The Hindu Business Line : Friday, April 01, 2005

Squeeze the import power
STUNG BY INDIA raising sharply the Customs duty on the palm group of oils, major producers in Asia have decided to band together to strengthen their bargaining power. World's top two producer-exporters Malaysia and Indonesia together with ... More

ECONOMY

West Bengal: The perception and reality
MOST times, economic development is viewed in terms of industrialisation. While the latter is essential for economic transformation, it is not as if economic growth is not possible without industrialisation. The ... More

FOREX

Nothing macho about forex reserves
Foreign exchange reserves play an irreplaceable role in many emerging economies. Any comparison of India and China harps on the reserves of the latter. But the accretion to China's reserves is a necessity that fills a critical gap. It is inapt to mak e a virtue of such a necessity. There is nothing macho at all about China's reserves of $610 billion. India needs forex reserves only because it does not trust the market to dynamically fill the demand-supply gap, says G. Ramachandran. More

INFRASTRUCTURE

Pumping up the infrastructure sector
Faster progress on infrastructure largely depends on both effective demand for projects and proper usage of funds. What is required is a policy that can protect the interests of consumers and simultaneously create healthy competition between the publ ic and private sectors, by encouraging the latter to invest through better regulatory and delivery mechanisms. More

POLITICS

Oil for greasing
THIS newspaper can take legitimate pride that it was the first to expose, in an article "Oil as weapon of mass corruption" by the author published on October 15, 2004, the shady deals masquerading as UN Oil-for-Food ... More

FOODS & FOOD PROCESSING

`Baby is a blank cheque made payable to the human race'
NAUGHTY as always, some celebrity wags are watching the waistline of Britney Spears, and speculating `baby on board', but Johnson & Johnson, and Wipro have a different `baby' on their boards' agenda. If the recent ... More

BANKING

New bank chairmen, thou shall and shalt not...
IN THE next two years, many nationalised banks will have new chairmen. Most of them will be first timers. Newspaper reports indicate that even bank general managers may be considered for the top post, since the ... More

LETTERS

A welcome decision

Non-proliferation — a myth

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