For India’s post-liberalisation poster-child, the software and IT-enabled services industry, recent developments in the global economy are bound to be disconcerting. Even as early signs of a synchronized global recovery emerge, fears of inflation and high interest rates have resulted…
This Debate contribution describes the promotion of digital rather than cash payments as a form of the financialization of finance, in its role as a payments system, with reference to recent Indian experience. The obsession with digital transactions as a…
The use of exchange rates based on Purchasing Power Parities to compare income across countries and over time has become standard practise. But there are reasons to believe this could lead to excessively inflated incomes for poor countries and in…
It seems that everyone loves to talk about inequality, and how much they dislike it. From Christine Lagarde in the International Monetary Fund to the Indian Prime Minister speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, everyone is united…
In the political landscape of contemporary India, it is only too easy to find more reasons for depression than optimism. The rise of a nastier, more aggressive, communally charged and openly patriarchal political discourse is evident all around us. Oftentimes,…
A feature of banking in India that has not received the attention it deserves is the business reflected in the off balance sheet or contingent liabilities of banks. Typical of such liabilities are swaps, options and forward rate contracts involving…
To say that we are destroying our natural environment in India is only to repeat the obvious. In cities, towns and even villages across the country, we have fouled up the atmosphere to make it almost impossible to breathe; we…
This was the year that the economy tanked. Not necessarily in terms of official growth figures: according to the CSO, GDP growth decelerated, but not by that much. And Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was quick to proclaim that, with GDP…
In most market economies, the disbursal of bank credit is usually a relatively reliable indicator of the extent of dynamism, of both expectations and actual economic expansion. So much so that it is often viewed by analysts as a better…
There is no doubt that human life is cheap in India, perhaps more so now than ever before. The attacks, atrocities and killings of people from minorities and marginalised groups that have now become so common are particularly appalling because…
