INTERVIEW-AMBIKA SONI
“WE WERE ALL COWARDS!” When Anand Mohan and Chaitanya Kalbag called on Mrs. Ambika Soni in Delhi on August 17, they expected her to come…
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INTERVIEW-L.K. ADVANI
INFORMATION & BROADCASTING MINISTER L.K. ADVANI ‘I Am Not Happy with The Pattern of Newspaper Ownership’ Transindia: Mr. Advani, many people feel today that the…
INTERVIEW-JANATA PARTY PRESIDENT CHANDRA SHEKHAR : Mrs. Gandhi Will Have To Answer To Many Things
Transindia: Mr. Chandra Shekhar, do you think you have one of the most thankless jobs in the country today, what with having to build up…
INTERVIEW-PRIME MINISTER MORARJI DESAI
‘Is Drinking A Ritual “? Then I Think ‘It Is Better to Close Our Diplomatic Missions!’ The appointment is at I pm at the Prime…
WILL THE EUPHORIA REMAIN ?
Gandhi must have been passing through an extremely clairvoyant phase when he came up with this statement in the Thirties. In the thirty years that…
Frozen in the Headlights
Poor Manmohan Singh is caught between the Pros and the Cons. The Pros in the Opposition are telling the prime minister, who has never seemed…
Governor’s Disgrace
EIGHTEEN hours after Haryana Governor Ganapatrao Devji Tapase committed the most undemocratic faux pas in India’s political history, he was cowering on a sofa in…
INTERVIEW : Brahmananda Reddy’
CONGRESS PARTY PRESIDENT- BRAHMANANDA REDDY “We Will Return to Power Soon” Transindia: Mr. Reddy, many people feel that the Congress Party has had a great…
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
The Best of intentions go awry sometimes. That aphorism has struck home at INDIA TODAY where the effort to do a job better and more…
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
DEMOCRACY sometimes teaches strange lessons, and the strangest of them all is currently being acted out in the remote North- eastern state of Assam. Since…
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
THERE are, said the poet Wallace Stevens, 13 ways of looking at a blackbird. The essence of that particular truth came home forcefully last fortnight…
Book Review: My Years in an Indian Prison
So much is being written about political prisoners in India these days, that the layman might succumb to the temptation of focusing more on the…
Letter from the Editor
THERE can be little more excitement for the media than to chronicle political events from inception to climax. Opportunities tend to be rare, but as…
India ponders prospect of a new Gandhi at its helm
13 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The resemblance to Indira Gandhi is eerie —…
Focus- Indian polls start “calm and confident”
16 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Indian voters queued up early on Monday to cast…
India wrestles with the wages of democracy
22 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (Reuters) – “Watch this space.” The website of India’s 112-year-old Congress…
India waits in trepidation for election result
1 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 1 (Reuters) – Indians waited uneasily on Sunday for official results from…
Who’s afraid of India’s Hindu nationalists?
3 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 3 (Reuters) – India’s Bharatiya Janata Party appeared tantalisingly close on…
Focus- India set for Hindu-led coalition government
10 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 10 (Reuters) – India was set on Tuesday for a new coalition…
India’s BJP wins power, but daunting task ahead
15 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 15 (Reuters) – Atal Behari Vajpayee received the green light on Sunday…
India’s Vajpayee tries to form coalition
16 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 16 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s Hindu-dominated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)…
Focus- Hindu leader Vajpayee takes power in India
19 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 19 (Reuters) – Hindu nationalist leader Atal Behari Vajpayee took office on…
Focus- India’s Congress hammers BJP in state polls
29 November 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India’s Congress party swept to electoral victory in three…
India’s Vajpayee should “go for broke”, rival says
29 November 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India’s wounded Bharatiya Janata Party should ram through an…
BankAmerica committed to India wholesale banking
10 December 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 10 (Reuters) – BankAmerica Corp will sell its retail banking business in…
ANALYSIS-India’s Sonia Gandhi plays brinkswoman
18 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 17 (Reuters) – Sonia Gandhi spent 16 years observing India’s most…
WIDOW OF INDIRA GANDHI ASSASSIN SET TO ENTER INDIA PARLIAMENT
23 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited CHAMKAUR SAHIB, India, Nov 23, Reuter – Long before Bimal Kaur Khalsa’s motorcade churns into…
