Development/Growth
Ten years after the global financial crisis, a debt-fuelled world economy is headed towards another crash, the IMF has warned. With the Rupee at a record low, unemployment at a 20-year high, and 78 of its largest corporations defaulting on massive debts, India’s rapidly emerging as the epicentre of a crisis that could dwarf 2008….
Read More about Red Alert: India and world hurtling towards financial meltdown
ALTERNATIVES
Kevin Anderson writes in The Conversation: Most political and economic pontificators, buttressed by naysayers and established elites, remain incapable of seeing beyond their familiar 20th century horizon. But the 21st century is already proving how the future is a different country –one that could yet be shaped by alternative interpretations of prosperity, sustainability and equity….
Read More about Hope from chaos: could political upheaval lead to a new green epoch?
ALTERNATIVES
From WSWS/Automatic Earth: Bitcoin has been hailed as the currency of the future; and dismissed as a bubble at best, or a tool for organised crime at worst. But one thing is clear; its soaring demand is a direct result of a broken global financial system trusted by nobody and on the verge of breakdown….
Read More about Why the Bitcoin frenzy heralds a massive financial meltdown
Development/Growth
India’s former energy secretary E.A.S. Sharma writes in The Wire: Everyone knows that the NPA problem is due to the lack of due diligence on the part of banks. If banks were to refuse new loans to some of these indebted companies, nearly 40% of the coal blocks assigned to them would not get developed….
Read More about India’s massive corporate bad debts and natural resource auctions
Conflict/Dispossession
A 100 actions of protest will be held across the country between May 1 – 7, 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the ADB, highlighting the gross human rights violations, loss of livelihood, and environmental destructions caused by the ‘development model’ being pushed by ADB and its ilk, using public money….
Read More about Why the Asian Development Bank is facing a hundred protests in India this month
Extreme speculation in commodities trade can play havoc with food prices
Economy
In a major push to widen the scope of commodity derivatives market in India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently allowed options trading on commodity exchanges. Kavaljit Singh argues that what’s good for financial investors and commodity speculators is not necessarily good for the already vulnerable Indian farmer and small entrepreneurs….
Read More about Commodity derivatives: Playground for speculators, graveyard for farmers?
Economy
Live Mint reports: Agriculture is likely to be the worst affected by the note ban, because 1) The policy coincided with harvest of kharif crops, and farmers are facing difficulty selling it. 2) Lack of cash must have posed difficulty in sowing of rabi crops. 3) Unlike other sectors, farm output is perishable in nature….
Read More about Demonetisation, farmer suicides, and the Union budget
Food/Farming
Milind Murugkar writes: ‘Why doesn’t the informal sector, supposedly badly hit by demonetisation, protest or scream in pain?’. Defenders of demonetisation often pose this question. If you want an answer to the question, please listen to Sachin Jadhav. His story takes us through the long chain of economic loss and suffering of the rural population….
Read More about Demonetisation and the silent suffering of Bharat
Consumerism/Lifestyle
The digital economy is a design for atomisation, for separation… Imposing the digital economy through a “cash ban” is a form of technological dictatorship, in the hands of the world’s billionaires. Economic diversity and technological pluralism are India’s strength and it is the “hard cash” that insulated India from the global market’s crash of 2008….
Read More about Vandana Shiva: Beware of digital dictatorshipEconomy
Devinder Sharma writes: After a month of demonetisation, the picture in the rural areas remains too bleak. I know of villages where the farmers had to return empty handed even after seven days of queuing up. As a TISS study points out, nearly 81 per cent of the villages do not have access to banking….
Read More about Demonetisation, not drought, behind farmers’ woes
Economy
Shankar Gopalakrishnan writes: Demonetisation’s biggest impact will be on the distribution of resources within the economy, whatever happens to the economy as a whole. Demonetisation’s a giant vacuum, sucking up the resources of the weak and delivering them to the powerful, while acting like it’s doing the opposite. More importantly, this transfer will be permanent….
Read More about Demonetisation is a permanent transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich
Representative pic
Economy
Acclaimed journalist P. Sainath reports from rural Maharashtra: The “Modi masterstroke”, a term contrived by assorted anchors and other clowns on television to hail an unbelievably stupid action, is spreading agony and misery in its wake across the countryside. If there’s been any stroke, it’s the one the heart of the rural economy has suffered….
Read More about Heart of rural India has suffered a stroke: P. Sainath on the note ban
Conflict/Dispossession
What the flashing neon words on the wall seem to be saying is: negative interest rates are on the way throughout the “developed world.” In due course, they will demolish any remaining value of the US dollar, and blow up the bond bubble. In turn, this financial collapse will trigger the next stage: commercial collapse….
Read More about Dmitry Orlov: Negative interest rates and the impending global financial collapse
Bloomberg
Digests/Specials
Is ‘crony capitalism’ behind Rajan’s impending exit? RBI has been cracking the whip on major banks, collectively saddled with Rs 5,00,000 crore of bad loans. The banks in turn started forcing big debtors–including Reliance, Essar and Adani-to sell prized assets to repay debts. The numbers in this May 8 report in The Hindu speak volumes….
Read More about Corporate debt crackdown: Is it what pushed Raghuram Rajan out?
