Global scribe

PASSING THROUGH: John Micklethwait

With his writing partner Adrian Wooldridge, he has co-authored four books including The Witch Doctors, that won the 1997 Financial Times/Booz Allen Global Business Book award.

An authority on globalisation, he's written two books on the subject "" A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalisation and Globalisation: Making Sense of an Integrating World. Now he's writing a book on religions and how they are affecting the world. Meet John Micklethwait, the editor of The Economist, who is visiting India and chaired the two-day business round table with the government.

Though Micklethwait has come to India after a gap of eight years, he's been following the country closely. "I would be lying if I said that the change strikes you when you land. But in terms of impressions, it's just the people "" the Indian business people you now come across in London and the sort of deals they are doing. Or the number of British and American business people you see here, including 20 people from The Economist," he smiles.

The Economist's marketing team is in India to drive up the magazine's circulation. Micklethwait believes that The Economist could easily double the 17,000 copies that it sells in India through its distribution tie-up with the Times Group.

Why? "You look at the changes in India. All those are changes that we approve of and also if you look around the world at things that propelled The Economist forward, it is the opening up of the markets," he says. He feels that The Economist is sort of a user's guide for globalisation and "it's also a big beneficiary from it".

The interest in India is huge, feels Micklethwait. "When we put India on the cover in Europe or America, it sells extremely well. One of our highest selling issues was one with India on the cover. Now, you can't not have an India strategy," he says referring to companies abroad.

A major proponent of globalisation, Micklethwait does recognise some of its negative impacts. "Yes, it is kind of cruel and an uneven process. There obviously are people who lose out. We have stories about cotton farmers committing suicide because cotton prices in India had gone against them. Overall, it is an enormous force for good. When you look at the damage done by globalisation it's nothing compared with the damage done by lack of it," he says.

Micklethwait, who studied history at Magdalen College, Oxford, worked as a banker at Chase Manhattan before he joined The Economist in 1987 as a financial correspondent.

Since then he's edited the business section of the magazine, run its New York bureau and covered business and politics from the US, Latin America, Europe, South Africa and Asia. He also won the Wincott Award, Britain's leading prize for financial journalism.

Interestingly, Micklethwait feels that India may be overheating. "Yes, we have used the word overheating. On one hand, India's economic achievement has been massive. On the other, some people in India are now saying that it's possible to grow at 10 per cent a year forever. And we don't think that is possible without further reform on a persistent basis."