About 400 pages long report by a panel of eminent economists, led by Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, was submitted on November 30 after about four months of deliberations. It contains 23 chapters, placed under five (5) broad themes - macroeconomy, structural, social, institutional, and reforms & polici

Global carbon emissions have rapidly rebounded, with economic recovery following pandemic shutdowns, and are already close to pre-Covid levels. As climate meetings continue at COP26 Glasgow, a report from the Global Carbon Project finds emissions from coal and gas use have grown more in 2021 than t

As the COP26 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference takes place in Glasgow (UK), serious reflections are needed on rich countries' broken promise "to a goal of mobilising jointly US$100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries" made 12 years ago at the COP16 in C

The unfortunate situation with the accessibility and availability of Covid-19 vaccine exposes darker sides of protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs). The problem is that poor countries have to wait at least until the end of 2023, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Supported by m

Big pharmaceutical companies, commonly referred to as 'Big Pharma', claim that patents protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs) are essential for innovations. They opposed the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Inte

The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world when a powerful global tendency towards authoritarianism gained pace. In myopinion piece, "Declines in Press Freedom Threaten Democracy" for last year's anniversary issue of The Financial Express, I drew attention to Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2019 Repo

As the outbreak of novel COVID-19 virus turns into a global pandemic, major stock markets around the world suffered their worst performance since the 2008 financial crush. It is feared that unless globally coordinated measures are put in place rapidly - both to contain its spread and to offset its

The US-China trade war has flared up in less than two weeks of President Trump's announcement to delay a set of new tariffs worth US$160 billion on Chinese imports until December, purportedly to avoid harming the holiday shopping season. On August 23 China announced retaliatory measures to hit $U