Thailand’s cannabis champion eyes bigger role after May election

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Opposition parties, including the Pheu Thai Party loyal to former telecoms tycoon and ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, have criticised Bhumjaithai and the ruling coalition for what they see as the rushed and loosely regulated decriminalisation of cannabis. But Anutin, a former chairman of one of Thailand’s largest construction companies, saidContinue Reading

China-indebted Pakistan looking down a deep, dark hole

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MUMBAI – Last month, China and Pakistan celebrated the tenth anniversary of the US$64 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with bonhomie and backslapping. But a warning from Syed Tariq Fatemi, special assistant to Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, belied the joviality. “Overdue payments to the Chinese IPPs [the independent power plants built and operated by China […]Continue Reading

Govt warns of populist policy risks

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The government has warned against political parties’ populist policies requiring substantial sums of money, saying that after other essential expenses are deducted, the budget for the 2024 fiscal year will have only 220 billion baht left for spending on such policies.Continue Reading

Xi topping Biden in New Cold War’s economic game

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If you think of the global economy as a giant chess match, China’s Xi Jinping now seems a few moves ahead of US President Joe Biden. That’s a plausible take on China’s leader hosting French President Emmanuel Macron in Beijing in recent days. Tesla billionaire Elon Musk was in China to double down on the […]Continue Reading

Rich-poor gap worsening in India 

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Despite early success, India has fallen behind its neighbor China in poverty reduction. Sweeping reforms are necessary if India is to gain ground in implementing a workable anti-poverty program comparable to China's efforts.Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Varun Chatterji

The deliberation and discourse on India’s inequality have been mostly concentrated on two key points: First, all highlights are on the top-1% “billionaire class” and its exponential growth over the period; second, on those surviving below poverty line. However, the most important question resides in the space occupied in between: What are the inequality dynamics, and how severe is […]Continue Reading

China at the heated center of Malaysia’s new politics

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PUTRAJAYA – Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim triumphantly returned from his maiden visit to Beijing last week, where he bagged as much as $39 billion in new investment pledges from the Asian superpower. With those deals in hand, Anwar effusively described his counterpart Xi Jinping as a “visionary” who had “not only changed the course of […]Continue Reading