Now showing: 2009 Fall Collection, Dubai
Days like this, I feel like I’m stuck in one of those surreal science fiction movies about an unending time loop. Around this time last year, I remember sitting around with the kind of people who...
View ArticleBankers paid back in own coin
Help. I just can't seem to get away from executive pay, more specifically bankers' bonuses, in this part of the world. Last week, Alistair Darling in his pre-Budget report — the key economic...
View ArticleHow long before pulp friction?
Whatever happens, I will be forever grateful to whatever fate allowed me to be right here, right now over the past week, to witness democratic history in the making. The Nick- 'n' -Dave show, as wags...
View ArticleGoing to UK, verified by visa
This time of the year is usually dull for people like us. Everybody’s headed into the summer holidays. Luckily, half the British cabinet and its ginormous retinue have just come back from India, in...
View ArticleDon’t let that chip get soggy
I notice that the Americans hiking H1-B visa costs to Indian companies to pay for border security with Mexico is hitting headlines in India. I also notice that the Indian IT industry, led by Nasscom,...
View ArticleHow UK looks at Anil Agarwal and Vedanta
He’s usually referred to as ‘Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal’, or alternatively by the new cloying term UK media has coined for global Indian entrepreneurs –"billionaire Bollygarch." Increasingly, the...
View ArticleNiyamgiri to Delhi, via London
A couple of weeks ago, I bumped into a visiting Indian corporate type. We were naturally chatting about the Vedanta issues. He bet me that its bauxite mining project in Niyamgiri would go through, but...
View ArticlePaying the price for welfare state
I’ve been trying for while to resist writing about the UK government’s welfare reforms and budget cuts. I didn’t think it’s fair, living where the state wouldn’t pay even for a pauper’s funeral, to...
View ArticlePalace now house of commons
What does a country really need when times are hard, unemployment is rising, things are going to get worse, and there’s an economic catastrophe looming every other week? A Royal Wedding, of...
View ArticleIn a state of being kettled
I’ve been kettled. That’s my favourite new word of the season, and also why I’ve been forced offline for a while. Kettled is the word coined by student protestors in London, referring to the police...
View ArticleHow mores become chores
Why, I asked a friend/business contact I met after a long time, are you dressed like a Christmas fairy today? Never mind what she was wearing, or what the occasion she had come from was. The point is...
View ArticleLet the Juices Flow, Not the Ink
This past week, international headlines have been completely dominated by sex scandals. One would think that there are more important issues in the world, but oh, well. Oddly enough, the timing of the...
View ArticleCan old politicians learn new tricks?
This week, I could use up my allotted space just by running through tickertype headlines, there’s just so much going on all around the place. Whatever happened to those lazy, somnolent, English...
View ArticleSuch institutes need an education
It’s one of those weeks when there’s more than enough stuff going on for a snarky columnist to rip to shreds, and even more to complain about. I could indulge in my favourite pastime of being rude...
View ArticleTales Wag the Rottweilers
Celebrities, sex, crime and tragedy victims pouring their hearts out on candid camera. In the good old days, before everything started unravelling for Britain's famous tabloids after the News of the...
View ArticleCheque Us Out: EU to Merkel
There’s so much going on in India I want to write about. But given the queries I’m getting about the tamasha in Europe, I guess I should stick to what I know best, considering that I spend vast amounts...
View ArticleAid and Misplaced Expectations
Every time I think I'm getting used the Brits they go do something that's so typical that I can't resist being snarky. This time, they've whipped up a ridiculous palaver over the Dassault-Eurofighter...
View ArticleBritain's on top of the game
LONDON: The morning after what was billed as the "biggest after-show party" at the Olympic Park, the British media ran with headlines on how The Australian had rated London 2012 as the "best-ever"...
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Should politicians go to P-school?
Last week, I was chatting with the kind of people I talk to for this column. We were talking about the new-found enthusiasm for reforms in India. "At least," he told me in disgust, "the Indian...
View Article‘The weather...rubbish...recession. Don’t come to Britain’
Watch out. The barbarians are at the gate. This time — no, they’re not Indians, Pakistanis or Poles — they’re Bulgarians and Romanians. Britain is once again embroiled in a massive immigration row.One...
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