Most developing countries have a love hate relationship to foreign investment. They love the jobs that it creates, the technology that it accompanies, the additional choices that it provides, and the local millionaires/billionaires it creates through creative phased restrictions. On the other hand, since many developing countries have a colonial heritage, and cash is concentrated amongst developed world MNCs, the host are wary of it. The more nationalistic elements within a country...

-The Business Standard   Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee explained the government’s helplessness over inflation in the Rajya Sabha with great eloquence on Thursday. Much of what he said may have solid economic fundamentals, but the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government cannot claim helplessness forever — not when the signs of the cracks it is creating in India’s rural prosperity are becoming so obvious. If any one thing that has protected the Indian...

Finally, there's some good news for the United Progressive Alliance government. Consumption numbers for the past six years show that real incomes have grown much faster under the Congress-led coalition than during the National Democratic Alliance era. What's more, poverty is trending down and rural wages are growing smartly. The 2009-10 survey by the National Statistical Survey Organisation (NSSO) shows real spending by each person in rural India rose 6.3%...

Yes, food prices are rising but more competition is not the answer — it's time to stop over-consumption. Slowly, surely, a new mixture of consensus and fault lines is emerging about world food. On the one hand, there is agreement we are entering a new era in which basic agricultural commodity prices are rising after decades of falling. This will hit the poorest hardest, as an Oxfam report this week on...

Distribution of basic food grains and fuel at controlled prices every month through the Public Distribution System (PDS) could be the largest service provided by the Indian State, touching as it does over 65 million families through a network of nearly half a million retail shops. Given that the urban middle class has little stake in the health of the PDS, there have to be some compelling reasons for the...