opinion

IBC: Ring fencing the corporate debtor from all defects

Protecting a company from the actions of its promoters will help the acquirer in an insolvency process. But it could create a moral hazard

Data Privacy | The making of a Surveillance State

India’s proposed Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 gives absolute power to the Centre to exempt its agencies from the purview of the Law if the Central Government is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with the foreign States, public order

Politics | Will Britain break the Brexit logjam?

This in the ultimate analysis is the Brexit election and so the choice for the British electorate will be between Boris Johnson who is promising to deliver Brexit by January 31 and Jeremy Corbyn who will negotiate a new Brexit deal and then grant a new EU referendum.

Interest rate options can be the remedy against higher interest rates and higher EMIs

Interest rate options can also be used as a fixed income instrument generating a steady return if investors play the game right

Save or spend — The provident fund puzzle

Move to lower staff contribution to PF corpus can affect the retirement corpus of millions

Society | Is outrage about sexual assault the flip side of indifference?

What the intense focus on a few cases out of the tens of thousands of rapes across India every year (32,599 reported cases in 2017) obscures is that sexual assault is a pervasive and persistent pandemic that is not going to disappear thanks to the death penalty or ‘encounters’.

Broker default – Only a strong deterrent can plug the gap

The punitive action should be like the one taken on ‘fugitives’ to prevent recurrence

Shaktikanta Das @1: An eventful year, but questions swirl

The appointment of a generalist at the helm of a central bank is not limited to India, but has become a trend across central banks

SBI’s bad loan under-reporting shows balance sheets still can’t be trusted

Investors seem to think that the worst is behind banks when it comes to stressed loans recognition. But that is more hope than reality

Trade Agreements | How India-Korea CEPA impacted domestic markets

Among the FTAs which have affected Indian domestic industry adversely, the India-Korea CEPA, signed in 2009, has been significant. India had a trade deficit with South Korea of around $4.5 billion in 2009, and increased to $11.5 billion in 2018.

Policy | Trump deals a crippling blow to WTO

The clock is being turned back to a time when trade rivalries were settled with tariff walls and beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism

E-commerce and FMCG: Friend or foe | Corporate Corridor

FMCG sales online are a small part of the overall retail mix but its pace of growth makes it a channel investors should keep a close watch on

Ola IPO | Bhavish Aggarwal likes walking down the Uber path, even to the Street

Ola wants to go public in two years from the time Uber went public. While that may be in keeping with its desire to follow in its footsteps, it may be premature for Ola to tap retail investors.

RIP Paul Volcker: Till there is macroeconomics, you will be remembered

Thanks to this legendary former Fed chair, US inflation was tamed and has remained so ever since

Politics | Jharkhand elections, ‘Samadhan’ and the Maoists

The Maoist movement’s political role in elections has remained practically in a grey area between electoral politics and revolutionary politics.

Politics | Why the Citizenship Amendment Bill does more harm than good

In the Northeast the new citizenship norms are not only pointless but hugely disruptive. It cannot be the aim of a regime which seeks to take forward a united and strong India to bring forward a measure that creates enormous uncertainty in a geographically significant corner of it.

Politics | The takeaways from the Karnataka bypoll results

The Congress is now facing a leadership crisis in Karnataka, and bypoll verdict has presented an existential crisis for the JD(S). For the BJP, the message is for the central leadership to rely more on local leaders.

Policy | Why India's higher education sector fails to deliver

The problem is in how we have modelled our higher education system.

Are India’s Consistent Compounders maxed out?

Worries mostly relate to the growth runway, given their large size and already dominant market shares

Human Development Report: Who benefited the most from India’s economic growth?

We are ardent followers of Deng Xiaoping, who is reported to have said, ‘Let some people get rich first’

Sebi is right in favouring clients over Karvy’s lenders

The lenders should have completed their proper due-diligence before releasing the money

Politics | A golden opportunity for the BJP in Karnataka

The vote for the BJP this time around rested on the hope that it would not betray the faith of the people as the HD Kumaraswamy government had. Indeed, the BJP would now be under strict watch for its promise of good governance.