Globalised India

Weekend Ruminations

 India could suffer a drought-induced recession or enjoy a deficit-driven demand boom, in both cases it would be an internally driven dynamic.

 The global business cycle had hardly any domestic impact, except when the ups and downs involved oil. It was only in 1999-2000 that India joined the global internet bandwagon and shared in the subsequent bursting of the bubble.

 Now that process has been taken forward: more markets than ever before have got linked to global cycles. It is now a different game. Companies and businessmen have realised this.

 But many investors are only dimly aware of the changed rules, and the farmers not at all. A globalised India has to track global currents in a way it has not needed to do in the past; whether we like it or not, decisions in Brussels and Seoul, New York and Tokyo, matter as much as what is being done in New Delhi.

 Today, a staggering two-thirds of the free floating stock in India