In a recent report the People’s Commission on the Public Sector and Public Services has rightly drawn attention to the sheer un-constitutionality of the Modi government’s plan to privatise en masse the assets of the public sector. The constitution of…
A charade played out in the weeks preceding the fall meetings of the IMF and the World Bank has subsequently occupied time that should have been devoted to more crucial issues such as a looming debt crisis, inequalities in vaccine…
It is by now well known that three decades of financial globalization have led to massive increases in income and asset inequalities in the United States and Europe. But in the developing world, the effects of financial globalization have been…
The Doing Business controversy has shaken the confidence in the Bretton Wood institutions, but it must not obscure the real problems with their functioning - the disproportionate power of the US; the IMF’s deeply procyclical approach to countries that seek…
The period of neo-liberalism witnesses an increase in the share of economic surplus in total output both in individual countries and also for the world as a whole. This is because the “opening” up of the economy to freer trade…
China’s Evergrande group, identified as the world’s most indebted property company with accumulated liabilities in excess of $300 billion, missed an interest payment instalment due on September 23, 2021 on bonds borrowed through US dollar bond markets. Though the company…
The International Monetary Fund has announced a fresh issue of $650 billion Special Drawing Rights in August which would be distributed among member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas. This amount is less than what had been demanded by…
Carbon prices in the European Union (EU), or the value of one unit of an EU allowance (EUA) that gives the holder the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent of other greenhouse gasses), are soaring.…
Announced with much fanfare as an innovative means of financing greenfield infrastructural projects, the National Democratic Alliance government’s asset monetisation plan raises a host of concerns. It seems predicated on undervaluing potential returns over a longish period to make the…
With its gross debt as of March 31, 2021 placed at Rs. 1.8 lakh crore and losses in the preceding quarter totalling more than Rs. 7,000 crore, Vi (former Vodafone Idea), once India’s largest telecom company in terms of subscriber…
