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Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Short circuits and sharp jolts in India's policy wiring
It starts innocently enough. A flickering tube light, a fan that won't start. You figure it's just a loose connection. So you open up the old switchboard, twist a couple of wires, maybe even feel a little proud of your DIY bravado. But then. Zap!! You're on the floor, your fingers tingling, your trust in household electricity forever shaken. That's the thing about systems we think we understand: the shock only comes once you dare to touch them. That is what it feels like today, institutions try to tinker, patch, or redirect the current, but instead of a quiet fix, they get a dangerous surge of resistance, unintended consequences, or just plain misjudgment. Let's dive in. Take the India-US trade talks. After months of cautious optimism, the government's effort to rewire its trade dynamics short-circuited spectacularly, as noted in our first editorial. President Trump slammed Indian exports with a 25 per cent tariff and penalties, using oil imports from Russia as a pretext. What began as a negotiation to avoid escalation, is threatening to end with sparks flying, and not the celebratory kind. Meanwhile, as the government readies the 8th Central Pay Commission, it's facing its own overload. Our second editorial highlights how public sector wage tweaks, meant to keep the grid stable, are burdened by a swelling wage bill and outdated structures. The CPC needs to avoid another power trip and focus on long-term circuitry: merit-based raises, fiscal sustainability, and detangling overqualification traps in the labour market. In a column by Pranjul Bhandari, the power drain is in India's credit system. Despite the RBI flipping every switch with rate cuts, and liquidity infusions, the demand isn't flowing. The current has shifted from supply-side shortages to structural kinks: informal sectors are lighting up, formal sectors dimming, and banks are left with plenty of volts but no takers. And in a piece by Shishir Gupta and Aalhya Sabharwal, the disconnect is painfully visible in the female workforce. India's low female labour force participation rate isn't just about norms — it's also about bad wiring: rigid labour laws, poor education, and a demand-side system that fails to create jobs where women can thrive. Unlike Bangladesh's high-voltage garment sector, India hasn't even plugged into the right socket. Finally, Kanika Datta's review of The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War by Charlie English, offers the rare case where flicking the intellectual switch worked. Smuggling books like Animal Farm into Soviet zones turned out to be a quiet but powerful rebellion. Sometimes, you don't need brute electricity, just a spark of an idea.
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Business Standard
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
The CIA Book Club reveals how the West won minds behind the Iron Curtain
How the CIA, instead of pursuing scandalous swashbuckling interventions, smuggled books to weaken the Iron Curtain and offer Eastern Europe a glimpse of an alternative future Kanika Datta The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War Published by HarperCollins 361 pages ₹699 For earnest Indian university students, at least until the eighties, George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago were standard social reading. These and other 'intellectual' books, readily available and easily borrowed, were discussed threadbare during adda sessions, the duration of which depended on the number of classes we felt compelled to miss. It is striking to discover, then, that for contemporaries behind the Iron Curtain, these and many other authors — including Agatha Christie! — were
NZ Herald
5 days ago
- Business
- NZ Herald
The rates crisis – a canny view for New Zealand: Nick Stewart
Council rates increased 12.2% annually.¹ The Taxpayers' Union documents cumulative rate increases of 34.52% over three years whilst inflation totalled just 13.7%. This is systematic wealth confiscation by people who face no market discipline for their decisions, and the Hastings District Council provides a fine example of the melee ahead. Yet, Hastings is simply one example among many bad apples across NZ. Rate increases, or daylight robbery? In Hastings, ratepayers who budgeted for normal 3-4% increases got hammered with 19% in 2024-25, followed by 15% in 2025-26. That's a compound 37% increase over two years for Hastings ratepayers. An average Hastings family paying $3000 in rates now face $4300 annually – that's $1300 extracted from household budgets that could have funded children's education or emergency savings. The timing makes this especially vicious. Right as petrol prices fell 8% – providing families with a glimmer of relief – councils threw on rate increases that more than wiped out these savings. It's almost as if they calculated how much breathing room households gained … then took it. Hastings has projected