Kanika Datta: Tiger business burning bright
The roar from China’s Year of the Tiger is being picked up by India Inc’s finely-tuned antenna for corporate social responsibility (CSR) ideas. Building awareness on such issues is a great thing. But it is worth wondering whether the public discourse developing around saving the tiger as a result of this CSR upsurge is in the big cat’s [...]
Airtel and the new great game
At the beginning of this century, everyone believed it was Asia’s turn to drive the world’s economy. Indeed, events of the past 10 years have only served to underscore the growing importance of India and China, Asia’s two largest countries. Yet, the 21st century may not be Asia’s but Africa’s. One reason for this is the continent’s [...]
China challenges Obama’s Taliban plan
U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to reconcile with the Taliban in Afghanistan ought to win him a second Nobel, although during the entire period between 1901 and 2009, a Peace Prize was never awarded twice to any of its 97 individual recipients. An exception of course can be made. From a historical perspective, if the Obama plan advances, [...]
Rebound continues
The recently released trade data for December 2009 reveal two significant developments in India’s foreign trade. First, the turnaround in exports has sustained for the second month. Exports grew by 9.3 per cent, from $13.38 billion in December 2008 to $14.61 billion. The improvement is particularly encouraging as it has come on top of the 18 per [...]
Cruel Joke
There is a bizarre spectacle being played out at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium at Hyderabad. South Zone and West Zone are playing the final of the Duleep Trophy the most prestigious domestic cricket tournament after Ranji Trophy before empty stands. The reason ostensibly is that the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) was [...]
Bowling, India’s weakness
Having deservedly become the top-ranked team in Test cricket, India must address its most obvious vulnerability if it is to prolong its reign. Ian Chappell, the former Australian captain and one of cricket’s best minds, spotlighted the weakness recently when he said sides that were successful over long periods were powered by at least two [...]
Challenge of climate change, post-Copenhagen
The science of climate change is now well established. This is the result of painstaking work of over two decades carried out by thousands of scientists drawn from across the globe to assess every aspect of climate change for the benefit of humanity. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was [...]
Deepak Lal: Man-made global warming
It has been a bad two months for the purveyors of the “science” of manmade global warming. The BASIC group of countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) stood firm at Copenhagen from being bounced into an agreement on mandatory carbon emission cuts. With the Democrat’s defeat in Massachusetts, there is little hope of President Barack [...]
Gopalkrishna Gandhi: They serve a purpose
When an envelope arrived at my Chennai doorstep a few days ago, I could not but laugh out aloud. The lifafa was addressed to ‘Shri M.K. Gandhi, Former Governor of West Bengal.’ Museums show letters addressed to him with impossible-sounding addresses such as ‘Mahatma Gandhi, Somewhere in India’, and ‘Mahatma Gandhi, Emperor of India’. [...]
Pratik Kanjilal: A journey without maps
Cultural nationalism is a fickle business. On Republic Day, we learned that South Korea’s first lady traces her bloodline back to Ayodhya. We were so happy. Here was more evidence that all the things that matter originated in India. But the next day, there was disturbing news about a Chinese pop star who sings in Sanskrit. How cunning! Would the [...]