NEW DELHI :There is no denying that plastics have delivered tremendous benefits over the past century, driving technological innovation, transforming healthcare, and fuelling global economic growth. But as we now know, this progress has come at...
NEW DELHI : India seems to be everyone’s favourite growth story nowadays. Despite valid concerns about the accuracy of official statistics, the Indian economy is projected to expand by 6.3 per cent in 2024 – an undeniably remarkable...
NEW DELHI – In recent years, soaring food prices and the growing frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events have prompted warnings of a looming grain shortage, potentially spelling disaster for the world...
NEW DELHI: The global food system is broken. Largely dominated by multinational corporations, it enables and encourages unsustainable and unhealthy production and consumption patterns and generates enormous waste across all stages of production and...
NEW DELHI: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, has always been more than a little problematic. But in recent years, the annual gathering of the rich and powerful have become an increasingly wasteful exercise in...
NEW DELHI: The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana famously warned that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But sometimes even those who can recall the past have selective memory and draw the wrong...
NEW DELHI: In 1972, the United Nations held its first-ever environmental summit in Stockholm. In the run-up to the event, a group of scientists wrote The Limits to Growth, a report for the Club of Rome that became an unlikely bestseller. The...
MEXICO CITY: Despite the well-known problems with using gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of human development, policymakers around the world still seem to be obsessed with it. Governments seek to promote GDP growth through all possible...
NEW DELHI: It is difficult to see any winners in the ongoing war caused by Russia’s irrational and devastating invasion of Ukraine. But the losers extend far beyond the people of Ukraine, who are being attacked, and the people of Russia, who...
NEW DELHI: The main factor limiting the global recovery is not the much-discussed increase in inflation in advanced economies, which is likely to be transient, but rather the massive inequalities between most rich countries and the rest of the...
NEW DELHI: The question of how best to control inflation is back on the economic policy agenda, and opinion is divided about how to address it. The mainstream view emphasises the need for tighter monetary policies and regards higher interest rates...
NEW DELHI: Many people around the world already consider the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow a disappointment. That is a massive understatement. Global leaders – especially in the developed world – still fail...
NEW DELHI – There are many reasons to be critical of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but the legitimacy crisis now confronting both institutions is not based on any of them. Instead, it has arisen for the wrong reasons,...
NEW DELHI – One of the most significant socioeconomic changes accelerated by COVID-19 must surely be the rise of digital labour platforms. Of course, platform-based employment had already been growing exponentially before the pandemic. But...
NEW DELHI – On March 10, the credit-rating agency Moody’s placed Ethiopia on review for a downgrade. The problem isn’t violence and repression in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region. Rather, Moody’s has concluded that...
NEW DELHI – The European Union has changed its economic policy for the better by agreeing on a €1.8 trillion ($2.2 trillion) post-pandemic stimulus plan to be financed directly through the EU budget. In particular, more than half of the...
