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.…

If policy could be more real

India’s economy and society are marked by a deep and extensive dualism. There are examples galore — backward agriculture versus global firms; rural versus urban world views; dehumanising slums cheek by jowl with swanky highrises; wretched urban squalor five miles away from the New Delhi Municipal Corporation’s carefully tended Bungalow Zone in Lutyens’ Delhi; the…