Quotes from Sucheta Dalal

Large and profitable newspapers have the ability to drop the cover price of their publications to increase circulation - this, in turn, attracts the advertising bucks and makes them more powerful.

It is worth asking if advertisements are ever an effective counter against negative publicity. International experience shows that it depends on the issue.

We like to joke that India has sick companies but rich promoters. Yet, even after the bad loans and non-payment of dues have turned at least three banks sick, there is no public demand for investigation, accountability and punishment.

The truth is that very few newspapers in the country are willing to do a fair and impartial investigation into the shenanigans of industrialists, politicians or government.

Few Indians realise that the shift towards a market economy requires us to be alert and to fight for our rights and very few of us are willing to spare the time or money for such battles.

Being an office bearer of a housing society is a thankless job that everyone wants to shirk.

The postal department does indeed undertake a lot of thankless work and is forced to provide services below cost for bookpost and the like. The answer may lie in some form of a universal service obligation fund, not price-fixing.

India needs fresh thinking and quick decision-making to get out of the stifling bind of its galloping population and deadly poverty.

By creating a minority quota in lending the government is clearly playing politics and wants to fatten its vote banks, whether or not it makes commercial sense.

I do know that lifting from the Net is rampant, journalists do it, students are bound to do it and obviously a lot of academics are also doing it.

In the informal hierarchy of the information media, the printed word is still considered the most credible. I am not quite sure why this is so, because television allows you to witness the unfolding of events yourself.

Anyone born after 1985 has grown up during the post-liberalisation honeymoon, when a rash of new banks, phone companies, airlines, care and durable goods manufacturers were wooing them or their parents for business.

Putting an end to usurious rates is not going to be as simple as asking banks to lay down internal guidelines, policies and procedures.

I have missed meetings because a Speed Post from a government office reached after the meeting. But these are rare blips in a large network.

The existence of glass ceilings in the corporate sector has been extensively researched and documented and there is no need to reiterate the fact. Women are also, usually paid less then men for the same jobs and are grossly under-represented at the top of the corporate pyramid.

The ambitious women usually work twice as hard to make up the handicap of being usually left out of the chummy male bonding that takes place over liquor.

Although television and newspapers have played the biggest role in hyping up the World Cup, they are at the lowest end of the megabuck chain.

Apart from World Cup merchandising, television companies and game-specific advertising, you see restaurants and bars working overtime to drag people into their eateries with the lure of large projection screens and special World Cup menus.

The sales tax, excise and property registration departments are all more eager to collect cash in their drawers than to collect for the government's coffers.

The paper's self-confessed love affair is with the advertiser and its flourishing bottomline gives it the power to desecrate editorial space and express the confident view that all other media houses will soon follow its example.

I am not knocking the Net as a research tool. It is the best, and obviously, life has never been better for students.

The message for the smart investor is to watch out. Do not get carried away with news reports and turn smart by pooling information with like-minded investors.

The savvy investor is one who does not believe every rumor on the street and learns to read between the lines of newspaper reports.

There is little incentive even for the media to encourage whistle-blowing or ruffling powerful feathers. They lose advertising, are harassed by government and cut off from the all-important 'A' lists of the rich and the powerful.