Column: Why our rulers want people to remain poor
Deep down, our rulers don't want the aam admi to get out of his rut. Why the middle-class across the world is angry
There are few periods in human history that have seen worldwide expressions of middle-class angst like the current one has. How Indian policy makers made a mess of the finances
It is customary at this time of the year to look back and assess how the year set to end in a few days went by. Government in ICU, economy in ICCU
One wants to partner success, not failure: this is especially true of global investors. Once Indian entrepreneurs invest and are successful, foreign investment will partner them. Why 2012 may be GOOD for Indian economy
If the government can get even a minimalist agenda going while improving its management of infrastructure, and if the Reserve Bank of India can cut interest rates quickly, the Indian script for 2012 could change. Silver lining in the dark clouds
Companies are focusing on building a larger market base through mass market or alternative product variants, shedding premium tags for technically advanced products, providing cost efficient solutions and exploring synergies to match the ever decreasing customer threshold for consumption against the grim economic background. COLUMN: India needs to rethink the notion of 'smart cities'
Influx of millions of rural hopefuls chasing the middle-class dream will stretch the capacity of cities, says Ayesha Khanna. COLUMN: Towards catastrophic 4-degree global warming
Durban will create climate apartheid, under which rich polluters evade responsibility, but underprivileged people suffer the worst effects of climate change for which they are least responsible. Leaders in a hall of mirrors
Most corporate bosses suffer from delusions of indispensability. Little known and MEGA events will reshape future
As the year 2011 comes to a close we are faced with extremes of hope and despair. Ho-hum, so the Lok Sabha discussed black money, what's new?
Can a corrupt revenue system be trusted to keep confidences when oodles of money are involved, asks Mahesh Vijapurkar India's root problem? Labour laws
The answer to the problems of high inflation and slowing growth, and low farm incomes, would lie in addressing the basic reforms that India is still to attempt -- like labour laws, says T N Ninan. India is not going to hell
To read the daily papers, it would seem that India is going directly to hell. UPA-II must close ranks behind its only workable big idea
The committee's objections are a curious mixture; some attack the very basis of the project, others question its implementation. Consume or Kill? Save or Spend?
'The public are being told to consume more, even in China and India. A part of the global problem is being attributed to the saving patterns of people in Asia and we are being told that greater demand and consumption in BRIC countries can help ease the pain of the developed world,' says B S Prakash. Can the government muzzle websites?
Legal experts say under existing Indian cyber laws, Sibal cannot do much harm to Google, Yahoo, Facebook or the like. They are not so clear on whether it can be done, or to what extent. Would you go for Walmart or 'Agarwalmart'?
Indian retail chains have not put small stores out of business. Sibal's move to control Internet is wrong
Government wants social-networking websites to pre-screen content. Wanted: System change not climate change
Many people who recognise the grave implications of climate change find it difficult to grapple with it. The problem is too big and thinking about it can be unbearable, says Rajni Bakshi. Why the Opposition is wrong and FDI in retail is good for India
With the middleman being bypassed, the farmer will get more money and the end-consumer will benefit as prices will fall, says Suhel Seth. Should drug prices be regulated?
Medicines are not commodities. FDI in retail: Whom are you kidding, Mr PM?
In India, it is markets that sustain the farmers and not subsidies. We are therefore importing a failed model from America. Averting climate talks disaster: What India should DO
Catastrophic, irreversible climate change represents the gravest threat today to human civilisation. The great mobile phone robbery!
It is estimated that 840 million Indians lose their mobile phones. How euro crisis can change Europe
Stratfor analyses the predicament of the states caught between a changing euro zone and a resurgent Russia. It's more than change of boss at Tata
Tata is separating management from shareholding control. FDI in Retail: The Dangers Ahead
'Hundreds of thousands of people who earn their livelihood from the 12 million existing retail outlets may be put out of business by Big Retail,' says Bhavdeep Kang. Column: Rising disparity: How to bridge the gap?
India's disappointing human development status is well known. It is a virtual tailender among the newly emerging BRICS economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa which are expected to become the engine of global economic growth as the developed countries slow down. Solve this employee harassment case and win Rs 25,000
An alleged case of harassment against one of his employees by business associates puts an hotelier in the biggest crisis of his career. US-India partnership can bring poor into knowledge pool
It is time for the US to reposition its foreign policy. Are UPA's long-term policies counterproductive?
The only option is to cool demand. In other words, cut back on spending and aim for slower growth. Sanjaya Baru: America's strategic Pacific offensive!
The United States is creating a new strategic framework for the 21st century and its Trans-Pacific Partnership is just one of the pillars of the new edifice, says Sanjaya Baru. Surreal setting for Dr Singh-Obama talks in Bali
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would have his tete-a-tete with Obama in Bali in a surreal setting, says MK Bhadrakumar, and draws comparisons to the US-China encounter in Honolulu Future Quotient: Just what is it all about?
Future Quotient (FQ) is both an idea and a business concept designed to measure the ability to think and act not merely for the present but future generations. COLUMN: The investor's dilemma
India Inc will regain its appetite for investing only when better governance improves the market mood. COLUMN: Has the rupee truly recovered?
The near-vertical rise in rupee volatility (from 5.4 per cent to 9.5 per cent) since mid-August, accompanied by a collapse in the rupee to below 50 to the dollar, has rattled most companies. While the rupee has recovered somewhat, volatility – and nervousness – remains high. New York and the New World
Financialised masses not only provide feedstock inputs but are also voters whose political support for funded savings cannot be taken for granted, says Ajit Balakrishnan. Decline, recession, stagflation, crisis, crunch...
