The Forex Bonanza
On 16 July 2021 India’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $612.7 billion. That was almost 30 per cent higher than its level of $475.6 billion at the end of March 2020, when the effects of the pandemic began to be…
The Neoliberal Reforms of 1991 didn’t Work as Claimed
There is a common trope, fed especially to generations born after 1991, that economic progress and modernization in India really occurred only after ‘liberalizing’ economic reforms were introduced three decades ago. This is a travesty of the truth. Certainly, conditions…
The Nationalisation of Banks in 1969
On July 19, 1969, 14 major banks were nationalised in the country. Today, after 52 years there is some talk again of privatising the nationalised banks, which naturally raises the question: why were banks nationalised at all? The answer to…
Vaccines: Europe will regret privileging profits over people
For a while this spring, it seemed – at least to European residents – that the vaccine nationalism that had led European governments to procure vaccines that had been rapidly produced with government support and fast-tracked official approval, had paid…
The Global Minimum Corporate Tax: Not high enough, not fair enough
Following years of negotiations, most nations in the world now appear to be willing to align their corporate tax regimes to prevent multinationals from evading taxation in the jurisdictions in which they operate. They have now tentatively agreed on the…
Neo-liberalism and the Extreme Right
There has of late been an upsurge of extreme right-wing, fascist, semi-fascist or neo-fascist parties all over the world in a manner reminiscent of the 1930s. Fascist governments invariably serve the interests of monopoly capital in general, and of the…
Is emerging Asia in retreat?
International observers still view Asia and particularly East Asia as the most dynamic economic region in the world, a perception that has been even more entrenched over the period of the pandemic. Certainly, if aggregate GDP growth rates in real…
Profiting from Debt
In a stealthy game played over two decades, corporate India is walking away with huge wealth transfers, largely from the public banking system. After much delay, the halting process of settling the bad debt of defaulting corporates using the Insolvency…
Is Socialisation of Investment Enough
John Maynard Keynes was by far the most insightful bourgeois economist of the twentieth century. He could not afford to be a mere apologist of the system, since he was writing in the midst of the Great Depression and in…
The G7’s Tax Reform could entrench Global Inequality
The tax proposal decided at the G7 Finance Ministers’ meeting last weekend has been hailed as ‘historic’ and ‘transformative’. But in its present form, it is, unfortunately, neither. Major changes can and should be made — at least by the…