debt rising from $400 million to $700m by 2030. We're witnessing a council that has grown beyond what its ratepayer base can sustain. The rider has become heavier than the horse, which spells eventual capitulation. Every private business understands that customers have a finite capacity to pay. Exceed that capacity and customers disappear. Councils operate under no such constraint. They simply send bigger bills to ratepayers who can't escape. Like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm, today's councillors have forgotten they're supposed to serve ratepayers – not rule them. While private-sector businesses slash costs and implement redundancies to survive, councils expand their fiefdoms with impunity. The contrast couldn't be starker. Business managers whose jobs depend on efficiency face market discipline daily. Councillors face elections every three years, where complex budget decisions get reduced to campaign slogans. Meanwhile, they enjoy inflation-plus salary increases and gold-plated job security while imposing austerity on the very ratepayers who fund them. Richardson's Democratic Solution Ruth Richardson captures the fundamental problem: councils have become 'arrogant', 'unaccountable', and 'wasteful' and 'have got to be brought to heel'. Her proposed solution cuts through the bureaucratic nonsense: cap rate increases at inflation unless ratepayers approve higher amounts through binding referenda. This isn't radical – it's basic democratic consent for taxation. An inflation cap would restore planning certainty overnight whilst forcing councils to choose between genuine necessities and bureaucratic empire-building. Critics claim this assumes ratepayers lack perfect information about 'complex' infrastructure trade-offs, but that misses the point entirely. The current system assumes councils have perfect information about ratepayers' financial capacity – an assumption that Hastings' compound 37% increase rudely disproves. When families face financial warfare dressed up as fiscal responsibility, the 'complexity' argument becomes irrelevant. Hastings, the bellwether? The upcoming Hastings mayoral election represents more than political choice – it's an opportunity for forensic examination of fiscal responsibility: every council vote recorded, every budget decision documented, and no way for candidates to escape their fiscal DNA through clever spin and newfound fiscal enlightenment. Some councillors already express concern about 'diminishing borrowing capacity' – a tacit admission that current spending is unsustainable. When the reality finally penetrates the bureaucratic bubble, it's too late for the ratepayers. This same dynamic is playing out from Auckland to Invercargill. Yes, New Zealand faces genuine infrastructure challenges. Ageing water systems, earthquake strengthening, and climate adaptation create real costs. But this reality has become the perfect smokescreen for herculean spending growth. The question isn't whether infrastructure needs exist. The infrastructure bill was always coming due. It's whether councils have used it to justify spending that extends far beyond pipes and roads – into glamour projects, consultant fees and bureaucratic expansion. Again – when the rider becomes heavier than the horse, the system collapses regardless of how noble the rider's intentions. Why can't RBNZ just drive rates down? The Reserve Bank faces an impossible choice. It cannot provide the interest rate relief the rest of us desperately need whilst councils pump 13% of total inflation into the economy. We all need to row the boat and play our part – including the public sector. A dollar is a dollar, whether it comes from a rates bill or a grocery receipt. When councils exempt themselves from inflation discipline, they force the RBNZ to keep interest rates higher for longer – crushing mortgage holders and businesses who had no say in council spending decisions. Every responsible household and business starts the year with careful financial planning. These assume government costs increase roughly in line with inflation – a reasonable expectation in a functioning democracy. The problem lies in the fact that our councils have abandoned this social contract. When rates contribute 13% of national inflation whilst representing a fraction of household spending, councils have become the primary destroyer of private planning. Families who budget carefully find their fiscal discipline rendered meaningless by public sector excess they cannot control or escape. Voters, now's your chance … Real reform requires acknowledging that councils have become the enemy of household financial stability. October's elections offer a chance to demand proven fiscal discipline, not conversion stories. The question isn't whether New Zealand can afford fiscal responsibility – it's whether families and businesses can survive another term of public sector excess. The arithmetic doesn't lie. It simply raises the question of whether voters will finally hold councils accountable for the mathematical reality they've created.
