Accountancy
Mind over management
A DISCIPLINE as ordered and professional as financial management may seem a world away from psychology, but the two are more compatible than most people think. The first management psychologists were pioneering techniques in business more than 70 years a
go and they succeeded in turning the practice into a serious and important resource for business. The fresh approaches it brought to tasks were seen as important and useful tools, and the principle of psychologists helping to boost commercial profits soo
n gained credibility.
Gooey, yukky
OVER the last hundred hours or so, the TV in my office has been on throughout. All my staff know by now the sequence of events, blow by blow or, more appropriately, frame by frame. Whenever a new tape is shown, we suspend whatever we would be doing and g
lue our eyes to the small screen. The busy ones, who have to manage Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, have minimised the IE with Web sites reporting the latest developments.
Time to end the dissonance
THE GLOBALISATION of capital markets and the cross-border raising of capital by companies -- more particularly by developing countries from the developed -- is facilitated by the listing of companies in foreign capital markets. This leads to consolidatio
n problems (in the financial reports of the parent company) -- encountered even in cross-border operations through associates, subsidiaries and joint ventures.
Banking and Finance
Sleeping coins
ONE of those many things that are constantly in use in society, the origin and growth of which still does not interest people in general, is money. It may be because we are influenced to think that ``money is what money does''. But its history is quite f
ascinating. Initially, it came into being as the system of barter proved to be both cumbersome and impractical. Starting with various objects such as sea-shells and even salt as a common, acceptable medium of exchange in some societies, the process ended
with costly metals such as silver and gold. In recent times, paper currency and valid bank documents are being accepted.
Economy
Privatising a public sector debacle?
Indeed, the operation of an effective market economy necessitates that investment funds committed to capital projects that do not accurately reflect consumer and business preferences should incur losses and ultimately be liquidated. What value is left ne
eds to be redirected to profitable uses, those that more accurately reflect market preferences. By such winnowing of inefficiencies, productivity is enhanced and standards of living expand over time. -- Mr Alan Greenspan, Chairman, US Federal Reserve Boa
rd.
Editorial
Merger gameplan
THE MERGER BETWEEN Birla-AT&T-Tata combine and BPL Communications signals a new milestone in the `consolidation' process in the telecommunications sector which began some 18 months ago in the cellular arena.
Miscellaneous
A question of trust
HOW do you leave 20 million investors completely in the lurch and still manage to justify your actions? Mr B. C. Daga, executive director, Unit Trust of India, tried vainly to defend UTI's decision to ban sales and repurchases in the US-64 scheme. ``Ulti
mately any scheme will reflect what is happening in the market,'' he said to STAR News on Tuesday night, as though the country's largest mutual fund was no more than a mere spectator.
Politics
Maran, Baalu had right of private defence
UNDER the Indian Penal Code, every person has a right to defend his own body, and the body of any other person, against any offence affecting the human body, and movable or immovable property belonging to him or of any other person against any act which
is an offence under the definition of theft, robbery, mischief or criminal trespass or constitutes an attempt to that end.
Musharraf: Beginning of end?
``IN THE face of such attacks on his legitimacy, there has been speculation in Islamabad that before going to New Delhi, the General might ease out President Mohammed Rafique Tarar and have himself sworn in as President under the Provisional Constitution
al Order (PCO), and issue an Ordinance of indemnity pardoning all those who had participated in the coup.'' -- Extract from the writer's article dated June 15 carried by the Web site of a New Delhi think-tank.
