Interesting readings

• Tim Harford in the Financial Times on the skepticism about the extent to which microfinance matters.


• London's attempts at turning away international finance: from the Economist, and Mint. Also see this piece from the Economist.


• M. R. Madhavan in Financial Express on the ineffectiveness of the UPA in translating Parliament time into economic reform.


• Michael Pomerleano on financial stability reform proposals.


• An idea from Ila Patnaik has popped up again.


• Sabrina Tavernise in the New York Times, on Syed Babar Ali, who started LUMS. Here's a comparison, of the footprint of the name of the institution upon google scholar, of LUMS as compared with India's ISB. LUMS was founded in 1986, and is well ahead of ISB in the extent to which they have evolved away from being a pure MBA program [undergraduate] [graduate].


• Ila Patnaik on the questions that RBI now faces on monetary policy.


• An eBook on financial reform, released by the Stern School of Business. A quick read of their chapter summaries gives you a sense of what they have done, and the questions faced in financial reform today on an international scale.


• In continuation of my recent article on the Bombay Club, do look at this view of Bajaj Auto by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar.


• In Businessworld, Ashok Desai discusses a recent speech by Dr. Subbarao, and worries about competition amongst Indian banks.


• Ramachandra Guha in The Telegraph on India's nuclear energy program. Also see these two old pieces (from 2005) by Ila Patnaik: one, two.


• Protectionism alert.


• Deborah Solomon interviews Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, in the New York Times. More CEOs in India should learn to speak like this.


• The meaning of open, a beautiful essay by Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Google. More SVPs in India should learn to think like this.