The new steel minister is autocratic but no one doubts his efficiency.

Aditi Phadnis: 'Raja saab' all the way

Business Standard

The economic crisis has hurt the &ldquo;factory of the world&rdquo; badly. The southern Chinese province of Guangdong is going high-tech but needs help from Beijing.

Frank Sieren & Andreas Sieren: No dolls from Shenzhen

That the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has a penchant for getting into controversies when it comes to awarding equipment contracts is well-known.

Surajeet Das Gupta: BSNL in a soup again

The other day, when I was with a group of friends, we ended up in a furious discussion about elections. As usual. &ldquo;The very act of standing for an election tends to corrupt people,&rdquo; one argued. He believed that the urge to win votes pushes aside most other considerations, including a sense of what&rsquo;s right and what&rsquo;s wrong. &ldquo;Marx had said that religion was the opium of the masses, but now I believe it has been replaced by politics!&rdquo; he went on.

Geetanjali Krishna: Opium made easy

Emerging from the shower, I got the shock of my life when a young person from whose general demeanour it appeared he had spent the night in our apartment, said cheerfully, &ldquo;Morning uncle, how does one get a cup of tea around here?&rdquo; Every summer, like migratory birds, strangers arrive at our doorstep &mdash; to stay, shop, dine and make way for others in the queue &mdash; but they are usually properly introduced to us before they snap open their suitcases and ask for the room service menu. But here was someone I hadn&rsquo;t set my eyes on before, so it was with not a little ill-will that I poured him a cup of Earl Grey and pointed to the bin of digestive biscuits, which disappeared before he could tell me his name.

Kishore Singh: Atithi devo bhavah indeed

Strawberries, cherries and an angle&rsquo;s kiss in spring&hellip;&rdquo; went that old Nancy Sinatra song &mdash; obviously, the songwriter never factored in our Indian summer, which is here in full blast with Delhiites baking at temperatures over 40 degrees centigrade, and denizens of the other metros sweating it out in the pre-monsoon humidity. (Okay, Bangaloreans are spoilt, although the city today is a far cry from what it used to be).

Summer wines

One of the best things about the election result has been that almost no one, including the most diehard detractor of the Congress party, has been critical about it. How can anyone be at so unambiguous a result? The public, the media and analysts of every persuasion at home and abroad have collectively joined in to thump the back of that indefinable entity known as the Great Indian Voter for its pragmatism and clarity.

Sunil Sethi: Good conduct, bad habits

Halfway through the year there always comes a moment that makes me sit back in shock. Partly it&rsquo;s the awful realisation that the undifferentiated hill of paper on my desk, which has developed pockets of slime and may or may not have flies buzzing around it, has to be sorted into a decipherable tax return, substantiated by more bits of paper that I will shortly have to start calling around for.

Seven-year itch

There&rsquo;s really no room for revolution in the design of a book. Makers and users &mdash; not professional designers &mdash; have perfected its form and features over millennia. (The real revolution, if we&rsquo;re looking for one, was the invention of the alphabet by the Phoenicians 5,000 years ago.) After all, a book is basically a text-bearing surface, organised for convenience.

Hot off the press

Let&rsquo;s look at the brighter side. We have Kapil Sibal instead of Arjun Singh in charge of education, and P Chidambaram instead of Shivraj Patil in the home ministry. Arguably, those are the biggest positives in the new council of ministers. Less unalloyed improvements, but improvements nevertheless, would be Kamal Nath in place of TR Baalu (roads will now get built), and perhaps Ghulam Nabi Azad in place of A Ramadoss as health minister.

T N Ninan: More than half full

After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era &mdash; that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out.

'Our government made decisions based on fear'

Even the worst possible scenarios offer redeeming features that keep alive human hope. Shanno, the 11-year-old girl in a municipal corporation school in New Delhi who died after a teacher allegedly made her squat in the sun with bricks on her back, did not create much of media uproar. Even the local government did not jump into action. But a corporate law firm, Kochhar and Co, whose client list includes over 50 Fortune 500 companies, decided to take up her case.

Sreelatha Menon: Giving Shanno a piece of the sky

The biggest of businesses usually shy away from taking on the government. As an example, businessmen may find many things wrong with a Union Budget, but they would seldom be critical. Even more so for the organisers of a sporting event, cocking a snook at the government would have been unthinkable; in any case, most sports bodies have become the fiefdoms of politicians.

An accidental global brand

The quality of manpower is a significant resource for large populous countries such as India and China, which depend on them for their rapid economic growth. Exemplified by the large US universities, innovation and research undertaken by large number of post-graduate students sows seeds for long-term economic sustainability of nations. China is emulating the US to become the next frontier in higher education, barring the unenviable disadvantage of English language proficiency.

V Sridhar & Kala Seetharam Sridhar: Learning from China

Some people track the price of shipping to gauge the health of global trade. Others look at the supply of freshly minted money pouring out of central banks. A few will say that signs of life in the housing markets are evidence of a recovery.

Matthew Lynn: Latvian hookers signal no recovery for economy

Though power reforms to be the most important item on the government's agenda, it often leads to face-offs between the Centre and states.

A powerful worry

Blu-O, an international bowling chain, opens its doors in Delhi.

A dark alley

Indian software leaders used to take comfort from the fact that they were not yet among the global big league in terms of size but beat many of the incumbents in terms of the price earning ratio they commanded. Not anymore. The current global downturn has taken a severe toll on the way investors look at the future of this once favourite industry. The differential has been wiped out.

Subir Roy: Tough call for Indian IT services

The current Euro-Atlantic Monetary Fund must become an International Monetary Fund.

Devesh Kapur & Arvind Subramanian: The G-20 and IMF reform

Varun Gandhi&rsquo;s alleged anti-Muslim comments at a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh have snowballed into a political controversy that has brought under scrutiny not just Mr Gandhi&rsquo;s suitability for public life, but also the conduct of many others from whom a mature response might have been expected. Mr Gandhi himself switched from a defensive attempt to get anticipatory bail to an aggressive bid to turn the situation to his advantage, by surrendering himself.

Politics' unacceptable face

It used to be said that &ldquo;what is good for General Motors is good for the USA&rdquo;. That is not true any more. The company now accounts for less than a fifth of all car sales in the US, while other companies produce and sell better, smaller, fuel-efficient cars that the market likes.

Last chance for Detroit

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