Month: October 2025

(I had signed up to write 52 fortnightly pieces for the Financial Chronicle. Ernest Hemingway wrote a memoir about his life as a struggling writer in Paris. These memoirs were published as a book with the title “A Moveable Feast” inspired by a letter he wrote to a friend: “If you are lucky enough to…

In 1998 the public accounting world was shaken by the news of a merger of two global firms Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. The firms were of similar size. Price Waterhouse had more blue chip clients and a larger global consulting practice but their global footprints were similar. Whenever there is a merger between…

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee became the Chief Minister of West Bengal on 6th November 2000 when Jyoti Basu stepped down. The transition was well- orchestrated. The younger party leaders were worried that Jyoti Basu was not only saddled with the problems of incumbency, there were also allegations of nepotism. Because strikes and flight of capital, the industrial…

In 1986, I was selected to represent the country as a paper-writer at the XIII World Congress of Accountants to be held in Tokyo in 1987. The World Congress of Accountants is held every 4 years and is organised by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) My co-paper writer was Warren Allen, a partner of…

In 1994, Shishir Bajoria became the President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce. Shishir’s brother Mahendra was my classmate in school and their father Late B P Bajoria had a particular fondness for me. The winds of liberalization, which began with the dismantling of the license raj on 24th July 1991, was gaining gale force…

In the January/February issue of 2013, the Harvard Business Review ranked Subir Raha #13 among the 100 Best Performing CEOs of the world. Subir, unfortunately, could not rejoice in this remarkable achievement. He had passed away on February 1, 2010 at the age of 61. Subir Raha was a paradox. He was a daring entrepreneur…

At a dinner in Dhaka in 1986, I first met Ebrahim Dahodwala. He was the then the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan. In fact, he was the first President of the Institute from the profession, a position always held previously by the Secretaries to the Federal Government of Pakistan. He was…