Sudip Bandyopadhyay’s Blog

For thousands of years, gold has been valued as a global currency, a commodity, an investment and simply an object of beauty.  In the 1981 Iranian hostage crisis, Iran refused to accept U.S. dollars in return for releasing the American hostages it held. So the U.S. transferred 50 tonnes of gold instead. As then Treasury [...]

Rapid economic growth over the past decade or so has had its welcome trickle-down effect in rural India , with a healthy growth in income. Better connectivity – both roads and telecom with cities and electrification have boosted productivity and brought hitherto urban-only products and services to rural doorsteps, fuelling a consumption boom that famously [...]

The recent debate about aid, sparked by Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid, has polarised the development community.  However, effective aid has an important role to play in the quest for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.
In her book, Ms Moyo suggests that government bonds can take the place of development assistance. This is probably unrealistic. [...]

Last week’s  coordinated terrorist attacks on India’s financial capital have resonated far beyond Mumbai.  The assault on two landmark five-star hotels and the targeting of foreigners ,mark  out these latest atrocities from the many other attacks that India has borne with resilience in recent years.  As it is likely that there will hardly be a [...]