Ever since Japan began challenging the United States as the leading automobiles and consumer electronics manufacturer in the 1980s, a debate has been raging over whether America's days as the preeminent manufacturing nation in the world are coming to an end. It would only intensify in the next two decades, when another Asian giant, China, emerged as a manufacturing power. In the face of stiff competition from these and other countries, a number of U.S. manufacturing industries that once … [Read more...]

The global economy cannot afford to have another unsteady year like 2011. Perhaps the most apt adjective to describe the state of the global economy in 2011 would be "unsteady." With crisis after crisis casting giant shadows over nearly all major economies, last year, most of the world was more concerned about not falling into another recession than boosting growth. Those crises included a disconcerting impasse over raising debt ceiling in the United States that nearly led to the first‐ever … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON, DC: A high-profile insider trading case, which has already resulted in the fall of one of the richest South Asian Americans, is threatening to bring down an iconic figure within the community. Rajat Gupta, who was arrested last Wednesday for providing insider information to his billionaire friend Raj Rajaratnam, is now fighting to not just save his reputation, but also to stay out of jail. Rajaratnam was sentenced to a 11-year prison term after he was found guilty by a New … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON, D.C.: India celebrated its 65th Independence Day on Monday, with much fanfare. Among other things, the Independence Day of a nation is an occasion to pay tributes to its freedom fighters and founding fathers, celebrate its accomplishments and review its general direction. From a personal standpoint, there is no better day to pay tributes to the country of your birth than the day of its birth. Even though the last Independence Day I celebrated in India was when I was in my early … [Read more...]

For someone who has been on the run for nearly 10 years, Osama Bin Laden’s end came swiftly. It took the U.S. Navy Seals just 40 minutes to eliminate America’s most wanted man, who was hiding, not in the treacherous mountains on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border — as it was widely believed — but in a sprawling mansion just miles away from Islamabad. Within hours, his body was buried, somewhere in the North Arabian Sea. Not surprisingly, there was one common thread in the way most people around … [Read more...]

In the first 63 years of its independence, India’s attitude towards corruption had been two-pronged: while one half of the nation displayed a remarkable level of tolerance for graft, the other was largely apathetic to the issue. Though front-page story after story had been exposing corruption that pervaded the country’s political system from top to bottom, the electorate’s response has been large yawns. Historically, few governments have been voted out on account of corruption, even though … [Read more...]

Two distinguished Americans are in India this week on a noble mission. William Gates, Jr. and Warren Buffett, the second and third richest individuals on the planet and also among its most generous, landed in the country earlier in the week to preach giving to India’s super-rich. The visits of Buffet, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and Gates, the Microsoft founder, are part of their “Giving Pledge” campaign, which was launched last year to encourage the world’s wealthiest … [Read more...]

The final figures on India-U.S. trade in merchandise goods for 2010, which was released recently by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division, are both encouraging and sobering at the same time. But, first, the hard, cold statistics: the volume of trade between the world’s richest country and its 11th largest economy was worth $48.8 billion last year; the U.S. exports to India accounted for $19.2 billion and its imports from the country totaled $29.5 billion. Exports to the United … [Read more...]