Civil War
UNION Home Minister Prakash Chand Sethi has elevated the art of governance to a fine degree of pettifoggery. Political interference in the bureaucracy is not…
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
NEWS does not have to scream from the headlines to be news. In fact, it is probably one of the failings of the media that…
Japanese says Indian bureaucracy very “inflexible”
24 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 24 (Reuters) – Japan is keen on expanding investment in India but…
Marxist says one-party rule in India is “finished”
15 June 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited CALCUTTA, India, June 15 (Reuters) – India is not likely to see a return to…
The Best Companies to Work for
At Business Today we write about companies all the time. Often, it is a top-down view. We meet the Chief Executive Officer, the senior members…
The Luxury Issue
Looking down at my bowl of gazpacho at dinner one recent night. I realised that I do not own a single moustache spoon, with guards,…
BUREAUCRACY-THE POWER THAT BE
All private secretaries to Union ministers are equal, but S.R. Bhatia is more equal. Bhatia is the private secretary to Prakash Chand Sethi, the Union…
FAITH, HOPE AND NO CHARITY
The International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) began with a bang: the National Federation of the Blind led its members in a vociferous agitation in…
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…
MIZORAM-A RETURN TO ARMS
Not for nothing has Mizo National Front (MNF) President Laldenga acquired a reputation for being a cool and calculating man. Towards the end of 1981,…
LABOUR – MAKING A POINT
RARELY had an event invited such determined and concerted action by Union Government: When the 24-hour national strike called by the National Campaign Committee (NCC)…
PRISONERS- FIGHTING FOR A CAUSE
The salaried middle classes have time and again fallen prey to the Government’s more capricious economic decisions. But, one group that has suffered the most…
FINDING A VOICE
Politics cinema, like the new wave of the mid-’70s, has long acquired a pejorative meaning in India. At most, a political film that catches the…
UTTAR PRADESH – PEACE OF THE GRAVEYARD
I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun. Yes it is. Vishwanath Pratap Singh had cause to be…
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…
HOLLOWING OUT
Privatisation will work only when the government sells more than 50 per cent of a state-owned company’s capital to the public and relinquishes management control.…
SELL SELL SELL
Two numbers speak eloquently about our schizophrenia over privatisation: the Rs 2.11 trillion ($32.5 billion) package announced on October 24 to recapitalise public-sector banks (PSBs);…