Economy
Implications of the Competition Bill
THE structural adjustment programme under the economic reforms since July 1991 and Indias membership to the WTO have exposed economic agents to domestic and global competition, and provided consumers with choices of goods and services. Now, the policy-
makers are getting ready to protect, promote and sustain, this competition through the Competition Bill 2001.
Editorial
Retailing FDI
THE CENTRE HAS virtually made its intentions clear on opening the retail sector to foreign direct investment with the Group of Ministers reassessing the policy which now has the door shut. But there are bound to be many twists and turns before intent tra
nslates into action. For, while the proponents of FDI in the retail sector are many, ranged against them in even larger numbers are the naysayers. Already, protests against the Governments intent have flared up in Mumbai, and these could gain momentum ar
ound the country.
Health
HIV/AIDS pandemic -- The conspiracy of `silence'
IMAGINE your life this way. You get up in the morning and breakfast with your three kids. One is already doomed to die in infancy. Your husband works 300 km away, comes home twice a year and sleeps around in between. You risk your life in every act of se
xual intercourse, so quoted a Time cover story an African woman. She adds, You go to work past a house where a teenager lives alone tending young siblings without any source of income. At another house, the wife was branded a whore when she asked her hus
band to use a condom, beaten silly and thrown into the streets.
Miscellaneous
Work culture of No 1s
THERE has been any number of articles and seminars on work culture, mostly talking down, or at, readers and participants. The preachy stuff is meant for levels other than the top brass, especially the No 1. The assumption is that everybody else should gi
rd up his loins and get going, while the No 1 and his coterie are above any such obligation.
We're nesting now
RECENTLY, I came across an interesting word now being used quite frequently in England. The word appeared mainly when the articles referred to the economy. Everyones trying to be buoyant about it rousing speeches in Parliament and in press conferences
but the dragging anchor of the American recession is slowly pulling it down.
States
Tamil Nadu's `mini-budget': Will it revive fiscal health?
The cash-strapped Tamil Nadu Government has announced a hefty but essential mini-Budget. The recent travails of commuters, brought on by the unreasonable demands of striking transport workers, has inadvertently helped create an environment favourable for
the tough measures being introduced to rescue the State finances.
Terrorism
Enforce POTO before it's too late
THE need to provide the police and the counter-terrorism (CT) agencies with adequate powers, if necessary through special legislation, to deal effectively with terrorism was accepted before September 11, even in countries where the rule of law is supreme
such as the UK, the US and France. Among such legislation used in the UK to strengthen the hands of its CT agencies, can be cited the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act of 1973 and the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1984
modified in 1989 by an Act with the same name.