EXHAUSTED GANDHI ENDS CAMPAIGN IN MUD, OPPOSITION JUBILANT
24 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited LUDHIANA, India, Nov 24, Reuter – Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wound up an exhausting…
TROOPS AT BATTLE STATIONS AS INDIA’S PUNJAB GOES TO THE POLLS
26 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited CHANDIGARH, India, Nov 26, Reuter – India’s bloody general election entered its final stage on…
STALLED PROJECT MAY HOLD CLUE TO COMMUNIST SUPPORT FOR GANDHI
27 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 27, Reuter – A giant petrochemical project could hold a clue…
BUSINESS NOT TOO WORRIED BY INDIA ELECTION OUTCOME
28 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, NOV 28, Reuter -Political instability in India may be in prospect after inconclusive…
INDIA LOOKING TO SUBSTANTIAL AID FROM IMF, DONORS, OFFICIAL SAYS
27 August 1991 Reuters News English (c) 1991 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Reuter – India hopes to receive substantial financial aid from a consortium of donors…
INDIA WILL ASK IMF FOR MORE FUNDS – MINISTER
13 April 1992 Reuters News English (c) 1992 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Reuters – India intends to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for more contingency…
WRAPUP-Indians vote wearily on first election day
5 September 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 5 (Reuters) – Little more than half of 166 million eligible voters…
RBI will not allow rupee volatility – Chidambaram.
29 August 1997 14:33 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 29 (Reuter) – Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the rupee’s…
Indian politics in convulsion, election beckons
20 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 20 (Reuters) – India faced the prospect of fresh elections on Thursday…
Keep Your Expectations Low
In a spirited panel discussion moderated by Business Today editor Chaitanya Kalbag, Yashwant Sinha, MP and former finance minister, M. Damodaran, former SEBI chairman, Satya…
India waits for next act in political drama
29 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India woke up on Saturday to a lame-duck government…
THE JANATA PARTY – Will It, Won’t It, Will It, Won’t It Split?
The Janata Party will soon split. The Janata Party has always been a loose coalition. The Janata Party’s constituents have view- points and ambitions that…
READING THE BAR CODES
“UPON MY WORD: India’s prisons are stuck in a time warp” STRANGE HOW time’s machine travels back and forth at warp speed. Two hundred and…
India stumbles towards an election nobody wants
28 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – India’s Congress party switched off the life support system…
Indian elections hold promise of more uncertainty.
7 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The word “pundit” is Sanskrit for “learned man,” and…
INTERVIEW-Hindu party pushes radical economics
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – India’s main opposition group will block the full convertibility…
Breakout Companies
Raghuram Govind Rajan is a lucky man. Two weeks into his new job as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India his friend Ben Bernanke,…
Cheat Funds
Sometimes India’s economy resembles a rambunctious teenager brought up short by a finger-wagging headmaster. Our finance minister can now recite with his eyes closed a…
Watch Your Step
Three economists are gazing at a glass half full of water. The optimist sees a glass half full. The pessimist sees a glass half empty.…
Are Indian CEOs Overpaid?
The day before this issue of Business Today hits news stands, America will vote for a new president. The day after you invest less than…
INDIA : Return To Normalcy
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s dramatic announcement on January 18 that the Emergency in India is being relaxed and that elections to the Lok Sabha will…
Deal Chahta Hai
A laughter club in Mumbai is forced to “zip it” because a humourless neighbour is disturbed, not long after a 63-year-old cartoon unleashes a cleansing…
Low On Gas
There are times when we at Business Today chafe at being a fortnightly. There is so much happening in business and the economy that we…
MRS GANDHI Vs. THE CHALLENGERS
Speaking about the 1971 elections to a Newsweek correspondent, Mrs Indira Gandhi had said: “I am the real issue in this election.” In 1977, too,…
THE NEW DEAL IN NEW DELHI
There had been many signs of the anti-Congress wind in the final days of the 1977 election campaign, but its magnitude amazed the canniest political…
Prem Ji Is Back
By the time this issue of Business Today hits the news stands, voting for new governments in three Indian states will be completed. The seven-…
Buy Me, Buy Me Not