Scotsman
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Fringe: ten hit shows returning to the world's biggest arts festival
The Scotsman will review hundreds of new Edinburgh Fringe shows this August but here are ten sure things to start with, writes Andrew Eaton-Lewis Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Mairi Campbell: Pendulum Trilogy Singer and musician Mairi Campbell has been bringing her distinctive combination of storytelling, musicianship and theatrical magic to the Fringe for a decade now, beginning with her 2015 show Pulse, the story of how she found her musical voice in Cape Breton via a trip to Mexico. This year, to mark Pulse's tenth anniversary, Campbell revives all three shows in her and director Kath Burlinson's 'Pendulum Trilogy' – Pulse, plus Auld Lang Syne, about the history of Scotland's most famous song (and how Campbell's own version of it famously ended up in Sex and the City) and last year's Living Stone, a hypnotically beautiful show about her discovery of a 400 year-old mill stone. Scottish Storytelling Centre, various times, until 17 August Mairi Campbell PIC: Jula Faygruen Sam Kissajukian: 300 Paintings One of last year's great discoveries, Sam Kissajukian's show takes a familiar set-up – comedian pursuing a Dave Gorman-style mission gets into a series of quirky, unlikely capers along the way – and turns it into a compelling examination of the relationship between creativity, obsession and mental illness, as he shares the story of how he abandoned stand-up comedy to become a painter, ultimately creating 300 paintings in just five months in tandem with some increasingly bizarre business ideas. This behaviour, it turned out, was the result of an extended manic bipolar episode. Summerhall, 31 July to 25 August, 12.05pm Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Sam Blythe in Guy Masterson's production of Animal Farm | Guy Masterson Animal Farm Guy Masterson's adaptation of George Orwell's novel has long been a masterpiece of solo storytelling. This year's version is both a revival and a reinvention as performer Sam Blythe takes over the role, with Masterson remaining as director. Orwell's themes, of course, are as powerful as ever. And the timing of the show makes it an excellent start to a festival day. Assembly George Square, 30 July until 24 August, 10.40am A Gambler's Guide to Dying Gary McNair has, at the last count, won three Scotsman Fringe First awards and sold out entire Fringe runs seven times, with shows that combine cleverly chosen cultural reference points (from Morrissey to Billy Connolly) with thoughtful reflections on issues from toxic masculinity to Scottish identity. Here he revisits his 2015 breakthrough show for its tenth anniversary; it's the (true?) story of a man who, having placed a winning bet on England winning the 1966 World Cup, decides to place a bet that he will survive until the year 2000 following a cancer diagnosis. Traverse Theatre, 31 July until 24 August, various times Sunshine on Leith First staged by Dundee Rep in 2007 and later made into a 2013 movie, Sunshine on Leith has fittingly become an Edinburgh Fringe staple thanks to Captivate Theatre which is bringing it back again this year. A cut above most jukebox musicals thanks to a story rooted (mostly) in the grit of real life, it features two soldiers struggling to readjust to the home front, with The Proclaimers' music skilfully integrated into the story along the way (from misery to happiness) by its writer Stephen Greenhorn. The title track in particular is a tearjerker. Assembly Rooms, 31 July to 24 August, 5.30pm Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Trainspotting Like Sunshine on Leith – with which it makes a pretty good double bill, especially perhaps for first time visitors to Edinburgh looking for an insight into the culture of the city – Trainspotting has found a long-term home on the Fringe. Be warned: it's a more 'immersive' experience than Sunshine on Leith, including a visit to the worst toilet in Scotland. Cromdale Tunnel at Pleasance at EICC, 31 July to 24 August, various times Hit musical How To Win Against History will be performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 30 July to 24 August in the Udderbelly at George Square. It tells the story of the fifth Marquis of Anglesey, who blew his family's fortune on diamond frocks, lilac-dyed poodles and putting on plays. | How To Win Against History How to Win Against History Is there any producer with an Edinburgh Fringe track record as impressive as Francesca