In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed, two countries that were seen as crucial to propping up global economic growth and even ensuring a recovery were China and India. Prior to the…
On February 4, after meetings held at Dubai for security reasons, an IMF team arrived at an agreement with officials from Islamabad, which would permit the release of the last-but-one tranche of $497 million out of an SDR 4.393 billion…
In a curious shift in perception, low and falling crude oil prices are increasingly being viewed as a disadvantage rather than a benefit to the global economy. The spot price of Brent crude has fallen from just above $100 a…
In early January, the NDA-government’s Ministry of Finance sent out two contradictory signals. The first was a statement from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley that increased government spending on public investment would be used as an instrument to revive a sagging…
As 2015 drew to a close the Finance Ministry released its Mid-Year Review (MYR), which summarised the official view of the state of play in the economy after a year-and-a-half of Modi-rule. As expected the MYR begins with the positives,…
Officers and other employees of the public sector IDBI Bank, organised under the banner of the United Forum of IDBI Officers and Employees, struck work for a day on November 27 protesting against the government’s decision to privatise the bank.…
Though overshadowed by the deep differences over agricultural subsidies and food security and on the rules governing trade in industrial goods, services were an important bone of contention at WTO’s Nairobi Ministerial Conference over 15-18 December, 2015. Developed countries had…
The award of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2015 to Angus Deaton, has once again revived discussion on the nature and purpose of the ‘Economics Nobel’. According to the Royal Swedish Academy…
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has surprised many by opting for a “bold”, 50 basis points (or half a percentage point, with one basis point equal to 0.1 per cent) reduction in policy (interest) rates. The interest…
2015 has not been a good year in India’s stock markets. The Sensex, for example, has declined from a high of around 29,680 in late January to a low of around 25,200 in early September. Despite evidence of fluctuations, that…
