initiatives, but has also been involved in controversies. The Supreme Court order upholding SEBI’s decision…
Until July 1991, directors at Indian companies could not be paid more than ₹15,000 a month. Commissions as a percentage of net profits were permitted but capped at half the annual salary. Today, the top-paid director in India, steel tycoon Naveen Jindal, takes home more than ₹6 crore a month, and scores of Indian CEOs…
Development is not a Linear Process, says World Bank’s Country Director Roberto Zagha has been the World Bank’s Country Director in India since January 2009, when the economy was reeling from the global financial crisis and just before the national elections that brought the UPA back to power. Zagha, a Brazilian national, has been closely…
Everybody is going to die, but I am going to die last, says Vedanta’s chairman He started out as a scrap trader in Patna. Today, with a personal fortune of $3.5 billion, Anil Agarwal is one of the richest men in the world. Over the last three decades, he has transformed the Vedanta Group into…
The Method Man – Gujarat’s Chief Minister tells Chaitanya Kalbag in a wide-ranging interview that policy and process make a heady development cocktail Narendra Modi is not a tall man, but he exudes self-assurance and authority. There is something of the High Priest of Mohenjo-Daro about him, presiding at the altar of Capitalist Gujarat under…
‘Washington is Starting to Look Like Delhi’ Says British historian and Harvard University professor Niall Ferguson An erudite scholar, acclaimed author, and the William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, British historian Niall Ferguson wears several hats. At the India Today Conclave, Ferguson spoke on “American decline: Myth and Reality”. On…
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 created to fight corruption. The three men stood up, glowered at me, and began shouting in chorus. They ignored the business card I had introduced myself with. How dare I…
We Were Leaders, but We Were Not Leading, says Paranjpe Since June 2005, when he took up the mantle of Non-executive Chairman of Hindustan Unilever (then Hindustan Lever), Harish Manwani has seen three executive leadership changes at the consumer goods major. First, there were two managing directors, Arun Adhikari and S. Ravindranath, under him. Expat…
‘My Objective and My Company’s Objective is to be Future Ready’ 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 multi-product company no longer synonymous with cigarettes, he is seeking a five-year extension during which a successor will be…
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 banks will not be dumping their dollar assets, but there is no doubt that US power is waning. For a while there, it looked like we would all, lemming-like, race…
Edited excerpts of a conversation BT’s Chaitanya Kalbag and Josey Puliyenthuruthel had with GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt On the US economy Things are getting better in the United States. It’s a slow recovery, and some of that is based on how steep the crisis was, on consumer deleveraging, and the savings rate going…
The US economy needs India more than ever, says Barack Obama had barely walked out of Parliament’s Central Hall when the debate began on whether his India visit was “transactional” or “strategic”. It was neither. Obama, accompanied by an unusually large contingent of CEOs, many of them small and medium businessmen, was in search of…
“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 has managed to get things moving a bit in terms of a more positive attitude towards bilateral trade? It is very important to get things on the table to understand…
Nitish Kumar’s victory in last month’s Bihar election celebrates the triumph of economics over feudalism, but the climb out of poverty will be steep and hard. Schoolgirls on bicycles. Schools that actually function. Half of all panchayat posts are reserved for women. Close to 40,000 criminals were put behind bars. Roads that can be driven…
Can we even dream of saying bye-bye to China’s economy? Sushma swaraj said it simply in parliament in early August when she ruled out war with China over the Doklam plateau: “China has contributed to our growing economic strength. For them, there’s a lot at stake… here. They have been awarded many contracts.” That’s putting…
Importune your Maker, but not with impunity My family cracks up every time we watch Noises off, the rambunctious 1992 comedy. Maybe we find it funnier because we live in such a noisy nation. As India enters its 72nd year of freedom, we should declare independence from noise, and vow to liberate ourselves from religious…
Palliatives, pain-killers or band-aids: take your pick We are so frozen in the headlights of the onrushing slowdown that even a flicker leads us to believe that we have seen friendly djinns in the darkness. It is clear that Narendra Modi’s sixth year in power will be his worst in economic terms. The GDP is…