With due respect to all — repeat, all — his other works as an economist, in public policy or at global institutions, I think Professor Raj Krishna made one serious error by terming India’s slow economic growth as the ‘Hindu rate of economic growth’. Read more

It is getting increasingly clear that God has nothing to do with religion. And that the perpetuation of a particular kind of exclusive belief — this is god and none else — through evangelising and setting up and managing schools and hospitals is a sort of imperialist quest for more minds to sacrifice at the alter of influence, power and money. Read more

Three key expressions define Barack Obama’s plan to fix the US financial system — consumer protection and compensation (both have 54 references) and financial stability (44 references). While the last two are rather too strongly entrenched in India, the first is something that Indian regulators and policymakers can learn and adopt. Financial stability is a crisis-specific need to revert from the receding tremors of the global financial earthquake that has shaken consumers, companies and countries alike and it won’t hurt Indian policymakers to know that we’re doing ok, though have a few steps to walk ahead. The first two are typical Obama signatures. Read more

What binds the business of skirts, shirts and stilettos with music, art and books? Does fashion have a philosophy vaster than offering cover, a politics beyond individual expression, an economics transcending consumer choice? How does it intersect with society, culture, law? Can its creations be protected?

 

The Law, Culture and Economics of Fashion, a recent paper by C. Scott Hemphill of Columbia and Jeannie Suk of Harvard, attempts to answer these questions. Read more

This post is going to go national today as your blogger evaluates the six pledges and 38 recommendations that the leaders of G20 signed and what they means for India. As I mentioned earlier, there are more benefits than costs and if we were to look at the big picture, I think India has gained. But 6.4 is a pathetic score for leaders of G20 to get in what was the biggest financial event this world has ever seen. Here’s the break-up: Read more

In its predictable conclusion-first-analysis-later approach when it comes to ensuring that the interests of its key stakeholder, the US, are protected, the International Monetary Fund has cobbled together a recommendation that resonates, reiterates and reeks of the US line: spend, spend, spend. Read more

The two questions almost everyone has been asking me since October 2008: how long; how deep? That is, for how long will the ongoing global meltdown continue; and how bad will it get? In other words, when will this insecurity over our jobs, our income streams, our businesses, our investments end; and how much lower will asset prices of properties and stocks fall? Read more

How did the Hong Kong market move this morning?
Is Bank of England going to cut interest rates?
Will GM get the bailout package in the US? Read more