Just following up briefly on this post on India’s industrial output, second quarter GDP results are now out. India grew at an annual rate of 8.9% between April and June, just down a touch from the 9.3% annual rate in the first quarter. This suggests that the economy is slowing slightly, but with higher energy […]
As a follow up to Edwards post titled “English language schools in Karnataka” yesterday, heres an update from the Indian Express. 15 of 30 current cabinet ministers in Karnataka send their children to, well, English medium schools.
The point of contention behind closing the schools is apprently a rule dated 1994 that mandates that “children attending […]
The Financial Times has an interesting post today about a decision by the Karnataka state government yesterday to start to enforce a 1994 language policy requiring compulsory Kannada-medium education in primary schools. The FT suggests that this reflects resentment among the Kannada speaking community towards the influx of relatively wealthy English-speaking IT […]
A couple of weeks ago I put up a post about the controversy surrounding India’s attempts to create Special Economic Zones using some sort of ‘home grown’ variant of the Chinese example. In the end I thought I understood what it was that was bothering people, but then I read this piece in the […]
Reuters reports that a court in Finland has determined that “[a] fee of 25,500 euros ($32,000) is way too much for a woman to charge a man for fondling her bosom.”
Apparently, a couple charged “a 74-year-old who suffers from dementia a total of 25,500 euros to enjoy the woman’s breasts on 10 occasions.”
Now, if they’re […]
Ajay Shah alerts us to a draft volume published by the World Bank (free download) titled Dancing with Giants: China, India and the global economy.
Drawing upon the latest research, this volume analyzes the influences on the rapid future development of these two countries and examines how their growth is likely to impinge upon other countries. […]
Discussions on the Doha round rumble on, and on. There is no immediate and obvious end in sight. In the vacuum that this creates a number of ‘alternative’ solutions have been finding their way onto the table. Last week Manmohan Singh and Thabo Mbeki met in Brasilia with Brazilian President Lula da Silva to review […]
Following on from the recent discussion we have had here on SEZs, I couldn’t help noticing this piece in Bloomberg today about China’s move to restructure its export rebates policy. Note: they are not removing export incentives, but simply trying to redirect them as part of a policy to move up the value chain. As […]
India’s industrial production grew in July at the fastest pace in a decade (12.4 percent from a year earlier, which was the largest increase since June 1996) according to data from the Indian Central Statistical Organisation today.
“Power companies almost doubled electricity output in July to keep up with demand from factories producing cars and textiles, […]
Economic comparisons are often made between India and China. More often than not those comparisons have as their end point a more or less favourable assessment of China’s virtues. It is therefore surprising for me to read this week that IMF economist Raghuram Rajan has recently been in the forefront of criticism of the […]
Resolving the ‘agrarian crisis’ requires understanding the laws of economics
P Sainath’s years of experience covering India’s countryside lends a credibility to his voice. How unfortunate it is then that he should expend it on framing the issue in partisan, rich vs poor, urban vs rural terms. Here’s an excerpt from a recent interview he gave […]
As someone who grew up in the deprived 1970s and 1980s, I love the options Indians today have — in cars, telephones, apparel, jobs and so much more. Rejoicing in this choice (available to a small but rapidly increasing number of Indians) is one thing. And quite something else to suggest that the entire country […]