In the last Lok Sabha elections, Andhra Pradesh contributed the largest number of seats to the Congress. But now we see a split in your party led by Jaganmohan Reddy.

Q&A: V Kishore Chandra Deo, Congress MP

Business Standard

Veteran journalist and Congress-watcher Subhash Chakravarti tells Aditi Phadnis what Congress sessions were like in the past.

Q&A: Subhash Chakravarti

Anarchist or messiah, WikiLeaks founder and Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange wears both mantles with ease. His avalanche of words continues to rock world capitals from Washington to Wellington, but the man himself is rather soft-spoken. S Kalyana Ramanathan braved Arctic weather conditions and jostling photographers outside Beccles police station in Suffolk, where Assange must report daily as part of his bail conditions, for an exclusive interview.

Q&A: Julian Assange, Publisher & Editor, WikiLeaks

New Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra tells Akshat Kaushal that the Right to Information Act is helping India understand itself better.

Q&A: Satyananda Mishra, New Chief Information Commissioner

With India&rsquo;s growth predicated on infrastructure development, Planning Commission member B K Chaturvedi believes that the 12th Plan (2012-2017) would be decisive for the sector.

Q&A: B K Chaturvedi, Member, Planning Commission

A draft report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 2G scam has created a rift between the ruling UPA and the opposition BJP. The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ashwini Kumar tells Indivjal Dhasmana and Sanjeeb Mukherjee about the sanctity of the report, reconstitution of PAC, expected turmoil in the next session of Parliament and the fate of economic and financial bills.

Q&A: Ashwini Kumar, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs

Opposition leader and former chief minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, tells Joe C Mathew the ruling Communists-led front has no moral right to fight for a ban on controversial pesticide Endosulfan.

Q&A: Oommen Chandy, former CM of Kerala

For the first time since the release of new negotiating texts on April 21, World Trade Organization director general Pascal lamy speaks on the state of play in the negotiations and whether 2011 would mark the end of road for the Doha round of trade talks. In an interview with Nayanima Basu over email, he said the aim of concluding the negotiations by 2011 was at serious risk and the ministerial meet in December would be the defining moment.

Q&A: Pascal Lamy, World Trade Organization

On a day the Reserve Bank of India announced the ninth hike in key policy rates in just over a year, Asian Development Bank&rsquo;s Chief Economist Changyong Rhee explained to Devjyot Ghoshal that balancing growth with rising inflation was not necessarily a hard choice to make. Instead, the challenge before Indian policy makers was to make growth inclusive and manage infrastructure investments better.

Q&A: Changyong Rhee, Chief Economist, ADB

C D Mayee, chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), was former co-chairman of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) and head of the agriculture ministry&rsquo;s committee on endosulfan. He talks to Sreelatha Menon on the decision to ban the use of endosulfan globally and the controversy over genetically modified foods.

Q&A: C D Mayee, Chairman, ASRB

The biggest launch from the Anil Ambani group in 2010-11 was the 22.7-km metro express rail link to the Delhi airport on February 24. With this, group company Reliance Infrastructure (R-Infra) became the first private operator in the country to run a metro system, through its 100 per cent subsidiary, Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd. In an interview with Jyoti Mukul &amp; Sudheer Pal Singh, its director and chief executive officer, Lalit Jalan, makes a case for privately-run metro systems.

Q&A: Lalit Jalan, Director & CEO, R-Infra 

You have been re-nominated as the PAC chairman.

Q&A: Murli Manohar Joshi, Chairman, PAC

After facing defeats in local body elections, the Left is desperately trying to cling onto power in West Bengal. CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury tells Saubhadra Chatterji that with the party support base campaigning in full force, the tide is changing.

Q&A: Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) leader

Every year in India, tonnes of grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables goes waste because of improper storage facilities. The Warehouse Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA) was formed last year to encourage scientific warehousing in the country. In an interview with Sanjeeb Mukherjee, WDRA Chairman Dinesh Rai said over a period of time, negotiable warehouse receipts would become a prime tool of trade, beneficial for all stakeholders, be it godown owners, farmers or consumers.

Q&A: Dinesh Rai, Chairman, WDRA

Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, unlike his nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, is not in a haste to take a swipe at Congress over the supersession of the board of directors of Maharashtra State Co-operative (MSC) Bank. He goes by his own calculations and takes on his rivals in his own ways. But in a freewheeling chat with Sanjay Jog, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief could not hide his displeasure and said the state government should have acted responsibly.

Q&A: Sharad Pawar, Minister for Agriculture

Formulating changes in any law having wide-ranging social consequences is bound to be a tightrope walk for the government. The primary endeavour of the new Mines and Minerals Development Regulation (MMDR) Bill, therefore, is to strike a balance between fair compensation and retaining viability of mining projects, says Mining Secretary S Vijay Kumar &mdash; the man at the centre of the legislative overhaul &mdash; in an interview with Sudheer Pal Singh and Jyoti Mukul.

Q&A: S Vijay Kumar, Mining Secretary

Despite fighting rising prices and resultantly, facing the prospect of lower growth, the Indian economy should be able to absorb these inflationary shocks. But Gerard Lyons, Chief Economist and Group Head of Research, Standard Chartered Bank, tells Devjyot Ghoshal that much will depend on monetary and fiscal policies undertaken.

Q&A: Gerard Lyons, Standard Chartered Bank

For a long time, the government maintained that inflation was a price the country had to pay for high growth. Over the last few months, economists have debated whether high inflation should become the new normal. But most of these theories are now coming to nought, since inflation has now become the dominant theme.

Q&A: Chetan Ahya, MD, Morgan Stanley, Research

In an interview with Namrata Acharya, Ficci secretary-general and MLA elect, Amit Mitra talks about West Bengal&rsquo;s politics and his new role.

Q&A: Amit Mitra, Ficci secretary-general

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, 57, managing director of the World Bank since 2007 (earlier, she was the first woman to become both finance minister and foreign minister of Nigeria), came to India on a four-day trip. In an interview with Indivjal Dhasmana, she talks of some issues releant to her visit.

Q&A: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, MD, World Bank

Shekhar Shah, Director General of the economic think tank, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), tells Vrishti Beniwal how he plans to strike a balance between market expectations and the research interests of its faculty.

Page 73 - InterviewsS