Wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The gap between rich and poor is widening between and within countries all over the world, a trend that “menaces vigorous societies” says Will Hutton, the former editor-in-chief of the UK’s Observer newspaper. But such growing inequality does not come about by itself. “It is a proxy”, says Hutton, “for how effectively an elite has constructed institutions that extract value from the rest of society.”
Public-Private Partnerships are one such institution.
By Kavaljit Singh | Commentary | November 16, 2014
After months of stalemate, India and the US have agreed to resolve their differences over food stock holdings which would open the way for future implementation of Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) of the WTO – the biggest trade deal in its entire history. On November 13, 2014, Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, issued a statement announcing a bilateral agreement with the US. “We are extremely happy that India and the US have successfully resolved their…
The G20 Leaders’ Summit will take place on 15 and 16 November in Brisbane, Australia. The Summit is expected to discuss a wide range of global policy issues and challenges from corruption to taxation to employment to financial regulation to growth strategies. It is expected that the Brisbane Action Plan, which would be discussed at the Summit, will outline an action plan which would be implemented by member-countries in the coming months.
Given the lackluster approach of member-countries towards implementing…
Thanks to the persistent efforts by civil society groups demanding access to the full text of India-UAE bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement (BIPA) under the Right to Information Act, the agreement was recently made public by the concerned appellate authority of Ministry of Finance. On December 12, 2013, India signed the agreement with the United Arab Emirates despite an ongoing official review of its existing BIPAs. In early 2013, the then government initiated the review and imposed a moratorium…
Oscar Ugarteche and Ariel Noyola Rodríguez | Guest Blog | September 23, 2014
On September 9, 2014, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to create a new multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes. The resolution, drafted by Bolivia on behalf of the Group of 77 (consisting of 133 member-countries) plus China, was approved with 124 votes in its favour. There were 41 abstentions and only 11 members (including the US, the UK, Japan, Canada and Israel) voted against it. The resolution notes that “sovereign debt crises are a recurring…
