Martin Wolf rightly points out that the US-China trade deal is a partial and defective truce  (January 22). The deal not only keeps in place the bulk of tariffs that were imposed on each other’s products during the trade war but repackages many commitments already made by China unilaterally or at international forums towards establishing a more market-based economy. Nevertheless, the trade deal raises two critical issues.

First, can China force its domestic companies (mostly privately owned) to buy an additional $200bn worth of goods and services from the US instead of from other trading partners with which the country has signed free…

On January 15, the US President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed a “phase one” trade agreement to de-escalate an 18-month trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. After months of tough negotiations and retaliatory trade actions, both countries agreed to proceed ahead with the “phase one” trade agreement. The core elements of the “phase one” trade agreement include intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, currency, and exchange rate policies. Besides, the deal establishes a bilateral dispute resolution arrangement to resolve any disputes on matters listed in the agreement. The full text of the agreement is available here.

In his…

India’s withdrawal from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the 16-country mega-regional trade agreement in East Asia and also the world’s largest trading bloc, must be seen as evidence that in India, strong voices from the stakeholders can make their impact felt on the government’s decision-making. Few realised that it was the first time in post-independence India, a cross-section of domestic constituencies, including farmers, trade unions, representatives of major sectors of Indian industry and civil society organisations, spoke in one voice against the threats to their future posed by the RCEP.

They gave a clear message that the ceding the country’s economic space to foreign…

John Taylor (“Choice of new IMF head must not be dictated by the old EU order”, August 12) points out that the International Monetary Fund needs new leadership from outside the European bloc to address the multiple challenges facing the world today. As I have spent a considerable part of my professional life in opposing the outdated convention that a European leads the IMF while an American heads the World Bank, I think that the job should go the person who could usher in a fundamental change in the fund’s policy outlook besides restoring its credibility.

There is a long list of failed IMF…

Fifty years ago, on July 19, 1969, Indira Gandhi, who was both Prime Minister and Finance Minister at that time, decided to nationalize 14 major privately-owned commercial banks of India. Banks with a deposit base of over Rs500 million were selected for nationalization while foreign banks were excluded. Six more private banks were later nationalized in 1980.

Analysts have described the nationalization of banks as the most significant economic event after India’s independence in 1947. But if we look globally, state ownership of banks and financial institutions was the norm during the 1960s and 70s. In the post-World War II period, state-ownership of banking witnessed…