THE HUMAN TRAGEDY
It is a war without end, a no-win situation in which nobody can provide answers to some questions: How long will this go on? Which…
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The Don of Dhanbad
DHANBAD’s dreaded Mafia gangs were riveting topics of conversation last fortnight, and for different reasons. Film actor Shatrughan Sinha, with the blessings of the ruling…
India’s Gujarat state aims to be investment draw
8 December 1997 21:23 Reuters News English ( c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – India’s Gujarat state aims to be a…
Interview of Kumar Mangalam Birla
Few of us know that KUMAR MANGALAM BIRLA, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, produced the critically acclaimed Hindi movie Black. Or that he has…
From Words to Blows
VIOLENCE is an unfortunate fact of life in Delhi University. That was bloodily emphasized on February 16 when Dilip Simeon, 32. history lecturer at Ramjas…
FEELIN’GOOD
IT IS GOOD THAT WE ARE FEELING BUCKED UP AT THE BEGINNING of 2018. Major economies expect growth in tandem for the first time since…
MANILA OUTLINES 1988 BORROWING, BUDGET PLANS
7 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 7 – The Philippine government will issue treasury bills and notes totalling 29.8…
Focus- Hindu leader says he target of India bombs
14 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 14 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s main opposition party said…
Deadly blast Triggers riots in South India
15 February 1998 The Washington Post A30 Copyright 1998, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved The leader of India’s main opposition party said today…
PHILIPPINES MOVES TO SPEED UP DEBT/EQUITY SWAPS
19 February 1988 Reuters News (c) 1988 Reuters Limited English MANILA, Feb 19 – The Philippines plans to speed up its sluggish debt/equity swap program,…
PHILIPPINES BIT PLAYER IN DEBT REFORM – FERNANDEZ
19 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 19 – The Philippines’ 27.8 billion dollar foreign debt makes it a bit…
MANILA SPECULATORS PLAY ROULETTE WITH OIL STOCKS
18 March 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, March 18, Reuter – Volatile penny oil stocks have raised trading on Manila’s two…
Interview- India’s Sinha wants to go for growth
2 June 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 2 (Reuters) – India’s Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha put up a spirited…
Interview- India targets not just “hope and prayer”
3 June 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 3 (Reuters) – India’s fiscal targets for the current year are not…
PHILIPPINE GNP SEEN GROWING 6.1 PCT IN 1988
4 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 4, Reuter – The Philippines’ gross national product (GNP) is expected to expand…
JAPAN STRUGGLES TO USE ADB TO RECYCLE SURPLUSES
20 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 20, Reuter – Japan’s attempt to use the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to…
India’s weary Kashmiris told- “Go see a movie”
7 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited SRINAGAR, India, Aug 6 (Reuters) – A who’s who of Indian Kashmiris turned out in…
India general sees no danger of nuclear exchange
6 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited SRINAGAR, India, Aug 6 (Reuters) – The general commanding Indian troops in the tinderbox Kashmir…
Indian soldier caught in grinding Kashmir strife
9 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited BARAMULLA, India, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Mahendra Kumar is a typical “sepoy”, the lowest rank…
Interview- Mercedes-Benz bullish on India Market
1 December 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Mercedes-Benz India Ltd is bullish about the Indian car…
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…
Nepal aims at independent central bank
22 May 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited KATHMANDU, May 22 (Reuter) – Nepal’s coalition government plans to grant the Himalayan kingdom’s central…
Japanese says Indian bureaucracy very “inflexible”
24 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 24 (Reuter) – Japan is keen on expanding investment in India but…
PHILIPPINES TO ASK BANKS, IMF FOR NEW LOANS
28 July 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 28, Reuter – The Philippines plans to approach its creditor banks for a…
INTERVIEW-Philips India not slim enough, says MD
29 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 29 (Reuters) – Consumer electronics firm Philips India Ltd has shed nearly…
26 KILLED ON SECOND DAY OF INDIA’S GENERAL ELECTION
24 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited LUDHIANA, India, Nov 24, Reuter – At least 26 people were killed on Friday on…
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…
JAPAN APPROVES $87 MILLION SPENDING PLAN
29 August 1992 Los Angeles Daily News Valley B2 English (Copyright 1992) The Japanese government Friday approved an $87 billion spending package – the nation’s…
Reuters journalist buried in Australia
28 November 2001 Reuters News English (c) 2001 Reuters Limited HOBART, Australia, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Australian Harry Burton, a Reuters cameraman killed with…
Japan’s economy sinks deeper into mire
14 September 1993 Reuters News English (c) 1993 Reuters Limited TOKYO, Sept 14 (Reuter) – Japan’s sickly economy has been contracting as its stubborn trade…
INTERVIEW-Pakistan says US policies polarise world
14 April 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited ISLAMABAD, April 14 (Reuters) – Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror,…
Marxist says one-party rule in India is “finished”
15 June 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited CALCUTTA, India, June 15 (Reuter) – India is not likely to see a return to…
INTERVIEW-India’s Tata bets on global market for growth.
