As I have written in a previous blog post, we have begun the New Year on a rather dramatic note, at least geopolitically. And a lot of these kinds of developments are likely to have serious ramifications on the economic front as well. In fact, geopolitical as well as geoeconomic risks are the greatest risks… Continue reading What We Can Expect from the Global Economy in 2026
When I was working in the advertising industry in Delhi more than 20 years ago, I used to frequent book shops – of which Delhi has many good ones – and buy and read books voraciously. However, I always had a pile of unread ones waiting to be read since there was my work in… Continue reading Sita Valles, Somebody’s Idea of a Revolutionary
Well, well, what a start to the New Year it’s been! If one expected a smooth easing into 2026 from the year gone by, it was quashed by Trump’s air strikes on Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife to stand trial in the US. I had written about the… Continue reading A Hi-Jinks January that the World Can Do Without
As we conclude 2025, during which my blog at least celebrated 25 years of the 21st century through innovations, it is time to cast our mind to the new year and what it might bring. 2025 will be remembered as the year that unleashed a tariff and trade war between the US and almost every… Continue reading The Economic Effects of Far-Right Politics, Ten Years On
Through all the confusion and chaos wreaked on the global economy with US tariffs and the wars still raging, one subject that missed global attention in 2025 is climate change. The fact that the COP30 Summit was held in November 2025 should have helped matters and concentrated minds, but apparently it was a disappointing conference.… Continue reading Why COP30 Copped Out on Fossil Fuels
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?
Peripatetic Perch 