V care Varsity

The distinctive function of the banker ‘begins as soon as he uses the money of others’; as long as he uses his own money he is only a capitalist,” wrote Walter Bagehot in 1873, quoting Ricardo. This distinction may seem outdated. Institutional investors (hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds, private equity) all use other people’s money. Yet Ricardo’s point matters.

Modern institutions are the interface between individuals and their capital. Gains (or lo...

Experiences shared...

Investing systematically in quality stocks/ mutual funds and waiting patiently will fetch inflation-beating handsome returns in the long run.

Investing in stocks directly requires expertise and time, something majority of stock investors don’t have.

Trading, except for a miniscule minority, leads to losses.

It is very difficult, almost impossible, to time the market.

For the vast majority of inves...

India is receiving a lot of flak for its stance at the just-concluded meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) General Council in Geneva with epithets such as “deal-breaker” being hurled at it. The country is being accused of sabotaging the first real agreement forged by the trade body in 19 years on trade facilitation with its rigid stance on the issue of food subsidy. An agreement on trade facilitation (TFA), which is aimed at easing customs rules and simplifying pr...

the Roman amphitheatre, where the mob decided if the defeated gladiator should die. Apart from turning the judiciary into a khap panchayat, how does this august fraternity commune with the community, or divine that its conscience wants blood? In the 21st century, flooded as it is with 24-hour television and social media on tap, outrage can be manufactured, reality distorted. Even when, as after the Delhi crime, the revulsion was real and widespread, how does the judiciary determine that thos...

The United States-Russia agreement to provide a “framework” for the inspection, removal and eventual destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons proves diplomacy is not a spent force in international politics: it has been creatively deployed in this case to not only stave off potentially disastrous military intervention, but also break new ground in troubleshooting the Syrian crisis politically. The deal — signed Saturday in Geneva by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov...

The entry into force of the landmark global convention that legally recognises domestic work as economically productive activity makes it even harder to countenance the long official neglect of this sector in India. This new standard adopted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) mandates states to promote the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining between domestic workers and their employers, and the effective abolition of child labour in this sector. But the t...

In sharply revising downwards its April growth forecast for the current year (2013-14) by more than one percentage point, the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to the Prime Minister has not exactly sprung a surprise. According to its recently released flagship publication, Economic Outlook 2013-14, the economy will grow by 5.3 per cent, far below the 6.4 per cent projected earlier. The Reserve Bank of India, which was less ambitious to begin with, had revised its estimate to 5.5 from 5.7 per ce...

For a government dragging its feet on the question of providing universal health cover for all, the Centre has shown great alacrity in deciding that members of the All India Services and their families will be eligible for medical treatment abroad at the taxpayer’s expense. It obviously matters little that even in 1946, the report of the Health Survey and Development Committee headed by Sir Joseph Bhore, on which the national health system was to be built, recommended that “public...

India is beginning to develop a new, longer range nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) local media reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

A scientist with the Defense Research and Development Organization, India’s military technology agency, told The New Indian Express that DRDO is secretly developing a missile with an initial range of 6,000 km (3,728 miles). Currently, India’s longest range ballistic missile is the Agni-V, which has a range of a...

The G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, that begins on September 5 will probably show greater urgency in tackling emerging risks to sustainable global growth. It will call for much closer cooperation between the developed and developing worlds, as also among emerging economies, in dealing with the “catastrophic consequences” of the United States Federal Reserve withdrawing its $85-billion-a-month liquidity support to the domestic economy over the next year. Cumulatively, the U....

When Brian Lara scored a scintillating 400 not out in Antigua in April 2004, it seemed his score would remain unchallenged for the foreseeable future. But we now have another player on the scene who has scored 400, and threatens to go past that number effortlessly — carbon dioxide (CO2); CO2 levels in the atmosphere touched 400 parts per million (ppm) on May 9. Its symbolic significance is huge, its actual import is even bigger, for three reasons.

Impact on life cycl...

The acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 riot case extinguishes every glimmer of hope for substantial justice to the Sikh victims of the bloody pogrom that took place in the nation’s capital in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The judge found three men guilty of murder and two of rioting, but was not convinced that Mr. Kumar had instigated the riots. The verdict is bound to reinforce the view that politically well-connected persons will continue to ev...

This is a challenging time in India’s development history where a number of tenets of environmental governance are being questioned by the imperative of growth. Environmental governance in India is under assault, and is thus in need of both fresh thinking, and a new focus, based on outcome and results.

The Western Ghats are no ordinary ecosystem. They constitute the water tower of peninsular India, providing water to 245 million people and draining a large part of the...

What do we seek in a Supreme Court judge? One who must exercise among the widest constitutional jurisdictions of any Supreme Court in the world: to pass any order that does “complete justice,” hear, however briefly, petitions against any order from any court and to decide direct cases on violations of fundamental rights?

The role requires complete probity, and spine; the courage and the wisdom to interpret rights in ways that adhere to the law, yet evolve in new...

Myanmar is open for trade and investment but the response from Indian business has not been adequate despite the growing political ties between the two countries

A message coming out from our neighbour Myanmar that is transforming itself after 50 years of military rule is ‘we are open for business.’ Are our commercial establishments listening and are they ready?

Our bilateral relations with Myanmar have gathered momentum in recent times. We ha...

Long reviled as an artificial grouping of countries with little in common other than a sense of exclusion from the command structures of the international system, the BRICS forum has finally come up with a decision that has the potential to be a global game changer: the establishment of a “New Development Bank.” The absence of specific details in the eThekwini Declaration issued at the end of the fifth summit meeting of the forum in Durban has led western sceptics to conclude that...

P. Chidambaram has upped the ante by referring to the “laws of economics” implying that they cannot be bucked and suggesting that his own actions reflect an awareness of them. Space now unfolds for a serious discourse on the current stance of economic policy of which he is the sole architect. Of his announced strategy for the economy, two elements deserve our attention — the one for raising the investment rate and that for financing India’s soaring deficit in the balan...