The Dirty Dozen: Unveiling India's Corporate Debt Crisis and the Path to Reform

India's bad debt problem has exposed deep flaws in the country's corporate and financial systems. The Dirty Dozen tells the story of 12 of India's biggest corporate defaulters and how they came to symbolise this crisis. These companies had run up enormous debts through a mix of poor management, governance failures, and weak regulatory oversight, threatening the economy. The book also explores the efforts of the insolvency regime to clean up the mess, describing its challenges in dealing with entrenched interests and systemic hurdles.

Our speaker, an author of this book and a seasoned newsroom leader with deep experience in hard-hitting financial journalism, has stayed focused on the public interest areas of corporate governance, regulatory affairs, policy, and emerging topics such as ESG and energy transition. During the last five years, he has led the award-winning coverage in these key areas. In this conversation, he will discuss three key questions: how India can prevent future corporate debt crises, what changes are needed to strengthen its insolvency framework, and what global economies can learn from India's attempts to clean up its financial system.