The commonly-held suspicion of wrongdoing pertains to a conflict of interest, but the management maintains that the move was aimed at enhancing shareholder value.

Did Satyam err with the Maytas episode?

Business Standard

The year 2011 truly belonged to the digital consumer. Social networking sites became the meeting point for almost anything &mdash; from finding friends to protesting against corruption. In 2011, India touched the 100-million mark in terms of internet users, 85 million being active users. The numbers may be relatively small compared to other markets, but this is a significant base for online firms. For LinkedIn, India is the second-largest base after the US.

Networking ties

The best-tended gardens hide unnoticed weeds; even arid zones can sprout winter flowers. As the country hopes, half-fearfully, for a better 2012 than the year gone by, are there trees that one can&rsquo;t see for the wood? Consider the stock market, which saw the market value of its leading stocks drop by a staggering 25 per cent last year. Amid the carnage, are there positive trends that have not attracted attention? What about understanding the kind of companies that stand tall even now? The list of 25 most valuable listed companies makes for an instructive read. As many as 10 are state-owned, a testament to how much the government still dominates large sectors of business activity &mdash; energy (coal, oil, gas and electricity), banking, natural resources. A goodly number in the Top 25 did not exist in 1991 or were inconsequential at the time &mdash; tech companies like TCS and Infosys, private banks like HDFC Bank, telecom service providers like Bharti Airtel.

India Inc's winter flowers

As India marks two decades of reform, the year just past, 2011, may well go down as the one year in these decades in which the macro management of India's economy showed the greatest signs of strain. All the major indicators are in the red. Consider, first, the fiscal deficit. The Budget declared it would be at 4.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), which was hailed at the time as a sign that the finance ministry wished to strike a blow for fiscal prudence.

Little hope for 2012

Ten years after Goldman Sachs&rsquo; &ldquo;BRIC&rdquo; report, most emerging economies have performed poorly in 2011, with India being the worst performer in its peer group. (Russia&rsquo;s economy continues to run on high petroleum prices.) The collapse of the Indian stock market, as shown in Table 1, is the most visible indicator of a new lack of confidence.

StatsGuru: 02-January-2012

With a fractured polity and so many states being governed by increasingly assertive regional parties, it is unlikely that any of the national parties (Congress and BJP) will manage a majority on their own. Coalition will, then, be inevitable and the same kind of problems that plague governance today will continue. It is time for right-thinking minds across the political spectrum as also the media and intelligentsia to start seriously reviewing the existing political and governance systems to come up with some critical changes that can smoothen the problems plaguing our over 60-year-old democracy.

Letters: ...and a wrong solution 

T N Ninan in his column &ldquo;Time for elections&rdquo; (Weekend ruminations, December 31) said it is time for a mid-term election to deal with the problems facing the nation. But will it make a difference to the current situation? It is time to undertake a fundamental examination of the need for a new Constitution and a second Republic based on the presidential system of government. Our founding fathers proceeded on the assumption that the Congress will always be in power, both at the Centre and in states, and formulated a Constitution that is federal in structure but unitary in spirit. The author has referred to Manmohan Singh&rsquo;s unblemished record of probity and his &ldquo;historic&rdquo; role in salvaging the economy in the 1990s.

Letters: Tall claims

This is to congratulate Ajit Balakrishnan on his well-researched and ably written piece &ldquo;The worldwide middle-class angst&rdquo; (December 29). However, may I point out that the author overlooked that section of the Indian middle class that is in a hurry to squeeze itself out of the social unrest. It is this middle-class-in-a-hurry that, in my understanding, has nourished the baby called &ldquo;corruption&rdquo; to become a full-grown monster. Between the 1960s and 1980s, this type saw that the best way to make money was to become a politician or hold a public office. This was the time when everyone from the middle class wanted to become a government servant since it meant having a secure job with no accountability. Surprisingly, the author also refers to the Fifth Kondratiev Wave, the so-called age of information and communication technology, creating a phenomenon.

Letters: The hurried middle class 

As was widely reported, the &ldquo;midnight drama&rdquo; in the Rajya Sabha last week touched a new high (or low?) when Rashtriya Janata Dal member Rajniti Prasad (pictured) tore a copy of the Lok Pal Bill after snatching it from Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V Narayanasamy. An &ldquo;orchestrated&rdquo; event, as the Trinamool party has claimed? Though the man himself has insisted the act was &ldquo;spontaneous&rdquo;, Prasad&rsquo;s curriculum vitae, as available on the Rajya Sabha website, may raise doubts on that score. In the column titled &ldquo;Special interests&rdquo;, the CV says Prasad &ldquo;has received awards for roles in drama and in sports&rdquo;.

Dramatis personae

The Indian IT industry may be a key foreign exchange earner for India but to former ISRO chairman U R Rao, it is only high tea, fit for discussions that scientists may have during a break in a seminar. Rao, who is now chairman of the governing council of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, was speaking at a conference on chemical engineering at which he advised students to stick to the discipline rather than switch to IT, as many have been doing in recent years.

IT is high tea

Debate rages in Parliament and in the Team Anna camp on the anti-corruption ombudsman and the need for autonomy or otherwise for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Meanwhile, a con-man called Ashwini Kumar has managed to build a career out of extorting money from wealthy, dishonest businessmen posing as a senior CBI officer. Kumar has been arrested by the CBI three times before for blackmail and extortion. Each time, he reverted to his old ways as soon as he was released. Last week, he was arrested for a fourth time &mdash; but this time he was put in police custody for seven days.

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 951 - Business Standard

Did Satyam err with the Maytas episode?

Networking ties

India Inc's winter flowers

Little hope for 2012

StatsGuru: 02-January-2012

Letters: ...and a wrong solution

Letters: Tall claims

Letters: The hurried middle class

Dramatis personae

IT is high tea

Star con-man