Small island developing States (SIDS) face an uphill battle as they strive to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 crisis amid vulnerabilities worsened by the pandemic. The 2021 edition of UNCTAD’s Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures report, highlights the numerous strengths and challenges facing these economically vulnerable countries. …
India's economic success has been remarkable; India's agricultural success will follow. Rural India still needs nurturing, not necessarily by just extra funding, but with vision and leadership addressing issues, with down to earth, workable solutions.
The biggest problem with the Rio conference has been its petty-mindedness. It has consistently refused to look into the basic processes that lead to environmental destruction. The world’s political leaders have shown great fear of the economic and political restructuring that such an approach would demand. The result is a …
The “authoritarianism vs democracy” divide in the ongoing anti-corruption movement is a false one. It conceals the real unity of interests between the authoritarian upper middle class elitist agenda and the political class supposedly defending Indian democracy today. Where do the poor figure here?
The article “Prospects and Policy Challenges in the Twelfth Plan” by Montek S Ahluwalia (EPW, 21 May 2011) offers a comprehensive overview of the subject, but what is missing is a discussion of the risks to the economy. An enumeration and discussion of the many risks that must be taken …
The other day Governor Vohra spoke to a delegation of J&K; Tourism Alliance that had called on him at his official residence in Srinagar. The memorandum presented by the delegation enlisted various demands aimed at improving tourism in the valley. The Governor had his ideas about the subject. The fact …
The neo-liberal transformation of global economy has brought in a new trade regime replacing GATT 1947 with incorporation of services and intellectual property in the products to be exchanged and WTO as its powerful regulator. Health being one of the services has become tradable for the first time. India has …
“This magazine is not a product of a desire to capture share of the information market. It is a product of a need and desire to fill a critical information gap.” Anil Agarwal, founding editor of Down To Earth, wrote this in his introduction to the launch of the fortnightly …
Global food prices continue to rise month after month, driven by longer-term and more recent trends. Financialisation is an important factor among the recent trends. There is strong evidence of correlation among the markets for different financial assets, including stocks/shares, commodities and currencies. Falling asset prices in other financial market …
On examining the dynamics of the processes of change in the status of labour and employment in the rapidly globalising state of Gujarat in India, this study shows that the rapid growth in the state has not been shared by labour. This has resulted in the state slipping in poverty …
By 2025, six major emerging economies—Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Russia—will account for more than half of all global growth, and the international monetary system will no longer be dominated by a single currency. As economic power shifts, these successful economies will help drive growth in lower income …
India has been embracing regionalism in a big way in recent years. Regional trade agreements are growing not only in number but also in their depth and coverage, thus diverting a significant portion of India’s trade through the preferential route. Such a trade promotion strategy emphasises market access rather than …
This report presents an integrated view of development through indicators, including data on environmental hazards, natural or human-made disasters and climate change, with the goal of putting these data in the hands of policymakers, development specialists, students, and the public in a way that makes the data easy to use. …
The manner in which rights at work have been identified and articulated within both the International Labour Organisation and India since the founding of the agency in 1919, bears a close similarity. Despite what its mandate would suggest, the ilo (like India) has chosen to treat only certain selected rights …
Agro-based traditional industries play a vital role in industrialisation in an underdeveloped economy. The Indian jute industry has been globally significant since colonial times and enjoyed a “major industry” status. Under globalisation it is found that the key structural ratios like labour productivity, capital intensity and total factor productivity have …
UNCTAD has published this first in a series of volumes focusing on issues pertinent to "green" economic growth, in run-up to 2012 global conference on green economy, two decades after 1992 Rio "Earth Summit". The UNCTAD has released the first of a series of publications aimed at provoking discussion, advancing …
A central challenge for sustainability is how to preserve forest ecosystems and the services that they provide us while enhancing food production. This challenge for developing countries confronts the force of economic globalization, which seeks cropland that is shrinking in availability and triggers deforestation. Four mechanisms—the displacement, rebound, cascade, and …
Doha Round proposals for expedited liberalisation for trade in environmental goods risk destroying infant green technology industries in developing countries without benefiting the environment, Brazil’s ambassador to the WTO argued last week.
Health policy in India, like all public policy, has always been the product of complex political processes. In the area of women’s health, the situation is further complicated by the fact that policy processes have to straddle a treacherous fault line between target-driven population-control goals on the one hand, and …
