Considering 2025 was supposed to be the year for ending the two wars that have raged on, taking countless lives with them, we are sadly saying goodbye to the year without being able to bring about peaceful settlements to both conflicts. Instead, we seem to be ending the year with even more uncertainty about the… Continue reading Ending 2025 Without Ending the Wars
The year is ending with Trump doing a whistle-stop tour of several Asian countries – Southeast Asian and East Asian this time – signing several trade agreements along the way. Of course, the highlight at the ASEAN conference in Malaysia was the peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, one of Trump’s many showpiece peace treaties… Continue reading Asia Becoming Theatre of US-China Competition
Sounds like a crazy statement to make about the world’s largest trading bloc, comprising 400 million people, you may think. But not if you consider the EU’s own aspirations and ambitions, captured in Mario Draghi’s voluminous report. The EU’s own predicament faced with the raging Ukranian conflict with Russia on the one hand, and with… Continue reading The EU Needs to Look Beyond Trade for Growth
In an earlier blog post on media brands, I had written that BBC’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza was found wanting, and that I was particularly disappointed because I happen to be a regular BBC World News viewer and because I had done some advertising work for BBC when they were launching India-specific programmes… Continue reading How the BBC Can Become More Competitive
More than half of 2025 is over and we’re almost about to enter the last quarter of the calendar year. It’s time to assess which way the global economy is headed because the last time I wrote about it, it was just after the IMF and World Bank Group Spring Meetings in the US in… Continue reading Which Way Go-eth The Global Economy?
As if the world doesn’t have enough geopolitical tensions and trade wars to contend with, we have peacemaking efforts in the two wars raging that are threatening to only escalate tensions between the warring parties. And India finds itself in the crosshairs of the conflict in Ukraine, because we’re buying Russian oil and defence equipment.… Continue reading Of Wars and Bombed Peacemaking Efforts
A few days after Trump’s 50% reciprocal tariffs on India – including penalty for buying Russian oil and defence equipment - went into effect, the country announced its GDP numbers for Q1 of FY26, and did they surprise us all. It was almost like a rejoinder to Trump calling India “a dead economy”. But trade… Continue reading Why The Indian Economy Needn’t Be Tarrified
As an advertising professional who has been writing on brands as well as the economy, politics and business as well as culture on my blog, I thought I’d write about the state of the media around the world, as I see it today. I will not focus so much on the advertising aspect of media,… Continue reading The State of Media Brands in the World Today
In line with the theme of innovation that my blog is celebrating this year, I had thought of how companies and brands can address global issues and build their brands at the same time, in an earlier post where I had shared my thoughts and ideas on Absolut Vodka. I had said that very few… Continue reading Brands Addressing Global Issues – Part 2
It’s been a long time coming. From Trump’s first term in office as US President, when he waged a tariff and trade war targeted primarily at China, the world has been in a tread-and-trade-carefully mode. Now that he is back for his second term, he is doubling down on his unfinished agenda, of taking the… Continue reading What the Post Trump-Tariff World Economic Order Looks Like
Peripatetic Perch 