South Asia Archive

The Indian government finally approved a plan last week to allow international firms such as Wal-Mart to own 51 percent of multibrand retail stores. In an email interview, Pravakar Sahoo, an associate professor at the Institute for Economic Growth in India, discussed India’s retail opening. WPR: What concrete changes will the retail opening bring to India’s economy? Pravakar Sahoo: The approval of 51 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multibrand retailing, which was initially approved by the Cabinet in November 2011 after two years of deliberation but suspended due to the ensuing political furor, is a big step. It will […]

In India, a growing number of political leaders are threatening to withdraw their support for the governing coalition of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the face of new economic measures that, among other changes, allow for greater foreign investment by global retail giants in India’s heretofore protected domestic retail sector.* The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mamata Banerjee, the populist chief minister of West Bengal, announced that her party, the Trinamool Congress, would formally leave the government. Meanwhile, Kunal Ghosh, a member of the Indian Parliament from the same party, suggested that Singh should resign. “India is passing through […]

The ongoing Shiite-Sunni cold war that is manifesting itself throughout the Middle East may be beginning to spill over into India. Home to a large Muslim minority consisting of both major sects of Islam, India has recently found itself forced to deal with increasing fallout from the intra-Islamic struggle. At one of the end of the spectrum was the attack against an Israeli diplomat possibly orchestrated by Iranian proxies; at the other were the recent violent protests by a Saudi-funded seminary in the heart of Mumbai. Given India’s dependence on energy exports from the wider Islamic world and the nation’s […]