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There was more than a touch of irony when Union Minister for Divestment Arun Shourie told journalists on May 18 that the government of India had decided to offload 26 per cent of its share of the equity capital of the public sector Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited to the Ambani-family controlled Reliance group. That it was Mr Shourie who made this momentous announcement about the country's largest exercise in divestment till date would surely have seemed somewhat strange to those with...

When Tehelka exhibited its documentary film on cricket match-fixing in May 2000, its impact was a trifle muted as it had acted in concert with Manoj Prabhakar, also accused of financial irregularities. Few could have anticipated that nine months later, the same methods—secret video-taping of individuals—would be deployed to expose corruption in the defence services, and that too with such devastating impact on the polity. The episode not only influenced the course of Indian politics but also...

There'll come a time when most of us return here/Brought back by our desire to be/A perfect entity/Living through a million years of crying/Until you've realised the art of dying —from Art of Dying, 1970 George Harrison, son of a bus driver, born on February 25, 1943, guitar player, songwriter, composer, film producer, lover of most things Indian, died on November 30, 2001, of lung cancer. Quiet and self-effacing to a fault, he was the youngest of the four men from Liverpool who influenced the...

Noam Chomsky, USA, was recently interviewed by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on the CNBC India television channel, during his India visit. Following is the (very slightly edited) transcript of the interview broadcast first on Saturday November 3, 2001 and again on Monday November 5, 2001. Introduction: Hello and welcome to Cutting Edge Perspective. I am Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in the Ashok Hotel, New Delhi and the guest on the programme is Professor Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky is much more than a...

Can a group of individuals or corporate entities hold the single largest stake in a particular company and not control its management? Alternatively, can those who control the management of a company not hold any - or a very small proportion -- of that company's equity shares? The answer to both questions is a resounding "yes" - especially if one goes by a recent decision of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in a case relating to Associated Cement Companies (ACC), the country's...

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the regulator of the country's 24 stock exchanges is often described as the watchdog of the capital markets. Some would, however, argue that the analogy is quite inappropriate given the inadequate powers that have been conferred on SEBI. If at all a comparison can be made with a member of the canine species, cynics contend the body should be described as a lapdog, a gentle pet whose bark is usually much worse than its bite. Those not so...

Who remembers Baburao Shankaranand, former Union Minister in successive Congress governments who created a record by getting elected from the Chikodi Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka no less than six times? Well, Shankaranand's name came up recently in an official document prepared by the Banking Division of the Ministry of Finance for the members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that is inquiring into the stockmarket scandal. The document in question is the government's June 13...

How bad is the current state of the Indian economy? From all indications, things are pretty lousy. The half-hearted attempts made by the government to paint a brighter-than-actual picture of the economic situation seem to have miserably flopped. If anything, moves to project an optimistic future of the economy are backfiring on the country's financial authorities: negative sentiments seem to be feeding on one another to create a downward spiral of pessimistic expectations. It has been said that...

What does an idyllic island in the middle of the Indian Ocean have to do with the recent financial scam that broke out in Asia's oldest (and until recently, India's largest) stock exchange at Mumbai? What indeed does Mauritius have to with a stockmarket scandal that is currently being investigated by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) in New Delhi? Answer: Quite a lot, if not, everything. In August 1982, the governments of India and Mauritius signed a double-taxation avoidance treaty (DTAT)...

The Atal Behari Vajpayee government has become weaker in the wake of the assembly elections to Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Assam. In each of these four states, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was at best a marginal player. However, after the elections, the BJP has become even more marginalised in these states of eastern and southern India. While the outcome of the elections would not have a direct or an immediate impact on the stability of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)...