As India has one of the world’s highest child mortality rates, the latest UN study says that rate would have been down by three-fifths had women in the country completed secondary education. "If all women in India had completed secondary education, the under-five mortality rate would be 61 percent lower," says United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisat
Ratings agencies perform the critical function of assessing the fundamentals and future prospects of corporate houses that continuously seek to raise money from privat e investors or the public. That puts the onus on ratings agencies to get their systems of governance right, both within their own companies and the companies they assess. How do they do it? How do they ensure a rating or grading
The QS World University Rankings are out. We as a nation have drawn a blank again when it comes to the top 200 – as in previous years. That is no great news; we may reflect something like this: It is an annual feature and who knows how much of this information comes to us doctored or based on parameters that do not s
What are the roles available for the political class in times of rioting? Political leaders can be expected to instigate riots, propagate rumours, mobilise mobs, indulge in blame game, and manage post-riot relief and compensation. Are they expected to stop riots, and heal wounds? No. That would be too idealistic. When rioting is on, the mob is in such animalistic frenzy that it would be foolhar
Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan is all set to make his debut monetary policy statement on Friday. With the US Federal Reserve’s welcome announcement to continue with its bond buying stimulus package and the rupee recovering, markets are expecting the governor to withdraw some of the measures that his predecessor undertook to check the outflow of funds. Despite some s
That Miss America Nina Davuluri would not be able to become a Bollywood actress because the producer would prefer a fair girl over her due to market demands is giving the market too much credit. Too much credit for being too fair and for acting on forces outside of itself. The market does not work on an already created need, affinity or both but has mechanisms to create its own. `If you
The All India Students Association (AISA) won all four central panel seats in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students union elections again this year. Besides a slight aberration last year, when the JNUSU president`s post when to the Democratic Student`s Forum (DSF), a breakaway group of the CPI(M)-affiliated Students’ Federation of India (SFI) formed that year itself, this is pretty m
Security concerns regarding online data and records are rising with each passing day, and the situation is set to stay that way in times to come. The problem is compounded by newer technologies being introduced: while on one hand may make life easier, they also make security more vulnerable. Altaf Halde, managing director (South Asia) of Kaspersky, a Russian multinational computer secur
Dr Ami Bera is a self-made man and pursued what is called the American Dream. Son of an Indian immigrant couple from Rajkot in Gujarat, Bera is the only Indian American currently serving in the Congress, and third after Dilip Singh Saund and Bobby Jindal to be from the community in the House. During the last week of August, he made his first trip to India after being elected to the House of Rep
Basel-III norms are required to be fulfilled (though voluntary) by different countries in the banking operations on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and market liquidity norm. But in its new report, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has come heavily against these norms. It said that countries banking in each countries need to follow prudential rules to their speci
Ratings agencies perform the critical function of assessing the fundamentals and future prospects of corporate houses that continuously seek to raise money from private investors or the public. That puts the onus on ratings agencies to get their systems of governance right, both within their own companies and the companies they assess. How do they do it? How do they ensure a rating or grading r
India’s current account deficit (CAD) hitting a record high of 4.8% in July and the continuous simultaneous steady plunging of the rupee, which has not bottomed out yet, has become a major source of worry for the country. The depreciation of the rupee (15% against the dollar since January) will result in the cost of future import of goods such as petroleum, coal, and non-essential
Set up in 2007, Central Railside Warehouse Company (CRWC) is a young organisation by public sector standards. Coming under the department of food and public distribution, the ministry of consumer affairs, it develops and constructs warehouses with the railways for storage of food and other products. The idea is to reduce the logistic expenses and benefit industries. Starting with Bangalore, CRW
At the Times of India, where I began my career in business journalism in early 1992, we were called “commerce desk”. The description emanated from the obsolete pre-liberalisation context when even a top newspaper would have only two-three semi-retired folks tracking India’s economic story; one dedicated to reprinting stock quotes from a list telexed by Bombay S
Janmashtami heralds the start of the unrelenting festive season—from now until the end of the year, the spate of festivals includes Ganesh Chaturthi and the multiple Visarjan days, the Navratris, Dusshera, Diwali, Eid, Christmas and New Years (and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few). Though I look upon the impending traffic snarls, deafening cacophony of music and crackers, and bur
The real estate sector is in choppy waters and the RBI’s move is being seen as an attempt to shield the country’s banking structure from grave risks such schemes pose to the financial health of banks. At present, a large number of real estate companies use such schemes to lure buyers. In the 80:20 scheme, for instance, a buyer pays 20 percent of the value of t
Delhi finance and power secretary Shakti Sinha, a 1979 batch IAS officer of AGMUT cadre, has had an exciting three-decade career. He served on the board of World Bank, advising it on several projects related to developing countries, and worked with the Afghanistan government, helping it prepare national development strategies. He also served as joint secretary to former prime minister Atal
All public services are paid for by individual citizens, either directly or indirectly, through taxes. Therefore, they have every right to expect high quality service. That’s why citizen’s charter is important. We have seen nearly two decades of struggle towards implementation of the citizen’s charter. Till 1996, the citizen’s charter was unknown to government de
If any of you woke up this morning to book train tickets for Diwali for a vacation back home, this blog might be catharsis. You logged in to irctc.co.in at 8 am to book your tickets – not for anything but lack of choice – and waited till 8.30 am to see the face of the `plan my travel` page, only to realise that all tickets have been booked and your favourite train is showing the sta
As the rupee continues to hit new lows, economists and corporate honchos continue to predict deteriorating economic performance and politicians continue to fight over reforms like there is no tomorrow, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended revamping the banking structure to further strengthen the backbone of our economy. The apex bank has reiterated the need to seriously and u
