Mainstream Weekly

Political Logic underlying Pranab‘s Budget

Siddharth Varadarajan — 2009-07-11T18:46:23Z

With the Left weakened electorally and the United Progressive Alliance Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh free to chart its own policy course, the corporate sector had been expecting the new regime's first Budget to be what business commentators euphemistically call “investor friendly”. But while there were rich pickings for key companies in specific sectors, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Budget speech on Monday made it clear there would be no early deviation from the steady (…)

- July 2009

Inscrutable Chinese Behaviour at NSG Meet in Vienna

Siddharth Varadarajan — 2008-09-23T11:42:06Z

Disputing official Chinese accounts of Beijing having played a “constructive” role in the recent Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting on India, diplomats from several NSG states say China stood by the handful of countries resisting approval of the India waiver and only backed off when it saw the opposition melt away on the morning of September 6.
At the same time, some diplomats questioned the suggestion that China was out to block the deal, with one European envoy who took part in the (…)

- September 20, 2008