TMS Ep507: Brics expansion, disaster-prone Shimla, market direction & more

Brics is set to onboard six new nations -- including two major oil producers Saudi Arabia and the UAE. China -- a key player in the block and biggest oil importer -- is said to have cited the threat of a new Cold War as one of the reasons for this expansion. And experts believe that the expansion may have both economic and political ramifications. So where does India stand in all this? How will this development affect it? And, what will be its effect on global trade and geo-economics? 

Nature, meanwhile, is slowly crafting a different sort of world order which is not very pleasant, and doesn’t understand boundaries. Effects of climate change are more visible now than ever before. Hundreds of families were recently forced to evacuate after their houses in hill station Joshimath developed cracks. Hundreds of homes and hotels in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have collapsed in landslides in the last two months. Clearly the fragile Himalayan foothills are paying the price of unbridled constructions. Shimla too has turned into a concrete jungle. So is the queen of hills heading the Joshimath way? 

After the hills, let us see what is happening in financial markets. India’s key benchmark indices – the Sensex and the Nifty -- ended lower for the fifth straight week, as investors remained wary of cues from the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium over the weekend. Find out the three key events that are likely to provide direction to the markets in the week ahead.

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs recently said India will overtake the US to become the world’s second largest economy by 2075.  Moving on, it was Goldman Sachs which had coined the term Bric, whose summit recently ended in Johannesburg. But exactly what is Brics? Listen to this episode of the podcast for more.