The perils of levying excise duty on readymade garments
The air is thick with the news of an impending levy of excise duty on readymade garments. The readymade garment industry is largely conventrated as cottage industry with three to five sewing machines set up in the homes of tailors. An organised sector of this industry also exists but is barely five per cent of the total number of garment units in India.
GM: Growth can come only from small car
General Motors India Ltd., is a joint venture between the world famous General Motors of USA and Hindustan Motors of India. `What is good for General Motors is good for America' is a popular age old saying in USA. How is the company's Indian subsidiary performing? What are the difficulties it faces in a relatively foreign terrain? Let us see.
The path to a healthy rupiah
Today in Argentina there is a wide consensus among political and economic leaders, as well as academic and professional economists, about the importance of the role that the 1991 Convertibility Law played in stabilising the economy. The macroeconomic data are more than eloquent: Between 1990 and 1997 inflation fell continuously to an annual rate of 1 per cent from over 1,000 per cent.
Political blackmail
The efforts of the smaller parties to extract their pound of flesh raises a question mark over the survival of any government in a hopelessly hung parliament. If the smaller parties persist in acting irresponsibly, the stage seems to be set for a series of shifting coalitions, with disastrous effects on governance. One criticism of the United Front government was that the way it was constituted was a surefire recipe for instability.
Computer chips
One of the oft-repeated shibboleths of reform is that it should benefit the consumer. This has been used to justify all sorts of things, like the entry of consumer goods giants like Pepsi and Coke into the country. Nike, Reebok, Kelloggs, Kentucky Fried Chicken et al are supposed to help the average Indian onwards in his quest for the consumer nirvana. What has been ignored in the process is the fact that man is not merely a consumer, but also a producer.
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