From the editor
Imagine 14 years into the future. The year is 2022. Independent India turns 75. At least 30 Indian companies are on the Fortune 100 list; India accounts for 10 per cent of global trade; it has a base of 200 million college graduates; and is a chief source of all global innovations.
Possible? Management guru C. K. Prahalad thinks so. In an exclusive article written specially for Business Today, Prahalad, who, besides being the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, is one of the world's best-known and most respected management thinkers, lists six such possibilities and goes on to show how India could, indeed, achieve them.
Last year, Mohnish Pabrai, an Indian-American investor, businessman and philanthropist, and his associate, Guy Spier, forked out $650,100 (that eventually went to a charitable organisation called the Glide Foundation) for the privilege of having lunch with legendary investor and the world's richest individual, Warren Buffett. In another exclusive to Business Today, Pabrai writes about the three hour lunch that he, Spier and their families had with the world's best-known investor. Don't miss it.
While soaring oil prices have wreaked havoc in the global economy, fuelling inflation all around, it has spurred another outcome: several Indian businessmen are sniffing opportunities in exploring and producing oil. Associate Editor Anand Adhikari examines how half a dozen new companies are exploring the prospects of getting into the oil and gas businesses. Some of them are already in related business, but others are not. Will their initiatives bear fruit or is it just opportunism triggered by the current sky-high prices of black gold? The Great Indian Oil Rush begins.
With interest rates shooting up, millions of middleclass Indians with outstanding home-loans are in a bind. Their monthly payments to lending banks have suddenly shot up-hardly surprising as home loan rates have gone up from around 7 per cent to 12 or more. In BT Money, our personal finance section, Assistant Editor K.R. Balasubramanyam shows you how you can survive the interest rate hike if you are lagging behind in your installments.
