India: Avoiding the p word

Last June, India's new finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, promised to speed up privatization and said a majority stake in ailing domestic carrier Indian Airlines would be sold. No finance ministers had yet dared to make a public commitment to privatization; they had all used the more politically correct word - disinvestment. By December, paralysed by a fractious coalition government and his party's drubbing in the regional elections, Sinha had managed to sell only a small stake in a rail-freight company for $53 million. In January, as he prepared this month's budget, he had few options left to plug the large deficit.