9 December 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited BOMBAY, Dec 9 (Reuters) – India’s largest truck and bus maker Tata, riding a dramatic…
INTERVIEW-Hindalco eyes expansion, acquisitions for growth.
9 December 2003 Reuters News English (c) 2003 Reuters Limited BOMBAY, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Hindalco Industries, a leading Indian maker of non-ferrous metals, aims…
India relives midnight “tryst with destiny”
14 August 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (Reuter) – India’s leaders gathered in their parliament’s majestic Central Hall…
Sri Lanka’s garment makers want trade, not aid
9 January 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited COLOMBO, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The only problem Sri Lanka’s intrepid garment makers faced after…
India celebrates half-century of independence
15 August 1997 08:15 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (Reuter) – India put on a dazzling show of fireworks,…
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…
India raises import duties to fight deficit
16 September 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 16 (Reuter) – India’s government, clearly alarmed by a fiscal deficit that…
Woollen blankets, used clothing clog Sri Lanka aid pipeline.
8 January 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited SAMMANTHURAI, Sri Lanka, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Sitting cross-legged on the cramped, bucking floor…
ANALYSIS-Sri Lanka’s economy does not take tsunami lying down
7 January 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited COLOMBO, Jan 7 (Reuters) – More than 30,000 Sri Lankans lost their lives when the…
What the Government Needs to Do Now
Despite the crisis, a clear message must be sent to the investor community that India is open for business. There was an initial spurt of…
Growth and the challenge of compensating the losers
INDIA’S ECONOMY is barrelling along at a growth rate of over 9 per cent, savings rates are up, investments are up, more jobs are being…
The Dauphin and the Figurehead
Timing is everything, and with a number of state elections soon, leading to the general election next year, the cynicism and opportunism are manifest. The…
Earthy Tales
Last week I was on a flight to Mumbai About two hours in, the captain an- nounced that there was unseasonal heavy rain ahead and…
Malaysia says has dismantled Islamic terror cells
21 June 2005 20:30 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 (Reuters) – Malaysia declared victory on Tuesday in its internal…
India’s Infosys set to launch ADRs
3 December 1997 22:32 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Software firm Infosys Technologies Ltd is poised to…
Malaysia says foreign planes may help hunt pirates
21 June 2005 21:10 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 (Reuters) – Malaysia proposed on Tuesday that foreign surveillance planes…
FOCUS-India parliament leader bullish on democracy
7 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The speaker of India’s parliament said on Sunday democracy…
INTERVIEW-India can’t be ignored – A.T.Kearney CEO
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Global investors cannot afford to ignore India, but Indian…
The Rainmaker
The Mac II, launched on March 2. 1987, cost $5.500 and was the first computer with a colour graphical interface. Three years earlier Apple had…
India’s Best B-Schools
Spare a thought for Indian business schools’ Class of 2013. These young women and men will be heading out into a world where financial well-being…
Superhero Dreams
Song sung blue Everybody knows one Song sung blue Every garden grows one If you are of a certain vintage, you will have been moved…
New Business Families
The day this issue of Business Today went to press, IBM Corporation completed one hundred years. What started as the Computing- Tabulating-Recording Company, manufacturing computing scales,…
Shine On, You Crazy Diamonds
I remember back in the 1970s, when a new India was just over a quarter of a century old, Geoffrey Moorhouse, in his foreword to…
CHRIST AND COMMUNISM MAKE EXPLOSIVE MIX IN PHILIPPINES
REUTERS 16 April 1987 The Seattle times Third B7 (Copyright 1987) MANILA _ Weeks of fierce fighting between government troops and communist insurgents have highlighted…
10 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business
They say nothing sharpens our minds as much as high danger or a threat to our survival. We are prepared to stand and fight when…
PHILIPPINE INTEREST PAYMENTS SEEN RISING
8 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 5 – The Philippines’ interest payments on its foreign debt will increase by…
MANILA DEBT MOVES COULD DISRUPT GROWTH – ANALYSTS
30 July 1987 Reuters news (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 30 – Foreign debt has suddenly become a dirty phrase in Manila, but any…
CIVILIANS CHEER AS FIGHTING RAGES AT MANILA MILITARY CAMP
28 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 28, Reuter – Buildings blazed and streets shook in Manila today in the…
BUSINESS SEES COUP ATTEMPT AS WARNING TO AQUINO
31 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 31 – Manila’s stock markets held steady in the first session after Friday’s…
India’s Most Valuable Companies
Once every year, we pay obeisance to the best and strongest companies in India. It is not grudging admiration. Our corporate icons deserve every bit…
Not Measuring Up
Exactly two years ago we ran a cover story on India’s skills crisis. This was just after Subramanian Ramadorai was named Adviser to the Prime…
Turning Turtle
In 1908, when Henry Ford began making his revolutionary Model Ts on an assembly line in Detroit, there were 241 carmakers in the United States.…
India’s Best CFOs
