Showing 31 - 36 of 36
Budget must address India's reputation problem
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 31/01/2017
» One of the least enviable jobs in the world at the moment has to be that of the Indian finance minister. Arun Jaitley is to present his fourth annual budget to India's parliament tomorrow amid terrible headwinds -- mostly caused by his government's bewildering and disruptive decision to invalidate 86% of India's currency last November. If he's to revive growth, the first thing he has to do is rethink his priorities.
Trump can't kill the TPP
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 27/01/2017
» When President Donald Trump withdrew US support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday, he made it harder for American companies to compete. In the name of US labour, he compromised the interests of the American worker, for the TPP would've forced labour standards onto the trade agenda for the first time in history. Mr Trump turned his back on America's allies and handed China a giant strategic victory. What he didn't do was kill what the TPP stands for.
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".
Indian protectionism isn't patriotic
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 15/12/2016
» Samuel Johnson got it wrong: Patriotism is the last refuge of the unprofitable. The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart Online Services Pvt lost 23 billion rupees (about 12.1 billion baht) last year, and so its co-founder and executive chairman, Sachin Bansal, has suddenly morphed into a great champion of local companies. "We need to take a more India-centric approach" to regulation, he told a Bengaluru audience last week, citing Donald Trump approvingly.
Manufacturing can thrive before the robots arrive
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 16/09/2016
» One of the most striking ways in which Narendra Modi's government has changed the policy narrative in India is to make manufacturing central to its ambitions. This is an overdue recognition of the fact that India -- whose workforce is overwhelmingly poor and underemployed, and growing at the rate of a million people every month -- needs to create mass factory jobs if it's to prosper.
Monsanto clash bad for innovators
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 31/08/2016
» Monsanto's many battles with the Indian government have typically been cast as clashes between poor Indian farmers and a giant multinational that's overcharging for its genetically modified seeds. And certainly, the US agriculture giant isn't the most sympathetic of companies. Its seeds are indeed expensive and, in the case of cotton, no longer deliver the returns promised as resistance builds up.