Computing the Socio-Economic Value Addition of FDI in the E-Commerce Sector

India’s retail sector has seen many developments in the last two decades. From a market that had been largely dominated by small traders/kirana stores, India has seen the growth of organised retail and recently, the growth of e-commerce, both Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer(B2C). While in most countries, these are but different models of the same…

Look East for Wisdom on Our Monetary Policy Framework: Monetary Policy is Too Serious a Business to be Left to Monetary Authorities and Inflation is too Big a Job to be Left to Monetary Policy

On monetary policy as in many other areas, we tend to ape the latest in the West without considering the differences of circumstances. On the issues of independence of Reserve Bank of India(RBI), its mandate on controlling inflation, its instrument for controlling inflation, we have been we have been trying to replicate the US/UK strategy…

A shining start to gold monetisation

The much-awaited draft guidelines on the Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS) are finally out. At first glance, the most noteworthy changes that this scheme brings about are two. One, it creates an effective linkage between the Gold Deposit Scheme (GDS) and the Gold Metal Loan (GML). Two, it reduces the minimum deposit amount from 500 to…

EEU-Vietnam FTA: A Road Map For India

The protracted Vietnam War (1954-1975) had a deleterious effect on the country’s economy. It remained impoverished and politically isolated during that period. When the war finally came to an end, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world, facing many fundamental problems such as the shortage of food, hyperinflation, huge unemployment and corruption.…