Too little power
A gazette notification has further curtailed the Disinvestment Commission's powers. Not that it had much power in the first place, but apparently even its homilies on how disinvestment should proceed were irritating to the government. The 1996 notification for setting up the commission stated that the panel was being set up to formulate disinvestment strategies and that it had a specific role in the implementation of those strategies.
Leech for plague
The US labour leader, John Sweeney recently blasted the IMF for what he described as prescribing leeches to cure the plague. Given his clout, policy makers in IMF must feel somewhat embarrassed even as the SE Asian countries arm-twisted by the fund's bureaucracy have some cause for hope that Sweeney's remarks might help tone down the policy prescriptions for dealing with the current economic crisis.
Are reforms without cost to the economy?
Since the end of cold war and demise of former USSR new concepts have paved in and art of governance of economy has changed considerably. The structural adjustment, reforms, liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have been initiated not only in India but those are found all over the world in the last decade of the twentieth century. Reforms denote different meaning to different people. But some changes and new directions to economic management are on the world wide agenda to which India cannot be exceptional.
Tightening the supply side of economy
Management should not be identified with merely the process of production of goods and services. There is a lot more to it than this physical activity, which is only the final product and is the result of several reflexes, policy as well as administrative, with several people responsible for these. The reflexes are more important since ultimately their qualitative superiority is what counts in the market place. Business strategists have to be both demand and supply side economists.
The Index
"Synergistic" is one word which aptly describes Compaq Computer Corporation's recent acquisition of Digital Electronic Corporation. While globally the merger should, from a competitive standpoint, create an IT player rivalling the might of Hewlett Packard, there still remain some unanswered questions in the Indian context.
SC can order inquiry into theft of national resources
The Supreme Court has the power to order an investigation into allegations of large-scale theft of a national resource. When the allegations relate to the powerful then it does not have to be first convinced about the prima facie existence of a case to allow it to proceed further. This is the clearcut message flowing from the apex court's order in Suresh Chandra Sharma vs Chairman Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board.
