Opinions and Editorials

It seems the stress of fiscal profligacy has finally pushed the UPA into unveiling an ambitious plan for divesting government stakes in PSUs.

The news that the government will shortly consider a proposal to allow foreign airlines to pick up nearly 49% equity stake in Indian carriers will certainly improve the mood in India's aviation sector.

On Thursday night, in front of a sell-out crowd, the Indian cricket team ran the Australian team quite close to very nearly pulling off a great win.

As of now, foreign airlines are barred from holding direct or indirect stakes in domestic carriers. On November 17, however, a committee of secretaries—set up to consider FDI in sensitive sectors—will discuss a proposal to allow foreign airlines to take up to 49% equity in Indian carriers. Such a decision could breathe life into the loss-ridden aviation industry.

The Rs 86,000-crore Indian FMCG industry is on a roll. Compared to other corporate sectors in India, the FMCG industry has performed well in Q2 FY10.While many Indian corporates have reported heavy losses, major FMCG companies have posted a double digit growth in Q2 FY10. As a result, the industry has registered a 12% volume growth in Q2 despite the economic downturn and poor monsoon.

The plea that private think tanks should be involved in energy futures is correct. The idea that only private think tanks should do it is wrong, as it takes a lot of in-house mindsets and skills to use a model for public policy. The critique that minister Jairam Ramesh should not set up a modelling unit at Isro, but give the money to private consultants is interesting.

Minister Kamal Nath is a go-getter. He has been putting much-needed energies into the road transport and highways sector, which fell into an unforgivable rut over the past few years. At a recent interaction—the Idea Exchange—with The Express Group journalists, he said he would build more roads in a year than were built over five years of the NDA's tenure.

Much as one would like to give kudos to Reserve Bank of India for quietly putting the focus back on liberalisation of the financial sector in its recent review of the monetary policy, its stoic silence on how to grow credit when India's growth pattern is still wavy and fragile is regretful.

The central bank's clear signal that it intends to tighten monetary policy is already showing on bank credit off-take.

The world of sports beyond cricket is evolving rapidly. But the glitz and marketing that sports such as hockey, basketball, soccer, tennis, and now boxing require for them to compete at some level with cricket, is absolutely crucial.

Two new corruption cases from Jharkhand exemplify how India's mineral riches are being mishandled even as their demand—both global and domestic—is booming.

Almost all economic indicators from everywhere in the world suggest that we have exited the worst period of the crisis that began with the collapse of Lehman in 2008.

After a gap of almost two years, India has again started importing foodgrains and this time it is rice, the trigger for which came from the worst monsoon in decades that pulled down paddy acreage by almost 60 lakh hectares and could bring down the total rice output by 10 million tonne to 15 million tonne.

President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Prize not for what he has achieved, but for what it is hoped he will achieve.

Last week, memory lane in India got snarled up by appraisals of the former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, on the 25th anniversary of her assassination.

India's economic growth is contingent upon the growth of the Indian steel industry. The per capita consumption of steel in India, around 46 kg, is well below the world average of 150 kg and the developed country average of 400 kg. It is important that the steel industry in India is prepared to meet the growing demand, projected to rise to 200 million tonne by 2015.

RBI has now made it amply clear that it is more worried about inflation than growth in the months ahead.

Capitalism is evil. That's the central message of Michael Moore's latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, now showing in the US. It is evil because it is a source of injustice and because it corrupts politics to further its ends.

Compared with almost any other industry in India, banking is ridden with anti-competitive policy. It is essentially impossible to start a new bank, foreign banks are prohibited from competing in India, and existing banks have to take permissions to open branches.