Category Archives: Business

Setting Targets or Expectation Setting

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Basab Pradhan

Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in an interview about India’s slowing GDP growth, to the Wall Street Journal says, “We must aim at 9%, as I will, and we must be happy if it’s between 8% and 9%.” This begs … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, India | 8 Comments

I am Never Wrong – Just Ahead of My Time

Posted on October 15, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

After last week’s post, here’s another one based upon a gem from Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness. It’s called the bias against self-contradiction and it goes like this – if you make a bet that the market will go a … Continue reading →

Posted in Business | 7 Comments

BCCI and Indian Cricket – Monopolies are Never Good

Posted on September 30, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

Last week the returning winners of the Twenty20 World Cup, jammed up traffic in Mumbai. Sharad Pawar, the BCCI President and also Union Minister for Agriculture, cancelled all his appointments to receive the Indian cricket team. There was a big … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, India | 4 Comments

Old Retail vs Farmers – Now It Gets Interesting

Posted on September 9, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

A couple of months back, I wrote about Kerela’s ban on organized retailing. Most readers agreed that it was wrong-headed. But there was some skepticism about my claim that organized retailing would be beneficial to the farmers. Well, here’s the … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, India | 8 Comments

Number Games – BEST TV Advertising

Posted on August 26, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

Among business newspapers in India, Business Standard is good and is constantly improving; Mint is new but very good too. Both have an online presence [B-S Mint] and do not have irritating pop-up ads. The B-S site is not password … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, India | 12 Comments

The Importance of being Articulate

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

If you happen to travel in the US-India corridor, as I do, next time watch CNBC in the US and then go watch CNBC in India, or vice versa. You’ll immediately notice some differences. One difference is in how the … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, India | 27 Comments

Contaminated Food

Posted on July 21, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

The ongoing saga of contaminated toothpaste and food imports from China into the US is in its third month but is far from over. For those of you who haven’t heard about it here’s what’s been happening. In October 2006, … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Random Stuff | 8 Comments

In Mumbai

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

Landed in Mumbai a couple of days ago. Sahar airport has improved quite a bit in the last 2 years that I have been flying into Mumbai. It is far from the kind of airport that one would expect the … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, India | 17 Comments

The real deal with offshore captives

Posted on May 7, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

Recently Forrester Research released a report that says that offshore captives, which have been much in vogue for the last three years, are “imploding”. A blog post here makes for interesting reading, especially the comments.

Posted in Business, Offshore Services | 21 Comments

More insiders being recruited as CEOs

Posted on May 5, 2007 by Basab Pradhan

A few months back I had written on Runaway CEO compensation after the Bob Nardelli/Home Depot fiasco. My sole recommendation on the way out of the CEO compensation mess was – better succession planning.

Posted in Business | 2 Comments