American Periscope
The Amish approach to change
IF YOU are driving through rural Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, manoeuvring your eight-cylinder sports model while talking with a distant friend over a hands-free mobile phone and fiddling with the dash board trying to put your favorite CD
into the player, you should not be surprised if you have to slow down to a crawl at five mph due to a horse-drawn buggy in front. This is Amish country and they shun new technology.
Economy
Buffer-stocks vs poverty alleviation
IN THE 1960s, two American economists, the Paddock brothers, predicted that as a consequence of its teeming millions and a halted foodgrains production, Indians would die like `flies' of hunger and malnutrition by the end of that decade. They b
elieved that there was no saving a nation to which a huge volume of wheat was exported under Public Law-480 every year ostensibly to stave off hunger. In the 1960s, `effective demand' for foodgrains, especially cereals, was higher than domestic supp
ly. Then, therefore, the policy focussed on how to manage the excess demand for cereals.
US: Sliding in or sliding out of recession?
Another tumultuous week in the global stock markets and this occurred even as, ironically, US economic figures began to signal a semblance of stability. The week saw the `celebration' of the fourth anniversary of the devaluation and the eventual float of
the Thai baht.
Corruption revisited
ON FRIDAY last, the chairman of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution released three more ``sets of papers'' relating to ``probity in governance, a Constitutional mechanism for the settlement of inter-State disputes, and funda
mental duties of citizens''. While releasing the papers, the chairman, Mr Justice (Retd) M. N. Venkatachalaiah, said he wanted to know from the public ``whether corruption-free governance should be made a Fundamental Right or a Directive Principle of Sta
te Policy by suitably amending the Constitution''.
Case for `Prevention of Money Laundering Law'
THE print and electronic media recently carried reports on a network of bankers and public servants, through which considerable sums of black money were laundered in certain nationalised banks in Kolkata and Port Blair. The modus operandi was that a bank
draft would be obtained from one branch of a bank. Then, savings bank accounts and fixed deposits were created and operated in other branches of the same bank, or even in other banks, in some well-known names.
Editorial
Unfair screening
AS WIDELY EXPECTED, the Government has thrown out the Hindujas' bid for Air India and Indian Airlines. Not as much expected is the throwing out of Videocon and Sterlite -- the former from bidding for IA and the latter for Hindustan Zinc and Hindusta
n Copper. In the case of the Hindujas, the common perception has been that stuck neck-deep in the Bofors mud no way they could pass muster. There, however, was much anticipation on how the Government would define tainted companies so as to ba
r them from the sell-off process. In the event, the Government has apparently chanced its arm and put in place a set of eligibility guidelines that are open to question.
Management
Managing by values
MANAGEMENT by exception (MBE), management by objectives (MBO) have had all the hype it deserves in the past. Managing by values (MBV) seems to be gaining ground ever since human resources management (HRM) assumed strategic importance in
the enterprise. People do not merely bring in skills into a firm. What shadows them wherever they go are their values which they have learnt -- imperative to managers who are expected to lead them for results and lean on them for team spirit.
