The year is 2007. The monsoon had just arrived in Mumbai and it was pouring cats and dogs. The windows of the Premier Padmini kaali-peeli I am in are stuck and don’t go up beyond a point. By the time I reach the Taj Mahal Hotel in Apollo Bunder, near the Gateway of India, my…
No other financial organization has affected the lives of the majority of the world’s population more profoundly over the past fifty years than the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since its inception after World War II, it has expanded its sphere of influence to the remotest corners of the earth. Its membership currently includes 188 countries…
There have been protests (mostly pointing up economic stress) across the region for some months: from Egypt to Iraq. But the Lebanese demonstrations have caught the global attention. And there is no doubting that the Lebanese protests represent a major phenomenon. We may ask whether they are essentially a local manifestation, reflecting only the well-attested…
Pakistan is going through financial woes. The Government’s external debt sits at over 100 billion dollars [up significantly since 2017], while foreign currency reserves hovered in the range of 15 billion last July. To make matters worse, the Central Bank of Pakistan has been raising the interest rate in the last moths, from an initial rate of 6 percent…
A group of Italians started the Slow Food movement back in the 1980s. Stay away from fast-food restaurants, they urged: eat local, focus on traditional recipes, relax, and enjoy your meal. The Slow Food movement began as a protest against McDonald’s, which opened a new franchise near the Spanish Steps in Rome. But it grew…
President Donald Trump’s reelection hopes hinge on two things: the state of the economy in 2020 and the identity of the Democratic nominee. The further left the Democrats go to select their candidate, the greater the probability Trump wins a second term. Thus Trump got good news this week. The verbal flubs of Joe Biden…
