Budget
Where are the jobs, Mr Sinha?
WHILE the corporate sector and industry associations have welcomed Budget 2001, as it largely follows the agenda set by them, the Opposition and trade unions have described it as `rudderless' and `anti-poor'.
Economy
Transfer pricing -- Preserving the golden egg-laying goose
THE FINANCE Bill 2001-02 has introduced detailed provisions for transfer pricing legislation based on the recommendations of an expert committee set up by the Government to examine the issue in the light of prevailing international practices.
Editorial
Saving RBI?
THE ANNOUNCEMENT BY the Global Trust Bank Board calling off its merger plans with UTI Bank seems designed primarily to save the Reserve Bank of India some awkwardness in having to decide on the merger. This becomes apparent from the reason given by the G
TB management -- of misgivings, presumably in the public mind, that the bank might have propped up its share price to secure for its shareholders a more favourable share exchange ratio. Continuing in that vein, it said that it would be onerous to live wi
th the memory of such an accusation. The truth is that if it finds the burden of such a charge difficult to live with, post-merger, then it should be equally so even if the merger does not go through.
Foreign Trade
India's missed opportunities
HERE are three instances typifying the Indian official and non-official attitude towards Gulf countries, told to me with ill-concealed dismay by persons prominent in public life in Oman. These, I was assured, are among many such similar gaffes committed
every time India has to deal with any of these countries on matters to which they attach great importance, and on which they look to India for taking the lead.
Miscellaneous
Runway rage!
HUMAN beings are fast degenerating into bundles of rages: Home rage, workplace rage, campus rage, customer rage and road rage.
Politics
Great Indian dream
I DO love India for its quirks. I cannot wait to open the newspaper to discover the great quirks in this country. As a writer, no matter how I stretch the imagination, the paper will report a situation that boggles the mind. The report is always very str
aightforward, so I suspect newspapers do not have a great sense of satire. Or maybe, because it is so straightforward, a sense of satire may be lurking beneath the bland newsprint.
