Economy
Despair sweeps the economy
A NUMBER of economic events in the Indian economy are causing a downward shift in the spirits of industrialists, entrepreneurs and the custodians of finance and economic policy.
Editorial
Deep-probe UTI
IT IS WELCOME that a probe has been announced into the possibility of insider-trading in US-64. Institutional investors accounted for 90 per cent of the Rs 4,150-crore outflow that happened in April-May before the UTI announced a freeze on repurchase. Th
e unprecedented bunching of repurchases in the last two months (a rare occurrence in US-64) points to some informed trading.
Miscellaneous
Doomed?
ONCE upon a time, ``Sir, post!'' was a resounding announcement that pumped adrenalin into the bloodstream of every man, woman and child within the household and the neighbourhood. On hearing it, the baby stopped crying, the schoolboy left his marbles, th
e couple ceased fighting, and everybody dropped everything and ran to the door. Letter writing was elevated into an art, and people waited patiently for days and (in the case of letters to and from foreign countries) weeks for a reply. Rabindranath Tagor
e has immortalised the mail carrier in a moving prose-poem replete with romance and nostalgia.
Politics
To Agra...without hope
WHEN the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, extended his invitation, quite out of the blue, to Gen Pervez Musharraf, for an Indo-Pak summit, one hoped that, at long last, there would be some breakthrough in the thawing of Indo-Pak relations.
India, Pakistan and economic realism
AT A recent conference in Islamabad, Gen Pervez Musharraf chided his audience for talking of hoisting the green flag at Red Fort at a time when Pakistan's economy is in real bad shape. Thus, he tacitly admitted that Pakistan's overstretched economy may n
o longer be able to bear the costs of perpetuating hostility and sustaining the war-machine so assiduously built to tackle the `enemy' across the border. But normalisation of relations with India and a consequent cap, if not reduction, in Defence spendin
g, may only be a partial panacea to the country's economic ills.
Technology
Alcohol in diesel engines -- Have technology, will travel -- policy permitting
IN SPITE of the proven merits of ethanol as an environmentally safe and high-performance renewable motor fuel for nearly three quarters of a century, it is unfortunate that India has not shown the political will towards wide application of alcohol fuels
for motor vehicles. It is only after the recent article by Mr Ram Naik, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas (Business Line, June 21), that new hope has emerged for a revival of interest in this renewable energy source that could gradually replac
e petrol, thus greatly benefiting the economy.
Key alloys for LCA from Midhani
THE Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is one of the biggest and most ambitious projects under development of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), with the cooperation of a large number of national labs, industry and ancillary units.
