Introduction A company's balance sheet is supposed to tell a story people can trust. When that story turns out to be incomplete — or worse, deliberately shaped to look better than it was — the fallout rarely stays contained to the finance team. That's roughly what's playing out with Suzlon Energy right now. A regulatory order has revisited years of the company's financial statements, flagged a set of intra-group transactions and accounting choices and imposed penalties running into crores —...

Introduction Here's the honest truth: most companies today don't have a governance rules problem. They have a governance engagement problem. Indian boardrooms have changed a lot in the last ten years. Disclosures are clearer, committees are better structured, and the role of independent directors is far more clearly defined than it used to be. On paper, governance looks stronger than ever. But we keep running into the same story. A board that ticked every box on the compliance checklist, and...

Executive Summary Not long ago, activist investors were primarily known for challenging boards on financial performance, capital allocation, executive remuneration, or ESG commitments. Today, another issue is moving rapidly up the agenda: artificial intelligence. Across industries, investors are beginning to ask whether companies have a credible AI strategy, whether boards are providing meaningful oversight, and whether AI investments are likely to create long-term shareholder value. In many...