What goes behind making the Fortune 500 list?
Has there been any cases where a company made it to the list, but had to drop off because they reported wrongly. This happened exactly 50 years ago. One of the editors had been keeping a list of the biggest companies for his use. Somebody on the staff said why don’t we publish this. Thus, began the Fortune 500. It was first published in 1955. And then it got expanded to the service sector and the industrial sector. By 1955, we came up with the global Fortune 500 companies. It is based entirely on annual revenues, as reported to us through audited statement and has to be audited as per GAAP or any other acceptable accounting standards. But if the company is lying then we are in trouble. You have the instance of Enron. They were using unacceptable accounting standards. Do you think approach to reporting on emerging markets should be different from the way one would report about developed countries? What advise would you give to journalists in India? I think they should keep asking questi