'Every slide in the power point presentation had a graph with years like 2006, 2008, 2010 on the X axis... Most lines seemed to lie inert horizontally and many seemed to dip despondently, except the red line for China which seemed to rise triumphantly in each slide...' B S Prakash attends the World Economic Forum's Latin American version. COLUMN: Will America see economic revolution?
US financial sector not only dominates the US economy, it also in effect controls the US politics, policies and programmes. Why India is grappling with labour issues
Although India is a labour-surplus economy with an unlimited number of workers willing to work at a subsistence wage a paradoxical feature of the labour market is the rising incidence of scarcity or shortages amid a situation of potential plenty. This is how India can sustain its growth
In 2008-09 boosting consumption helped sustain growth. Now it's investment that needs a boost. How to eliminate corruption? Abolish the laws
Inexplicably, the Law Minister does not realise that all these economic crimes are highly damaging to our economy and social fabric. Corporate culture: Why US beats India!
The practice of corporate inheritance is so ingrained in Indian corporate culture that no one really thinks about it. Botched debate over poverty line: A Catch-22 for UPA?
The manner in which the government and the political opposition in Delhi have been guilt-tripped into this debate on the poverty line is a reflection of a broader phenomenon that has taken root within the minds of the thinking class at large, says Shashi Shekhar. What do Wall Street protests mean for India?
As the agitation, which claims to speak for 99 per cent Americans, spreads to many cities across the United States of America it is evoking a range of responses here -- from admiration to scorn. The 'bogey' of green clearances
Environment is holding up growth and economic development is a common refrain. Sino-Indian trade marked by caution and suspicion
More than 200 Indian companies have invested in China. Why rich nations are not happier than poor countries
The policy lesson from the complex relationship between income growth and well-being is to accelerate growth. The story of Kasimbazar's networks
If you do not know much about Kasimbazar, I would not hold it against you; after all it has a population of only 10,000 and lies in one of the most neglected corners of the state of West Bengal. Steve Jobs: The CEO as auteur
Mr Jobs's place in management history is assured for being the model CEO who spent his waking hours obsessing about making their products 'insanely great', says Ajit Balakrishnan. 2G scam: Some questions without answers
If improving tele-density was the avowed objective, what is the benchmark? At what level of tele-density will the government auction spectrum? And that is the crux of the issue. Why India should take lesson from Greece
It is now the Greeks who have been gifted a 'Trojan' horse. Is it too late for govt to improve economic mood?
Managing expectations lies at the core of economic governance in a modern economy. Rs 32 a day: Playing dirty politics with the poor
'Second-generation neoliberal policies, coupled with multiple failures on the food front, could do to the UPA what India Shining did to the NDA in 2004,' says Praful Bidwai. Why the strange quest for privacy on Facebook?
Facebook, the world's biggest social networking website, is attempting to become the one-stop media hub for its 750 million users. ICAI: Mis-governance and a tin of ghee!
The functioning of the ICAI has come under greater public scrutiny and at times it is unable to meet the high expectations from its members and general public. Surely, something is wrong somewhere, says M R Venkatesh. Important infra projects mirred in trouble
With such projects not getting commissioned on schedule, growth target of nine per cent will remain elusive. Savers in dilemma over channelling excessive capital
Heart of any economy is the mechanism by which funds are channelled from savers to investors. Can global consciousness be mapped by machines?
The answer appears to be a tentative yes, says Rajni Bakshi. The story of Air India's slow death
In popular perception, the villain of the piece is former civil aviation minister Praful Patel. Steve Jobs: The role model CEO
Mr Jobs' resignation has prompted various eulogies, with many aptly calling him America's greatest industrialist ranked right up there with the likes of Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie. But many also made references to his "micro-managing". Corruption: Time to get religion on the issue
Now that the crowds have gone home, Anna Hazare is back in Ralegan Siddhi, and the TV Rottweilers are looking for other ways to boost their rating points, we can have a rational debate about not just the Lok Pal but the larger issue of corruption. Why an 'insider' will SUCCEED Ratan Tata
But even if we set aside suspicions of future nepotism, the search committee could have saved itself a lot of time if it had taken that decision from the start. SPECIAL: No jargon please, talk sense managers!
Management-speak is all about disguising simplicity with complexity. The failing health of India's higher education
Students seem to trip up when it comes to applying what they have learnt in one context to solve a similar problem in another context. What is the KEY to India's economic success?
The key to the success of India's 12th Plan lies in what state governments can and will do. The business of banking
Jaimini Bhagwati assesses the key points in RBI's discussion paper on new bank licences. Black money: UPA government loves tax evaders
'Considering that there was an estimated Rs 10 lakh crores of Indian money stolen and kept in foreign tax havens, the UPA government with one stroke of its tainted pen has granted immunity to tax-evaders who had stashed the loot in tax havens.' Freedom, hurt sentiments and dissent
Demanding that we all fit into a black and white framing of any dispute undermines democratic culture. PIX: How India can be a global business powerhouse
Marketers need to build on the country's core values to strengthen Brand India's presence abroad. Aura of America's economic might has faded
The US political system might not be as broke as some thought but the deal came a bit too late to allay apprehensions. Crisis? US will still remain on top
Economics may be shifting power from the West to the East but the US would remain on top. US crisis: How to stop the scary rise of debt
There is need for trans-national political mobilization in favour of more equitable systems, says Rajni Bakshi. Only the RICH can live comfortably in India
Only those who can "afford" to not depend on the Indian state can live comfortably in it. MUST READ: Why the US debt crisis will hit us all
At the core of the present conundrum are certain fundamental theories of macroeconomics -- much of which was debated, celebrated and even imposed on others -- without even considering the possibility that such ideas could be plainly wrong or unworkable in entirely different circumstances, countries or cultures. India to become mobile manufacturing hub
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