How Can Improving Work Culture Values In Individuals Help Productivity?   In this modern era, in dealings including those in corporate organisations, culture is a word used often. We talk of culture, heritage, and tradition even in the office. We talk of corporate culture and of work culture. The International Atomic Energy Agency has even coined the expression ‘Safety Culture’ and produced a document with that title. We find senior...

Job Market for Indians Abroad   The tradition of Indians ‘crossing oceans to seek fortunes’ is an age old one. In the earlier years, it had been essentially blue collar workmen, that is, plantation workers, road construction workers and the like. However in the last quarter century, there has been a steady traffic of white collar and managerial personnel leaving Indian shores in quest of dollars, riyals, rupiahs and ringgits....

US-Iran Controversy Given the resurgence of anti-Iranian feelings ex-pressed mainly through an activist Congress, dominated by the Republicans — in the US, President Bill Clinton’s latest decision to impose a total ban on US trade and investment with Iran is not surprising. It came as a necessary corollary to Mr. Clinton’s earlier executive order which prevented the Houston-based Con-coco Inc from developing two off-shore oil fields for Iran. Mr. Clinton...

America – China Agreement to End Trade War   The agreement which the United States and China reached recently, for the protection of intellectual property rights, averted a potential trade war which would not have been in the interest of the two countries. The agreement obliges China to comply with U.S. demands, to create 22 piracy task forces for overseeing and operating the entire gamut of prevention, detection, closure of...

Functioning of the European Economic Union    At a recent seminar of European business executives, to discuss the current functioning and future prospects of the European Union, the general perception was that European leaders have to perform better to meet the demand for action from individual Governments and the Union itself. The European Commission, the bureaucratic division of the European Union, also needs to be streamlined. Mr. Jacques Santer, the...

SAARC and the task of tackling poverty in south Asia     Poverty alleviation is basically a political decision, because economic support for such an effort can surely be found if the Government has the will to confront the issue head-on. There could not have been a more appropriate time for the South Asian countries to think of tackling the problem of poverty. At a time when most of them...

The State of African Economy   Despite their articulated concern over Africa’s poor growth record, the developed countries have persisted in main taming policies that perpetuate, rather than alleviate Africa’s dependency relationship, suggesting an ambivalence to what global role the developed countries truly envision for Africa. For example, developed countries continue to impose the insidious practice of “tariff escalation”, by which the tariff rates rise with the degree of processing...

Code of Conduct for Foreign Investments Round the World   Besides the code of conduct for multinational companies, there is a code of conduct for Governments wanting foreign investment. Patent protection continues to be a live issue in India. But even as what was really yesterday’s battle is still being fought within the country, the agenda for tomorrow’s been drawn up in Paris. In May 1996, members of the Organisation...