Satyam’s Raju must go

Monday, 29 December 2008 09:09 by Bala Murali Krishna

Satyam was managed as a fiefdom of the Raju family. How else could a company use hundreds of crores of its (and its stockholders’) cash, and stock, to bail out failing companies of relatives? How else could it do so without even a verifiable audit and valuation of the Maytas companies? How else could a computer services firm wander into dangerous real estate business without any meaningful study of the potential or indeed the risks? [More]

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Tags:		b ramalinga raju, satyam computer services, maytas infrastructure, maytas properties, mangalam srinivasan, vindo dham krishna polepu, harvard business school, indian school of business
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What Chennai movie halls can do

Tuesday, 23 December 2008 10:55 by Bala Murali Krishna

I can’t remember a time when going to movies was more challenging. Lend me your ears, for I speak from experience. Last Friday night, we let our impulse get the better of us and took off for a movie. It obviously was a mistake. In Chennai, especially, it is such a wrong thing to do. I suspect it might be bad in several other cities too, but it was nasty out here. [More]

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Tags:		chennai, sathyam cinemas
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Letting real estate dogs lie

Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:34 by Bala Murali Krishna

A few days ago, several weeks after the Indian government had taken a number of steps to ease liquidity and announced cuts in lending rates, I received a letter from LIC Housing Finance Limited, a public sector financial institution, saying it was constrained to raise the interest rate on my home loan to 11.75%. When I took out that loan, it was at a 8.25% rate – a rate that public sector banks are not offering even in this crisis. The floor rate they fixed yesterday is 8.5%. [More]

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Tale of two crises

Monday, 15 December 2008 10:35 by Bala Murali Krishna

Is the Indian government in danger of doing too little on two of the most gripping crises of the day: terrorism and economic slowdown? The question is inspired by the first steps on both fronts. One was bare in details, and the other lacked any muscle. [More]

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Tags:		manmohan singh, p chidambaram, the economist, l k advani, the new indian express
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How US averted post-9/11 attacks

Thursday, 4 December 2008 08:51 by Bala Murali Krishna

Why has the US not faced a major terror attack since 9/11 whereas India has been successfully, some would say easily, targeted more than a dozen times in that period of over seven years? [More]

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Tags:		terrorism, 9/11, akshardham, indian parliament
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Lower prices? How about lower oil?

Wednesday, 19 November 2008 10:22 by Bala Murali Krishna

Was Finance Minister P Chidambaram wrong in urging companies to slash prices to overcome depressed demand? Not quite, but his government should make the first move and lower oil prices. [More]

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Tags:		p chidambaram, murli deora, manmohan singh, dlf
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How real are the ‘distress’ killings?

Friday, 31 October 2008 18:40 by Bala Murali Krishna

The last time I checked — when the United States suffered massive job loss and a recession as the dotcom boom ended in 2000 — immigrant Indians didn’t kill their families or themselves because of financial distress. Many packed their bags, parked their leased BMWs at airports, defaulting on their car loans, and took flights back to their homes in India. Some others just violated their visas, worked illegally at grocery stores and waited out the recession. [More]

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Tags:		lakshminivasa rao nerusu, novu, detroit, karthik rajaram, india west, detroit free press, greg robinson
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Mass layoffs? No chance, buddy

Thursday, 23 October 2008 10:20 by Bala Murali Krishna

The last time around we had layoffs it was after the Internet bubble burst in 2000. Pink slips – both the term as well as the phenomenon – were relatively new to India. Since it was restricted to the IT space, most people were mostly amused, not really affected, and the media had creativ... [More]

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Tags:		jet airways, naresh goyal, raj thackeray, air india, raghu menon, murli deora
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Why the paranoia is unnecessary

Thursday, 16 October 2008 17:23 by Bala Murali Krishna

Many in India have quickly abandoned the discredited theory of decoupling but are needlessly reflecting the gloom and doom of the American economy. [More]

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Do as Buffett does, and there's hope

Sunday, 5 October 2008 09:02 by Bala Murali Krishna

It is a good idea to see what some of the leaders are doing, rather than merely hearing what they are saying. Here is where I am inspired by the legendary investor Warren Buffett. [More]

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Tags:		warren buffett, goldman, ge, paulson
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