Globalisation of Agriculture and Atomisation of Farming: Small Farms Crisis in Asia

Agriculture in Asia is being pushed into a new policy regime that uncritically promotes free trade and laissez faire policies. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), regional Preferential Trading Arrangements (PTAs) and neoliberal policies pursued by the individual nations are the central features of the new regime. The new regime is built disregarding the existing …

Water Governance in Thiruvananthapuram City, Kerala: Existing Practices and Alternative Paradigms

Urban water governance is a challenging issue, globally. Questions are often raised about the viability of the existing practices and a new paradigm of integrated urban water management is proposed. Overcoming spatial differentiation in service delivery, providing quality service, and devising measures for source sustainability are emerging challenges of urban water management in Thiruvananthapuram city. …

World Economy and Nation States post COVID-19

With the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the world economy has come to a grinding halt. The economic fallout would be enormous in terms of loss in production, income, and employment. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major ruptures in the world system, which has serious implications for global accumulation of capital. It, therefore, presents an …

Real versus Fictitious: The Pandemic Closing In on the World of Finance

The COVID-19 pandemic is stretching the contradictions of the present economic arrangements to the limits. The system survived inflating financial assets and feeding on inequalities. The divide between the real economy and the sphere of finance cannot be left unchecked without risking an economic catastrophe. Wealth and income inequalities cannot be pushed anymore without irretrievably …

Preparing the State’s Economy for the ‘New Normal’ Post Pandemic

The ways we live our lives are changing drastically, thanks to the Pandemic, the environmental disasters, and the global economic crisis. Whether we like it or not almost all spheres of life are witnessing the emergence of a new normal. A return to the old normal is ruled out. The Kerala budget for 2021-22 is …

Deterritorialisation of Keralam: Economy, Society and Polity

The lines of renowned Malayalam poet Vallathol Narayana Menon reproduced here represent an attempt to imagine Keralam territorially. It is not diffi cult to identify more such texts that endeavoured to do the same at different stages of the history of the region. The Keralolpathy legend perhaps is the best known among them, according to …

Proliferation of Free Trade Agreements and Currency Conflicts

Speech at Euro-BRICS seminar - Summary I am extremely happy and feel highly privileged to have got this opportunity to ‘address’ the distinguished participants of the EURO-BRICS conference in spite of my inability to reach Moscow. I thank the chairperson Ms. Marie Calliol for giving me this opportunity. I also wish the Moscow conference a big …

Confronting Bureaucratic Capture Rethinking Participatory Planning Methodology in Kerala

The people’s planning programme in Kerala is under threat of a bureaucratic capture with government orders and guidelines from above subduing the process of participatory planning. This paper proposes overhauling the methodology of planning from below to put the experiment back on track. This will involve demystifying and debureaucratising the planning process and strengthening participatory …

Regional Route to Multilaterism :Proliferation of PTAs Among Developing Countries and WTO Negotiations

Regional Route to Multilateralism: Proliferation of PTAs among Developing Countries and WTO Negotiations K.N.Harilal Multilateralism and regionalism are seen as forces that pull the world apart in opposing directions. But, the incentive structure of the new generation PTAs, as they are mostly FTAs, is loaded in favour of freer trade. In FTAs members are free …

Asean-India Free Trade Area-Noises of Dissent from Deep South

On 13th August 2009 the minister of commerce and industry of the Republic of India and the ASEAN economic ministers met in Bangkok, Thailand and signed the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (TIGA).  The TIGA is supposed to be a major step ahead in the ongoing programme for establishing a full-fledged free trade area between …