The case against public sector monopolies is far from proved.


T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: Who needs competition?

Business Standard

Mention motorcycle, and two images come immediately to mind. One is of the open road, vast stretches of fields and water, wild ducks at the edge of cattails, pungent odours rising up from roadside

Barun Roy: The trouble with motorcycles

One can only ascribe the initial reaction to Infosys quarterly results as baffling. The company delivered numbers, which comfortably met its own guidances. 


Riding out the notional

Some ads open to rave reviews, others gather momentum slowly.


A G Krishnamurthy: Footprints in mindspace

In certain products Samsung is driving technological innovation globally.


A P: Lessons from Samsung

NTPCs third quarter results ending December 31, 2004 showed a 67 per cent jump in net profit. The newly-listed PSU saw PAT climbing to Rs 1,365 crore from December 2003 levels of Rs 819 crore. 


Leveraging power

India's current initiatives to unlock energy efficiency opportunities rely heavily on market players for effective implementation

Taking energy efficiency to the market

On women's day, I have been gifted with a bank. Let's call it Indira Gandhi Bank, till its formal name is decided upon, to remind us not only about the country's most powerful woman, who invoked emergency powers in 1975, but also about bank nationalisation. The bank's idea is believed to have been incubated by the Congress party, to which Indira Gandhi belonged.

Empowered with a bank

With the Competition Commission still not operationalised, mergers are taking place without any scrutiny of their impact on the market.


Do M&As need to pass the competition test?

Ever since India became TRIPS-compliant, there have been speculation about a drug price hike. Indeed, the prices did go up, but the hike was due to the finance ministrys inventive policies on fringe

Harinder S Sikka: Killer cure

As soon as I read Joanne Harris book Chocolat, I estimated that over the next few months, chocolateries would mushroom rapidly in all our metros. I was partially right: two have come up,

For love of chocolate

When rich nations established open financial systems and easy takeover codes in the 1970s, they implicitly assumed global business would remain a club for whites and honorary whites. (Japanese and

Merger politics

A position as a director on a company's board needs consideration of sundry aspects relating to the firm.


V V Ranganathan: Making an independent choice

CAG report on farm debt relief underlines need for action

Plugging the leaks

The first 'functional cure' for AIDS may finally help combat the scourge

One small step ...

The word "tender" is a vicious misnomer in the business context. Bidding for tenders is anything but "tender"  you don't know what price to use; you don't know whether you will win the bid; and you don't know whether you will make money.Despite these difficulties, there are some companies  a small number, to be sure  that have learned that the only way to sustain margins in such businesses is to build in the full cost of the risk to the bid, and, if successful, to hedge out that risk at once.The full cost of the risk is, of course, the price of an option to hedge the risk. In most tenders, there is a risk period  between the date of the bid and the date of opening the tender  during which the variable (say, the price of aluminum or copper or USD/INR) may move adversely. An at-the-money option would protect against this risk and provide opportunity gains if the market moved favourably  an ideal solution. Unfortunately, buying an option on the bid date would leave the company open to a c

Love me tender

New Delhi must back pro-India parties in its subcontinental neighbourhood

A new neighbourhood doctrine

After defence cuts in Budget, indigenisation is further away

The necessary goal

On Thursday, it was confirmed that DLF Universal had pulled out of its IPO, and withdrawn the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) it filed on May 12. 


Building IPOs

If theres anything more far out than the whole Pluto-is-a-planet-is-not-is-too controversy, its the sweet story of the christening of the ninth object from the sun. 


My Phair lady

Opening a new restaurant is never easy, and marketing one is even more challenging. Could Penangs Spice Market Cafi have found the answer? More importantly, are there any lessons at all that are

Reinventing the stall

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

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