American Periscope
Hail to the chief
IT WAS a mystery for quite some time as to who would succeed the chief. The front-runners for the job were readily known and the press made projections now and then but which were proven wrong. It all seemed to drag on for too long and developments kept
postponing the announcement further. And now, finally, we know the answer. No, I am not talking about who will be the next President of the US. I am talking about who will succeed Mr Jack Welch as the Chief Executive Officer of General Electric (GE).
Corporate
Too good to scrap
Imported scrap, a vital input in steel manufacture, awaits clearance at the private docks of Essar Steel Limited, in Hazira, Gujarat.
Editorial
Time to set sail
THE RECENTLY-RELEASED annual review of Indian National Shipowners' Association for 1999-2000 makes out a strong case for policy support to enable the shipping industry augment its fleet taking advantage of the current favourable circumstances.
Environment
`We want to influence environment for better' -- Mr Peter Kimm, Executive Director, USAEP
The United States Asia Environment Partnership (USAEP), a collaboration between governmental agencies and the private sector in the US, to work in the area of environment in the Asian countries, has been active in India for half a decade now. The aim of
the Partnership is to link American environmental goods and services (and also funding to procure them) with the needs in the Asian countries.
Food & Dairy Products
Food muddle of a starving nation
OF LATE, there has been considerable debate on how the country should dispose of its surplus food stocks, but not enough on how it should produce more. The attitudes and positions have been partisan. On the one hand the country has a massive buffer-stock
of foodgrains, while, on the other, millions -- poor working men, pregnant mothers and malnourished children -- cannot scrape together two meals a day.
Miscellaneous
Security studies
THE Society for Security Studies (SSS) inaugurated on December 2, at Chennai, fills a deeply felt void in an area of immense significance in the new context when the multifarious ramifications of information technology and communications revolution have
made security truly indivisible. National security has come a long way from having a mere geo-political salience to getting inextricably intertwined with security on the economic, food and energy fronts. A country faced with acute food shortages, for ins
tance, becomes an easy prey to instability resulting, internally, from violent upheavals, and externally, from the use of food aid as a formidable weapon to pressure it the donor wants exploiting its desperate straits.
States
Games people play
AMONG the issues that have hogged the headlines during the past couple of weeks is that relating to the moves to bring peace to Jammu and Kashmir. At one level, there is no doubt whatever that Mr Vajpayee's Government is making a sincere effort to forge
a long-term settlement of the issue. At another, there is the nagging doubt that all the goings-on, though seriously intended to bring peace, essentially boil down to the act of scoring a point over one's opponent in a long-drawn-out battle, there being
hardly any expectation of a clear ``victory'' materialising in the near future.
