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…
Here is the list of top 20 companies having the largest market capitalization: Company Market Cap ($ in billions) 1 Apple Inc 672.46 2 Exxon Mobil Corp. 404.86 3 Microsoft Corporation 397.47 4 Alphabet Inc 371.2 5 Alphabet Inc 364.3 6 Berkshire Hathway Inc 349.7 7 Johnson & Johnson 304.43 8 Wells Fargo &…
A number of newspapers have covered on improved rankings of India on Ease of Doing Business from 134 in 2015 to 130 in 2016 rankings released by World Bank every year. The impetus to this improved ranking could be attributed to Modi’s dream of India being in top 30 countries in ease of doing business…
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…
The DBT and DST jointly declared “DBT and DST Open Access Policy” in December 2014. We need to take serious cognizance of the important statements on the attention given to Impact Factor of journals while assessing published works. While the focus of the DBT and DST Open Access Policy document is on creating repositories to…
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…
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.…
Much has been said about gold in the recent past – India’s almost unwavering demand for gold, the impact it has on our import bill, the impact it has on our current account deficit and why India needs a gold policy. Yet, no one can deny that India’s largest untapped potential is gold. The affinity…
Economics is indeed a strange discipline. Sample this. “A larger fall in imports than in exports contributed substantially to growth in GDP in the fourth quarter of the financial year.” So a fall in both exports and imports contributes to growth as long as net exports are positive! Baffling it may be, but most economists…
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…
Financial sector regulation in India has developed in an ad hoc manner in response to evolving requirements. Consequently, it suffers from substantial prudential weaknesses and regulatory arbitrage that makes for heightened risks for both investors and financial consumers. By putting together a modern law for governing the complex financial sector, the draft Indian Financial Code…
