As I lay in bed wondering why my speed-post letter had not been delivered even after six days, my memory flashed back to the start of my career and my first air travel by the night air-mail service from Bombay (as Mumbai was then called) to Delhi. Those days, the night air-mail flew from the four metros – Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras – met at Nagpur, collected mail for the respective...

The recent merger between Reliance Industries (RIL) and Reliance Petroleum (RPL) is an important milestone in the Reliance group’s quest to establish its refining footprint. In 1989, the Reliance group announced its planned six million tonnes per annum refinery at Jamnagar which was to be in the RPL fold. RPL went public later that year to raise funds. Its public issue of Rs862 crore was among...

Domestic software development is turning out to be a lucrative area, especially the computerisation of government processes and records, even though the margins are much lower than those in offshore software development. These projects are attracting large software companies, such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HCL and Wipro, among others. But it is a rather murky business, especially...