It is not surprising that last week, the lobbyists in the US got their treasury secretary Timothy Geithner to grill finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on his now infamous retrospective law in Budget 2012. Gautam Chikermane reports.
When Children's Investment Fund (CIF) bought 1.01% of Coal India Ltd (CIL), it perhaps focussed more on its profitability than risks.
Gautam Chikermane writes.
“India is not a no-tax country,” Mukherjee said, two days after presenting his seventh Budget. “It is not a low-tax country. If someone says I will not pay tax, that will not be allowed.”
Gautam Chikermane writes.
Legislating with hindsight
It is now clear that D Subbarao, Pranab Mukherjee and the rest of us aren't really part of the same economy,
Gautam Chikermane reports
Last week, when Tata Global Beverages joined hands with Pepsico India to set up NourishCo — a Rs. 50 crore joint venture, where the two giants are equal partners — to offer healthy drinks, it was a sort of homecoming for Tata Global. Gautam Chikermane writes.
In my 20 years of tracking business, 2011 is the first year that I saw business leaders come out and express their frustration with the government - in public.
Gautam Chikermane writes.
Why would a country join a group of loose political affiliations when the whole world is creaking under its possible implosion? As a political-economy entity, the European Union (EU) is under threat and its currency, the Euro, wondering what next.
Gautam Chikermane writes.
Humility died many months ago. The overconfidence of the UPA government and the resultant arrogance among few of its ministers was immediately absorbed by India’s macroeconomic managers — the Planning Commission, the bureaucracy, the finance ministry.
Gautam Chikermane writes.
Our government maybe stuck in a policy freeze. Our opposition maybe celebrating and ensuring it stays there. Our manufacturing may have slowed down to dangerous levels. Everything that could go wrong with India’s political economy probably is. And yet, our aspirations are only rising. Even though the slowdown has now come to stay, the two sectors that have shown growth underline a never-say-die citizenry.
The full-page advertisements in the papers on Sunday justifying the government's well-conceived but badly-timed opening up of retail to foreign direct investment on Thursday has three promises for the rest of us.
Gautam Chikermane writes.
Transition at the Bombay House — the headquarters of the $83-billion Tata Group — has arguably been the most closely-watched development since July 2010, when Ratan Tata announced that he will be retiring in 2012.
Gautam Chikermane writes.
After spending trillions of dollars of taxpayers and pulling financial vulnerabilities into budgets of governments across the world through various economic stimuli over the past three years, we’re back to September 2008 when the global economy teetered over the edge, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
And after 12 hikes in 18 months during which Reserve Bank of India has raised policy rates by 325 basis points (or 3.25 percentage points) in its attempt to control a high and persisting inflation rate, the result is…nothing, zilch. Gautam Chikermane writes.
That India's industrial production - and consequently its magnificent growth rate - would fall was known to all. So, while the index of industrial production (IIP) crashing to its two-year low of 3.3% comes as no surprise, its cause is a shock.
Gautam Chikermane writes.