Analyses

Analysis | News Minute
Mamata Banerjee victory

No, not ten, Mamata had only two factors going for her

20 May 2016

Making post-result analyses of elections can be great fun. With the advantage of hindsight, all you need to do is Google up a bit, and speak to ten people. And, you can easily land up with vacuous, click-bait lists such as: Ten reasons why Mamata made a comeback, 13 facts about Mamata's landslide victory, Six things you should know about the Left debacle in West Bengal, and so on. Precious few of them would answer the elementary question: why did the majority of the people in West Bengal vote...

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Analysis | Fibre2Fashion
Mahyco-Monsanto

The seed of discontent

1 April 2016

The Karnataka High Court's interim order of March 24, 2016 saying that the Union government cannot regulate the licence fee for seed technology might have come as a relief to Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Limited (MMBL), but the issues at hand are far from dead. In fact, there are many who believe that this is probably only the first battle in a long-drawn war that would be fought among many stakeholders. The order was essentially over a technical count since the licence fee was based on mutual...

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Analysis | Fibre2Fashion
Sustainable supply chains

Cleaning up for sustainability

1 March 2016

At an October 2013 round table conference organised by the Guardian newspaper in association with the global engineering and environment consultancy URS, it became evident from the discussions that companies were becoming increasingly exposed to risks across their supply chains, either by disruption resulting from climate change or reputational damage. The discussants built up a strong business case for developing sustainable ways of working throughout a company and its supply chain: saving...

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Analysis | Fibre2Fashion
National Textile Policy

An ensemble of policies

1 February 2016

In a few weeks from now, possibly during the Budget session of Parliament, the new National Textiles Policy may be announced by the Union ministry of textiles. The textiles and apparel industry has been waiting eagerly for the new policy document, which will replace the existing one of 2000, and hopefully provide industry with a much-needed boost. The 2000 policy is hopelessly outdated, given three major international developments: the phase-out of the Multi Fibre Agreement, the emergence of...

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Analysis | Fibre2Fashion
China vs India

China's slowdown, India's acceleration

1 February 2016

The problem with simplistic arguments is that they invariably either remain speculative at best, or fail to make a point altogether. A classic example of this was the speculation that was fuelled last summer in the backdrop of the Chinese currency being devalued and stocks tumbling the world over. Considerable debates and discussions at that time featured in the Indian media, almost all of them drawing the conclusion that India would make the best of China's declining state of affairs, and forge...

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Analysis | News Minute
Ambani brothers

Ambani brothers may now control telecom space, and more

29 December 2015

The pomp and glitz surrounding the launch of Reliance Jio's 4G services on Monday was all-pervading. It would have one believe that the company, part of the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) conglomerate, had done something revolutionary. But then, it hadn't. Neither had it introduced a new technology, and nor launched an innovation. It had only annnounced the rollout of its 4G telecom services, something that rival Bharti Airtel had done way back in February 2014. The promotional blitzkrieg...

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Analysis | Scroll
Reliance Jio launch

The Jio launch was all about Mukesh Ambani. Here's why

28 December 2015

The media blitz surrounding Reliance Jio's launch of 4G services (albeit for its employees, as of now) has been as overwhelming as the launch event itself had been a spectacle. But the real story is hardly about the rollout of a broadband service as it is about being a personal milestone for Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). For more than ten years Ambani had been biding his time—to get into the telecom space. When the undivided RIL had...

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Analysis | F2F Compendium
Indian textile machinery

Indian textile machinery: Problems and prospects

1 September 2015

The global production of textile machinery annually is worth over US $ 20 Billion. Among the biggest manufacturers of textile machinery are Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France and China. India does not figure at the top, but it has a big growth opportunity and prospect on this count, especially with growing demand in the export market of textile products. According to a knowledge paper prepared by Suvin Advisors for India International Textile Machinery Exhibitions Society (India ITME Society)...

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Analysis | Fibre2Fashion
Crude oil

The great oil spill

1 September 2015

What essentially began as a game of one-upmanship between two nations, has now spread so far and wide that every sector in any country which is even slightly reflective of the global economy is feeling either the pangs of it or reaping in the associated benefits. We are talking crude oil here, and the game in question is the one that is still ongoing between Saudi Arabia and the United States. As this edition goes to the press, many speculators across the world feel oil prices would fall to $45...

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Analysis | Farmers' Forum
Fashion week

From farm to fashion: Cotton farmer on the global ramp

28 August 2015

Few sectors of the economy have so much bearing on people's lives as the textiles and apparel industry has. It touches as many lives as the food sector does – for no one stops eating, or for that matter wearing clothes; yet, it goes on up on food considering the sheer spread of the sector and its long-drawn supply chain that has an over-arching effect on innumerable other sectors of the economy. The scale of the industry is so enormous and overlapping with other sectors, and its supply-chain so...

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