Last month, over the still waters of the South China Sea, on a Singapore Airlines morning service into Shanghai, a newspaper article caught my eye. It reported how China’s ATM system had collapsed the day before. For seven hours. Losses apparently touched upwards of a hundred million dollars.

I got a start. I was not carrying much currency, of any denomination. Thanks to the efficiency of the Indian banking system, over the last few years, I use ATMs across the world to access my bank account in Mumbai. Or use my credit card. Instead of the old routine of buying dollars at extortionate rates and then converting locally. (more…)

What better note to start a blog than boasting that I test drove the world’s best motorcar? The Rolls-Royce Phantom came for a road test and we had to er…road test the car, right? So no pussyfooting with the near four crore behemoth then.

We drove it as hard and fast as we could, subjected it to some really terrible suburban and metro traffic and well, even subjected it to a performance evaluation track test (PET test to BSMotoring crowd). Was it fun? You bet. The three-tonne automobile shrinks around you as you drive and you can treat her the same way you treat a Maruti 800. (more…)

While the government has made it clear it has no intention of re-visiting the debate over creamy layers in OBC reservations, it is making a huge mistake since it is incomes and not caste that are the major determinants of levels of education. Not just for OBCs or SC/STs, but even for upper caste Hindus. And this is something that is revealed by most surveys, whether it is the National Sample Survey of 1999-2000 or the Reproductive and Child Health Survey (RCHS), which was conducted over two years from 2002 to 2004 over 600,000 households across the country—the RCHS, in fact, has a sample size that is several times larger than the NSS. (more…)

Value-added telecom services market may touch Rs 4,000 cr by 2007.

Picture this scenario. Daniel’s senior, Shekhar, is reprimanding him for not meeting the sales target. His explanations do not cut ice with his boss.

He’s desperate to wriggle out of the situation so that he can live and fight another day. That’s when his mobile phone rings. Some saviour! He looks at his cell, tells Shekhar it’s a major client and excuses himself. (more…)

Friday’s 515-point rise in the BSE Sensex to 9810.46 was not a surprise for market observers as every meltdown in the past had offered buying opportunity and huge returns in short-term.

The BSE Sensex fell over 1,700 points between January 14 and May 17, 2004, and bounced back. Even at yesterday’s level of 9,300, the Sensex shows over 100 per cent appreciation over its May 17, 2004, level of 4,505. (more…)

Now that our son is all set to go to college — preferably away from Delhi, he says — his mother is worried that he might get hijacked by the high-lifewallahs. But that’s because she hasn’t spent too much time checking out his friends. There is a sprinkling of high-fliers, true, some even with political clout, and he’s partial to his brands, but the company he keeps is far from the jet set. (more…)

From New Delhi’s Saket to Orissa’s Sambalpur: Urban India is building 70-80 m sq ft of mall space. (more…)

Buoyed by the success in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Tata Tea plans to enter Russia through a joint venture with a local company. Tetley, a part of Tata Tea, would be the vehicle for the Russian foray. According to Vijay Singh, director-developing markets, The Tetley Group, test marketing has started in Russia, which is one of the largest tea markets in the world consuming approximately 1,40,000 tonne per annum. (more…)

Most foreign banks are still groping for the right India strategy.

The top 20 foreign banks operating in India employ 26,530 people. This will increase by 50 per cent to 39,770 by 2008. Fifteen of the top 20 overseas players predict at least a 20 per cent increase of staff strength; five banks project an increase of 100 per cent and one of them anticipates a 650 per cent increase. This is part of the findings of PrieceWaterhouseCoopers’ study Foreign Banks in India 2006 that was released recently. Presumably, the staff strength is inclusive of those employees who are attached to business process outsourcing operations of the overseas entities and not commercial banking alone. What is quite amazing is that only 46 expatriates (or 0.17 per cent) are employed by these 20 foreign banks. This number will increase to 72 by 2008. Five of the top 20 banks have no expatriates on their payroll and the maximum number of expatriates present at any individual foreign bank is 10.

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Economic reforms will certainly rank as among the most widely used—often misused and abused—expression in India today. Ever since Manmohan Singh ushered in his new economic policy in 1991 as finance minister in the Narasimha Rao government, most substantive economic debates in this country have centred round this expression. And yet, reforms continue to mean different things to different people in different times. Politicians have freely used this word to suit their requirements, depending on the circumstances they have faced from time to time.

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