Articles

After ten barren years, SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation) has finally delivered a baby called SAPTA (South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement). New-born babies in the subcontinent often suffer from malnutrition, and I suspect SAPTA will be no exception. […]

Dear Mr Manmohan Singh, You have the unenviable task of formulating a budget which sticks to long-term economic sense while accommodating the populist election year. I intend over the next few weeks to give some suggestions on how you can

Many secular people will be dismayed by the reaction of some Muslim organisations to Mr Mani Ratnam\’s film, \’Bombay\’. It is important to stress that the protests have emanated mainly from a few communal Muslim outfits, and that many secular

For centuries, people have assumed that the jobs of the future lie in industry. In fact services have long replaced industry as the locomotive of growth in developed countries. In the USA, almost 75 per cent of the workforce is

In the last two decades, Asia has grown rapidly, Latin America has registered spotty progress, and Africa has gone downhill fast. These differences cannot easily be explained in economic or political terms since the three continents faced the same global

Unlike most people, I am de lighted by the collapse of barrings, the investment bank that counts the Queen of England among its clients. Many are dismayed at seeing a venerable 200-year old institution biting the dust. But neither size

Multinational companies are shifting their factories to Third World countries, whose cheap skills make it feasible to convert them into production centres for the global market. Can India become a global production centre for a burgeoning service industry-higher education? Some

Eradicating poverty is possible only by raising productivity, employment and wages in rural India. One way of achieving this is to create conditions for India to become a big player in the global production of seeds. Dr MS Swaminathan has

The government\’s National Sample Surveys (NSS) disclosed recently that the proportion of people below the poverty line had risen and inequalities increased in the first 18 months of Mr. Narasimha Rao\’s rule (see accompanying chart). Immediately. several observers declared that

INEQUALITIES have increased after Mr Narasimha Rao came to power in June 1991. The National Sample Surveys show that the share of the top 20 per cent in consumption increased, and that of the bottom 20 per cent decreased, in