By 2022—and probably sooner—India will overtake China to become the world’s most populous state, a status the latter has held for at least three centuries and perhaps for all recorded history. And once the Chinese nation loses its demographic crown, it will fall fast. The country’s population will peak in 2028 according to the UN’s “World […]
The election in May 2014 of a new government in India raised expectations around the world of the likelihood of far-reaching changes in India’s economic and foreign policy orientation. This report examines both the promises and the concrete steps taken by Narendra Modi’s government in the areas of: defense, education, energy, healthcare, innovation & IPR, […]
The rivalry for Iran’s future has played out over WhatsApp, Viber, and Tango. All three are used heavily to make free calls, send messages, and post photos or videos. They’re also ways to share the deliciously naughty political humor that Iranians love, without getting caught by the Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content. Read […]
The problem is that China’s recent slowdown from 10 percent annual growth to about 7 percent is only the beginning. The recent drops in housing and stock prices are harbingers of a further economic moderation. That is inevitable, since no country can grow at a breakneck pace forever. And with the slowing of China, Brazil […]
Forget about all the shoes, toys and other exports. China may soon have another thing to offer the world: a recession. That is the prediction from Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, who says a continuation of China’s slowdown in the next years may drag global economic growth below 2 percent, […]
For much of the past decade, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka was more or less a family business — one that happened to be run on an island just 22 miles off the coast of the second-largest country in the world and astride a key shipping lane to the largest. By one estimate, former […]
In the wee hours of Monday morning, after a marathon 17-hour session, Greece finally agreed to a deal with the euro zone that would give it enough cash to start reopening its shuttered banks, pull it out of arrears, and stave off its exit from the euro. In some ways this deal (or any deal) might […]
The Sri Lankan government has cleared one more Chinese project – the expressway linking the southern port city of Hambantota with Matara, which will be the second phase of the previous Chinese-funded project that connects Matara with Colombo. This was one of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s pet projects – connecting his hometown with the capital. […]
Futurists and science-fiction writers have at times looked forward to machines’ workplace takeover with a kind of giddy excitement, imagining the banishment of drudgery and its replacement by expansive leisure and almost limitless personal freedom. And make no mistake: if the capabilities of computers continue to multiply while the price of computing continues to decline, […]
For most of the past 35 years, China’s policymakers have set their focus on the domestic economy, with reforms designed to allow the market to provide efficiency and accurate price signals. Though they had to be increasingly aware of their country’s growing impact on the global economy, they had no strategy to ensure that China’s […]
