The Financial Express -- Expressions

This page contains Editorial and Op-Ed articles

Monday, July 14 1997

Letters to the Editor

Withering family empires

The barbarians are not just at the gate--they are storming the hallowed portals of Delhi's business families. With liberalisation winching open the doors and windows of the generations-old Houses of Shriram, Mansions of Modi and Fortresses of Singhs, the graceful kothis of yore are crumbling under the jackboot of transnational competition.

Paying for anarchy

The demand by bank officers for a hike of four hundred per cent in their basic pay is nothing short of preposterous. The macro impact of this is unimaginable. The sheer irresponsibility of an influential segment of the organised working class will soon be matched or possibly improved upon by others and this will have grave implications for economic management overall.

Revamping rural credit

Reserve Bank of India governor Chakravarti Rangarajan's exhortation to rural credit institutions that their lending rates should compensate operating costs is sound financial advice, which, if followed earlier, would have prevented these institutions from getting into the precarious state in which they are in at present. For too long, the emphasis in rural credit was on subsidies, as if cheap credit was all that was needed for the rural masses to prosper.

Management by mistrust

Time to halt the squander

Forest Act: urgent need for amendments