This policy brief has been written in the context of the demand of developing countries, including India, in the on-going Doha round of WTO negotiations for policy space within which protect the livelihood security of their small and marginal farmers. It uses Mexican agriculture’s integration experience under NAFTA to establish that developing country demands are justified. It points out that despite the gains Mexican agriculture has made under NAFTA, the very nature of those gains meant that the brunt of adjustment was borne by small and marginal farmers. This came about both because of the retrenchment of the state and the nature of investment flows under NAFTA. Finally it suggests an alternative agricultural modernisation model centered on small and marginal farmers and maximisation of employment growth.

This brief argues that the collapse of the talks in the Doha Round actually arises because of fundamental reasons related to the contradictions in design and implementation of WTO rules. There are also inconsistencies between the agreed Doha Text and the subsequent proposals made by developed countries during the process of negotiations. This article concentrates on the issues related to NAMA (non-agricultural market access) as an example.

The vicious series of attacks on China against the backdrop of the Beijing Olympics 2008 actually reflects the discomfort of many countries, the developed foremost among them, with China’s status as the emerging economic super power, strengthened by its sheer size in terms of market and labour force, its stable polity and rapidly growing infrastructure.

With the crisis in the financial system in the US, the days of deregulated finance seems to be over, not only in the US but globally. Finance capital, which has so far systematically tried to undermine the state and demanded autonomy for all its actions, is now calling to that same state to save finance from itself. But this cannot occur without the state at least trying to reassert some control over finance.

The depreciation of the US dollar has been closely bound up with the movement of oil prices, as world oil trade is typically denominated in dollars. Yet this relationship may now be under threat as the dollar continues to depreciate and the US economy tips into recession. This article examines how oil prices have changed with different numeraires, and considers the implications for the future of the oil-dollar nexus.

With the US economy clearly tipping into recession, international attention is now focussed on the extent to which China and India can create an alternative growth pole for the world economy through their increasing demand. In this article, the authors assess the potential for China to play such a role by analysing its trade pattern with developing Asia.

This article argues that the International Monetary Fund’s most recent revision of the rules that guide its surveillance of members’ exchange rate policies reduces policy space for developing countries to successfully grow using a trade- and export-led model. This is indeed an irony as this is precisely the type of growth that the Fund, and its sister institution, the Bank, has preached for over twenty years as the one that developing countries should pursue.

Bosted by media reports and assessments by public and private financial institutions of India’s high growth potential, capital inflows have seen a major surge in India resulting for one in huge foreign exchange reserves. But expectations that India is out to share in the spoils of global dominance may be misplaced since these fail to take account of the kind of liabilities that India is accumulating in order to finance its still incipient global expansion. Also, the more the investor and lender confidence results in capital flows in excess of India’s current account financing needs, the greater is the possibility that such confidence can erode.