By Nantoo Banerjee Prices are bubbling up. Food, fuel and fertiliser costs are surging almost daily. Inflation seems to have got a free pass in India. The country’s wholesale price index, which tracks goods at factory gates, rose almost 13 percent from a year earlier in January. The gauge has recorded double-digit increases for 10 […]
The post RBI Has Failed To Check Surging Inflation first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Arun Kumar Shrivastav After an economic crisis, Sri Lanka has plunged into a political crisis now. On Monday morning, news reports said that the entire Sri Lankan Cabinet has resigned. There were also rumors that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had resigned or would resign soon but his office denied the rumours. Another rumor that […]
The post Economic Crisis In Sri Lanka Turns Into A Major Political Imbroglio first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey A straightforward message emerged from this week’s meeting in the Negev desert of the foreign ministers of four Arab countries, Israel and the United States: Israel is key to the security of Gulf autocracies and continued US engagement in the Middle East. It may be a message that on the surface holds out the promise of reduced regional tension, the beginning of a rejiggering […]
By K Raveendran The currency stand-off in the global gas market, triggered by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russian gas will henceforth have to be paid in roubles instead of dollar and euro is keeping the market on tenterhooks. It has upset the calculations of all important stake holders, including India, which has been […]
The post Putin’s Gambit In Demanding Rouble Payments Takes Issues Beyond Pricing first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Prabhat Patnaik The juggling which US imperialism has to do to maintain its hegemony becomes more bizarre by the day. First, it kept needling Russia (“provoking the bear”) “on behalf of the western alliance” by expanding NATO to its very borders, knowing full well that Ukraine’s joining NATO would be totally unacceptable to Russia. […]
The post The Bizarre Case Of United States Imposing Sanctions Against Russia first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Arun Kumar Shrivastav Earlier this month, China announced a 7.1% increase in its defence budget to about $230 billion. The news generated concerns in relevant quarters in India. China maintains the highest number of active military personnel in the world and its defence budget is the 2nd largest in the world for many years […]
The post Rising Defence Budget Is Making The World A More Dangerous Place first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Nantoo Banerjee There were writings on the wall. Only India’s official economists seemed to have failed to read and report to the government. Oil rally was expected to continue through 2022 as demand outstripped supply. By January 29, this year, oil posted its sixth straight weekly gain as a growing global chorus predicted the […]
The post Surging Inflation Can Upset India’s Economy first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey Three scantily dressed samba dancers wearing traditional feather headdresses laid bare the limits of social liberalisation in Saud Arabia when they earlier this year danced on the streets of Jizan, a historically conservative city on the border with Yemen. Invited to participate in the Jizan Winter Festival, the dancers, in stark contrast with the traditional, all-covering black robes often worn by Saudi women in public, sported […]
By James M Dorsey The Ukraine crisis may constitute a more impactful, historic watershed than the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall in the mind of Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “perhaps even a bigger moment than the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Balakrishnan said. “We believe we are at an inflection point,” he added. “Little Singapore is standing up for principles and […]
By James M Dorsey What did Russian President Vladimir Putin think when he ordered his troops into Ukraine? Ray Charles’ ‘Georgia on mind’ must have been humming in his head. A slightly altered version, ‘Palestine on my mind,’ was undoubtedly on Egyptian athlete Ali Farag’s mind when he condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Sunday as he won Britain’s Optacia squash championship. “We’ve never been allowed […]
By Sushil Kutty The Karnataka hijab row now goes to the Supreme Court after the Karnataka High Court ruled that the hijab is not essential religious practice in Islam, and there’s clear and present danger that the row will escalate to the “national stage”, which was what the high court had feared would happen when […]
The post Hijab Row Gets National Dimension After Ruling By Karnataka High Court first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Nantoo Banerjee The Russian attack on Ukraine seems to have given a wakeup call to countries in Europe and Asia to substantially step up their annual defence expenditure to protect themselves from possible external assault. Given the ominous security situation in Europe, a number of countries, including Germany, Sweden, Romania, Latvia, Finland, the Netherlands […]
The post Several Countries Plan To Step Up Military Spending first appeared on IPA Newspack.
James M Dorsey Struggling to remain on the sidelines of the 21st century’s watershed war in Ukraine, Middle Eastern nations are discovering that they may be fighting their battles with an outdated toolkit. As a result, the Ukraine war could saw off the legs from under the table of Middle Eastern détente that already are built on shaky ground. For the past 18 months, Middle Eastern rivals – Saudi […]