Business Today’s team of reporters was putting finishing touches to the BT-YES Bank Best CFO Survey starting on page 57. The 14 men and one…
God of Big Deals
Most of us are lucky if we get fifteen minutes of fame. You can be famous, but not rich. Fame is fleeting, and unless you…
How I Did it
Companies and human beings are surprisingly similar. Over a long period of time we build an intricate geodesic dome of habits, rules. principles, emotions, likes…
The Best Companies to Work For
It was a bracing week: I started and ended it with conversations with honest men whose cleanliness shone through. Both had had something to do…
India’s Best CFOs: Tips From The Finest Financial Brains
I have a confession to make. Many moons ago, I studied to be an accountant and despite one of the world’s toughest entry barriers with…
Best B-Schools
The word “flurry” is used to describe a sudden blast or gust, or a sudden commotion, and it. has been used frequently to label the…
How Samsung Moved Nokia’s Cheese
Competition is fierce and kicking in India, not least between business magazines. Which is why we love being flies on the wall as we watch…
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…
The Best Advice I ever Got
When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, let it be …
How TCS Toppled RIL
What a fortnight it has been. We have plumbed new depths in animus and acrimony. Not a day goes by without a shrieking melee, either…
Pain: A Triple Whammy in 2012 Flat Income, High Prices & Shrinking Wealth
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is…
IT’S THE ELECTION, STUPID
The economy is whirling around in a populist spiral Pranab Mukherjee is starting to look worryingly like a feckless heir squandering his generous inheritance while…
Eight Innovations That Delighted Consumers and What India can Learn From Them
I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet, in time, by labour, application, and con- trivance, I found at last that I…
India’s Coolest Start-Ups
Some things were on a fast track as the heat dragged us into the dog days of June, and some were on a slow track.…
India’s Best CFOs
I once knew a Chief Financial Officer who took a course in “Interpersonal skills. Asked why he needed to learn to get along better with…
Budget Deficit
I remember when I was a child eating the only canned peas available then. They were hard, bland and left a metallic taste in my…
Home Truths
And now at the end he found himself in his own house, on his own half-lot of land, his own portion of the earth. That…
When we invented the weekend newspaper
Hindustan Times on Saturday was launched on June 3 last year. It was a unique product and an unqualified success. Unique, because no other newspaper…
Arriving in the 21st century
I Experienced my epiphany about consumer media a couple of years ago on a Tokyo subway When I lived in Japan in the mid- 1990s,…
New Age Guru peps up India story believers
“When you were five years old, you were happy nearly all the time. Somebody had to make you unhappy Now you are 30-plus and have…
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…
EXCISE DUTY-MORE SLAPS THAN SOPS
RANAB MUKHERJEE’s first budget, at first glance so redolent of status quo, is peppered with little booby traps. Two paragraphs in his speech have caused…
ITC-HAKSAR’S LAST HURRAH
Sentimentality rarely intrudes in to shareholders’ meetings, but this one was different. Over 3,000 had gathered in the incongruous setting of a Calcutta cathedral compound…
HAKSAR’S LAST HURRAH
Sentimentality rarely intrudes in to shareholders’ meetings, but this one was different. Over 3,000 had gathered in the incongruous setting of a Calcutta cathedral compound…
Trouble Brewing
Gurdeep Singh Chadha – “Ponty” to those who nod at and fear him – is not an easy man to know. Many say the tax…
HOW TO DO A MANAGEMENT BUYOUT AT 30,000 FEET
The next time you are flying somewhere, do not bury your nose in a book or plug in your earphones. Take a good look around.…
Interview: Anil Agarwal
“Everybody is going to die, but I am going to die last” He started out as a scrap trader in Patna. Today, with a personal…
INTERVIEW Y.C. Deveshwar
YOGESH CHANDER DEVESHWAR has been with ITC for nearly 43 years. the past 15 as chairman and chief executive. Having turned ITC into a multi-…
Panic Button
Reading An Account of the Great Fear, or Grande Peur, that swept across France in July and August of 1789, I was struck by the…
SHOW ME THE JOBS
The government is striving mightily, but the needle is moving inexorably lower on the jobs meter. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and the…
ENOUGH ALREADY
I wish the government would stop trying to defend demonetisation. Every time there is bad economic news, the government jumps upto proclaim that demonetisation was…
CLOSE,, BUT NO CIGAR
Finance Ministers take on a certain air when they think things are going swimmingly and nothing can rock the economy when it is cruising along.…
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…
TOO BIG TO FAIL
Independence day is a good excuse for some economic chest-thumping. We should be proud that lndia is a free-enterprise democracy. Imagine the world’s burden if…
Glass Half-Full?
We can hope that in the run-up to the next general election we will not suffer the type of jolts to our nervous systems that…
VIRAL FEVER
Start exercise your smartphone thumb, because the next big election will be fought on our mobiles. The latest Internet and Mobile Association of India survey…
The Dog’s tail
There is no loophole that has not met an Indian taxpayer. A Hindi proverb says you can never straighten a dog’s tail (kutte ki poonch…).…
Clutching At Straws
We are so frozen in the headlights of the on rushing slowdown that even a flicker leads us to believe that we have seen friendly…