Opinions and Editorials

The Left Front government in West Bengal has not exactly been the Kremlin whose imposing edifice would collapse if only someone hammered down the door.

Much has been said about US President Barack Obama's maiden voyage to Asia: that he will address the newly elected Japanese government; he will engage in town-hall style meetings with Chinese students and ensure positive engagement with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao; talk to his counterpart in South Korea with a keen emphasis on the growing North Korean threat.

The Union Public Service Commission has proposed significant reform in examinations to recruit civil servants.

The BJP has spent the past year lurching from crisis to crisis. What has really been at issue is a stark political choice: whether the BJP is content to remain the party of the Hindu right that a section of its supporters would like it to be, or whether it wants to finally become a pro-market, socially conservative party with a broader electoral appeal.

The mutual funds industry in India, now under pressure to reinvent its distribution system, is turning towards technology.

On the face of it, Sebi's latest move to allow auctions for the Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) part of follow-up offerings, presumably a precursor to its use in IPOs as well, is a major change—a welcome and, some would even say, overdue one.

Perhaps the most pleasing trend, at least for long-term observers of Indian politics, from the general election held earlier this year was the decimation of the fractious 'Third Front'. Finally, there was reason to believe that India was heading towards a broadly bipolar polity with the Centre-Left Congress party leading one pole and the Centre-Right BJP leading the other.

When Windows 7 was released, we took note of the fawning reviews it had received. Especially of the fact that it was the first Microsoft operating system to have been released with fewer features, a phenomenon we explained in terms of cloud computing. Cloud services include Web-based e-mail, social networking and online games—everything that transposes services from PCs to virtual data centres.

There might appear reason for relief. The numbers might, at first sight, appear good. The index of industrial production (IIP) is up 9.1 per cent; that can be calculated as 6 per cent year-on-year.

Sachin Tendulkar may have inspired others to write poetry but he batted in robust prose. Not for him the tenderness and fragility of the poet, the excitement of a leaf fluttering in a gentle breeze. No. Tendulkar is about a plantation standing up to the typhoon, the skyscraper that stands tall, the cannon that booms. Solid. Robust. Focussed. The last word is the key.

In a move heavy with symbolism, Columbia University has announced three fellowships in Sanskrit studies meant exclusively for Dalit scholars.

Dickens and the best-of-times, worst-of-times quote is clichéd. However, most people who quote it do not remember the complete quote.

On the eve of Jawaharlal Nehru's 45th death anniversary I feel impelled to write about his celebrated press conferences, usually held once a month, that became a unique institution — an exhilarating combination of information, education and entertainment, the like of which has never been seen after him.

German goalkeeper Robert Enke's death after being struck by a train is being investigated for suicide.

Mining is a dangerous fruit. It is often extraordinarily abundant but can also have the capacity to damage, distort and corrupt. In Jharkhand, ex-chief minister Koda has been accused of extracting large sums from the allocation of mining leases.

One of the lessons from Keynes is that a lot of small changes can mean more in aggregate than a few large changes.

The performance of factory output for the month of September was something the stock market was factoring in.

At a press conference to announce the Kolkata Film Festival (Nov 10-17), chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee rued the fact that he hadn't been able to catch most of the films (228) in previews due to work pressures.

Vested interest and compromise are the worst enemies of good policy, and taxation policy is no exception.

When the then American President Richard Nixon arrived in Beijing in 1972 to formalise a new Sino-American axis against the Soviet Union, he had reasons to proclaim that his landmark visit "turned a page in history".