Among the many crises hitting low and middle income countries (LMICs) today, the emergence of extreme hunger and undernutrition is getting much less attention than it should. The cost-of-living” crisis in advanced economies gets a lot of international media attention.…
Debt-strapped Sri Lanka has reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF, that promises access to $29 billion over a 4-year period under the institution’s Extended Finance Facility. Given Sri Lanka’s $51 billion external debt, that sum is extremely small. It…
On August 10, the central government, in a rare gesture of magnanimity, released Rs 1,16,665.75 crore, which was the estimated equivalent of two instalments (as opposed to one) of sharable taxes it must release to the states. It claimed that…
Winston Churchill once famously described the intentions of Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. That was said in 1939 just before the Second World War, but such a description would be quite apt today to…
Financial markets in the so-called ‘emerging economies’ are in turmoil. At the end of May 2022, the Financial Times reported that the return delivered by emerging market (EM) sovereign bonds was around minus 15 per cent for 2022, the worst…
The ongoing political and economic turmoil in Sri Lanka is clearly the worst crisis the country has faced since its Independence. Yet while Sri Lanka’s current difficulties are clearly extreme, it is by no means alone among developing countries, several…
The second half of June saw the rupee’s value touching record lows below 78 to the US dollar. But this absolute low should not take away from the long term decline the rupee has been experiencing. If we consider the…
The global food crisis has now grown to such proportions that everyone is talking about it (even though world leaders are doing relatively little about it). It has become an article of faith to blame the war in Ukraine for…
Exuding optimism at a time when most indicators point to economic stress across the world, India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry put out a press release on 20 May celebrating what it describes as the “highest annual FDI (foreign direct…
There is no doubt that creative industries, along with care activities, are going to emerge as some of the most significant economic sectors of the future. Broadly speaking, the creative industries consist of advertising, architecture, arts and crafts, design, fashion,…