Stock markets and their behavior are an inexact science. Technical analysts will study head and shoulders patterns, Fibonacci retracements, stochastic oscillators and sundry chicken entrails…
Going Nowhere
I remember my first car with great fondness. It was a Fiat 1100D, and I crashed it barely a month after my wife and I…
BAHUGUNA’S BLITZ
If Politics is the art of deception, the Congress(I) symbolises its highly developed state. After crying itself hoarse about its inability to conduct the Garhwal …
THE SCINDIAS-The Battle Royal
It Began as a small tiff, as all battles do. The two antagonists identities lent it a delicious irony: Vijaya Raje Scindia, the ex-Rajmata of…
RESERVE BANK-MONEY TO BURN
Of all the functions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), there is one routine task crucial to the health of the economy: incinerating the…
MADHYA PRADESH-MAKING OF A MARTYR
While it lasted, last fortnight’s nine-hour hostage hold-up in Congress(l) Member of Parliament Dalbir Singh’s.Delhi apartment generated wild images of urban terrorism on the loose.…
REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
Hiteswar Saikia was last Fortnight trying to settle into the hottest seat in India-the chief ministers hip of Assam. The diminutive, balding ‘politician had been…
The Burning Of Assam
The fuse has been burning for almost four years and the mood in the state has passed through all the faces of anger, despair and…
A State Ravaged
It was beyond the ken of a civilised society, a blood spattered vindication of a heartless government’s sudden constitutional piety. The carnage began with a…
FRIEND IN NEED
The Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (Rss) is everybody’s favourite bugbear. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would be accused of having a hand in the…
A BATTLE SUPREME
Titled Judiciary: At tacks and Survival, the speech had been long in coming, the speaker delayed, first by an attack of diabetes in March and…
MYSTERIOUS U-TURN
Although it is a blasphemous thought, it has cropped up in many a legal mind during the last few weeks: if bets were placed on…
JAGANNATH MISHRA-CLEARED BY THE COURT
HE INDIA-RUBBER man, Jagannath Mishra, had done it again. For months, the Bihar chief minister’s political fate had hung in the balance while the Supreme…
CHEATING THE HANGMAN
Convicted killers Billa and Ranga were expected to make headlines last fortnight. Make news, they certainly did, but not the way everybody anticipated. Instead of…
ENDS OF JUSTICE
Gauhati and Jorhat and small batches people took out processions in protest against the decision to hold the elections. Even political parties opposed to the…
PASSING THE BUCK
Nearly two months after a shocked Parliament was rocked by the Nellie and Gohpur massacres and the bloodbath that 9ad drenched Assam during February’s’ election…
HANGING FIRE
The Quality of justice seemed to be under tremendous strain last fortnight. At issue was the vexatious question of capital punishment. As usual, the shock…
UNTIL DEATH DO US PART
No Amount of civilised debate can take away from the savagery of the traditional Indian marriage. In the last few weeks, eight women have died…
SHARING LOSSES
Last week-end the seesaw battle being waged by Swraj Paul to take over Escorts and DCM slowed to a less suspenseful motion when the London-based…
AN UNCERTAIN LULL
SHEIKH Mohammad Abdullah’s health more than anything else has been responsible for the sudden thaw in Delhi-Srinagar relations For a while last month Kashmir teetered…
TAKEN FOR A RIDE
No point of no return was so final as the one Charan Singh and Devi La1 reached on July 21. The crusty Jat leaders have…
SNAG IN THE ROPE
Anticlimax has become the boon companion of the Supreme Court. When the court reopened on July 18 after its summer vacation, it was shadowed by…
A LONE PRIME MINISTER IN A NATION OF PRESIDENT
Quit moaning and hear the good news, folks! India is going to be the world’s largest beef exporter in 2012, beating out Australia and Brazil…
BANK THE RESERVE
The Reserve Bank Of INDIA (RBI) IS the best-run company in India: transparent, diligent, accountable, and (ostensibly) in dependent. Its official capital is a paltry…
A FIRST-RATE PROBLEM
India’s economy is lurching like a car with two flat rear tyres. The monsoon has been better than expected: a bumper kharif crop is expected,…
KEEP THE BALLAST
Narender Modi’s first term in office will be bracketed by malodorous stand-offs with two governors of the Reserve Bank of India. The bad blood between…
Identify Yourself
The Fates Of the four million people whose names did not appear in the ‘complete draft’ of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam…
NaMo the FMCG
If you want to decompress from the 2019 election campaign, and haven’t already donned the colours to be a cheering face in a shouting crowd…
Off the Blocks
For the second time in five years, I was struck by how apposite Rud-yard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ is in relation to Narendra Modi. At one…