SEARCH

Showing 1-10 of 17 results

  • News & article

    Why India's airlines fail to take off

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 03/12/2018

    » Anyone puzzled by how the Indian economy manages to grow swiftly while somehow failing to be prosperous could do worse than look at the state of India's airlines. Over the past four years, passenger growth in India has been rapid: The number of flights taken has increased between 15% and 20% per year. Demand growth this year is likely to be the highest in the world. Yet the industry itself hasn't benefited. Almost every Indian airline is struggling.

  • News & article

    Belt and Road hits a pothole in Pakistan

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 12/10/2018

    » Pakistan's government has finally admitted it needs help. Finance Minister Asad Umar says he will be meeting officials of the International Monetary Fund in Bali this weekend. There he'll try and work out the terms for a bailout that would cover a US$10 billion (328 billion baht) hole in Pakistan's financing needs.

  • News & article

    Why demonetisation was a 'failure'

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 03/09/2018

    » The Indian central bank's final tally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2016 demonetisation drive -- intended to take money derived from tax evasion out of circulation -- showed that 99.3% of outlawed high-value banknotes had been returned. That's a severe loss of face for officials, who had argued that holders of the cash would rather destroy it than return it to banks, providing a windfall for the government.

  • News & article

    China's Silk Road isn't so smooth

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 12/07/2018

    » You may not have noticed, what with the outbreak of trade war with the US and all, but China's economic diplomacy has had a bad few weeks. The country's flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is dealing with ever-greater resistance, slowing a momentum that once seemed unstoppable. In fact, I'd argue that the BRI is stalled.

  • News & article

    North-south divide grows ever more dangerous

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 25/04/2018

    » When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the southern city of Chennai recently, he must've been startled by the welcome he received. Half the city, it seemed, had turned out to wave black flags at his motorcade, as well as banners that read "Go Back, Modi". When the prime minister hopped into a helicopter, the crowds cleverly sent up black balloons in its wake.

  • News & article

    India's banks need more than a bailout

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 27/10/2017

    » India has long been faced with a slow-motion bank crisis.

  • News & article

    How India can win from big cash bust

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 09/11/2017

    » Almost exactly one year ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on national television to announce that, in a few hours, existing 500- and 1,000-rupee notes (255 and 510 baht) would no longer be legal tender. This came as a complete shock to most; the weeks and months that followed featured long queues at bank tellers as hapless Indians tried to exchange old notes for new, and at ATMs where they tried to withdraw enough cash to keep going. The sudden drought of cash made it increasingly difficult for small- and -medium enterprises to operate, as they relied on piles of cash for working capital. Many estimated that economic growth would slow as a consequence and events seem to have borne out this point of view.

  • News & article

    New tax system all tangled up

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 28/09/2017

    » India's new indirect tax system, which for the first time tries to standardise most taxes across this vast country's many states, is proving to be even more difficult and disruptive to implement than first feared. That speaks to the unnecessary complexity the government's introduced into what should have been the simplest of laws.

  • News & article

    No end in sight to India's slow-motion bank crisis

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 01/03/2017

    » India's slow-moving banking crisis continues to drag on, as ponderous and unstoppable as the state-controlled banking sector itself. A recent study found that the gross "non-performing assets" of state banks rose by 55% in 2016, and 135% in the last two years. They now account for 11% of all state bank loans.

  • News & article

    Cash crunch woes only beginning

    News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 06/01/2017

    » 'Give me 50 days, friends," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked citizens after he cancelled 86% of the country's currency notes. After Dec 30, if Indians saw his decision as flawed, he promised to "suffer any punishment". But, he said confidently, if they could bear 50 days of disruption, they would have the "India of their dreams".

Your recent history

  • Recently searched

    • Recently viewed links

      Did you find what you were looking for? Have you got some comments for us?