Moody? From Fleabag to last year's Weather Girl, via Baby Reindeer and Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder, Moody's production company is also responsible for Shedinburgh Fringe Festival (back this year) and this raucous show about Henry Cyril Paget, a rich man who threw it all away 'by being too damn fabulous'. How To Win Against History's revival is, we are promised, 'bigger and more sparkly than ever'. Udderbelly at Underbelly, 30 July until 24 August, 7.15pm Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England It would hardly be the Fringe without some provocatively vulgar show titles – this year's programme also includes a show called Hole! by a company called ASS (it stands for American Sing-Song but still, they clearly knew what they were doing). But you don't sell out twice and go international unless there's some substance too, and this tale of a football fan at Euro 2020 who goes viral after, well, you know, has charmed audiences worldwide. This will be its final Edinburgh Fringe run. Cowbarn at Underbelly, 30 July until 25 August, 2.15pm Tape Face From Edinburgh to Las Vegas and back again, Sam Wills' globally successful mime act is returning to his roots this year for a 20th anniversary celebration. For years The Boy With Tape On His Face - as he was formerly known - was as much a Fringe institution as the Ladyboys of Bangkok, La Clique or Puppetry of the Penis. It will be good to welcome him back. Pleasance Courtyard, 30 July to 10 August, 7.30pm Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
The Citizen
16-07-2025
- Business
- The Citizen
R1m for a watch? Johann Rupert's Cartier proves luxury is alive
The most expensive Cartier watch is worth R4 230 654. Richemont, owned by Johann Rupert, one of South Africa's billionaires, has seen remarkable growth for the quarter ended 30 June 2025, a time when luxury goods are not a priority for many. In a time when most people are struggling to make ends meet and are living hand-to-mouth, one would assume that everyone is struggling. However, just beneath the surface of this collective hardship lies a vastly different reality where luxury is thriving. Richemont is a luxury goods holding company that owns brands such as Cartier. Watches from this brand range between R59 000 and R4 million. Rupert's company's sales went up by 6% at constant exchange rates and by 3% at the actual exchange rate. ALSO READ: Johann Rupert the wealthiest person in SA according to two rich lists Rupert is richer, thanks to watches According to a media statement by Richemont, sales from the jewellery division increased by 11%. However, analysts had predicted an 8% growth. Richemont's jewellery division includes Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Buccellati. One item from any of these brands would cost more than R100 000, showing that the economic crisis experienced by people does not apply to everyone. This unsettling truth echoes the message from George Orwell's Animal Farm, where the animals rise for equality, only to find that some are more equal than others. While many line up for groceries, a few browse exclusive boutiques, untouched by the economic strain that defines the daily life for most. Watches are an investment People who can often afford high-end jewellery buy it as a form of investment. A Cartier watch, after a few years, can be worth more than it was purchased for. Richemont's data show that for the first quarter, Europe led in sales, while the Middle East and Africa contributed the least to growth. ALSO READ: Jannie Mouton back on Forbes' list – Here are South Africa's dollar-billionaires 'Retail sales accounted for 69% of Group sales, with growth across all regions, excluding Japan. 'Wholesale sales growth was driven by solid increases in the Americas, Europe and Middle East and Africa. Online retail sales showed robust growth across almost all regions.' How much is it worth? According to Cartier's website, the cheapest watch is Tank Must de Cartier, which is worth R59 156,63 ($3 300). The most expensive is Santos de Cartier wwatch,worth R4 230 654 ($236,000). However, there are some older collections worth significantly more than the ones available in-store and online. Like the Cartier Cheich Montre Bracelet in Yellow Gold Circa 1983, which was sold for $1.1 million in 2022. One of the most popular items from Cartier is their Love bracelet. The bracelet is worth R109 326,03 ($6 100). NOW READ: 'Imagine if he took the Guptas': Is Rupert's place in US delegation double standards or good for business?
