As economies slow down, people in the developing world who did not gain from the boom will face deteriorating conditions of living. But now that there is overwhelming evidence of the failure of the economic model on which the boom was based, we can think afresh about how to organise economic life, both nationally and globally.

The neo-liberal illusion of the market being “efficient” is now over with the threat of collapse of the US financial system and the unprecedented upsurge in oil prices. Both have been the outcome of speculation and the associated underestimation of risks, which in turn have been due to the lack of government intervention and the globalization of finance. The form in which the system will recover opens up new possibilities of praxis.

More than a year since the sub prime crisis began, the financial meltdown still persists. With the Lehman brothers filing for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch selling out recently, most major investment banks seem to be facing a new set of problems. These are related to the now-not-so-new sub-prime crisis and the unwillingness of both the institutions concerned and the regulators to properly assess the effects of that crisis on their financial viability.

The World Bank's new estimates of global poverty, based on the new benchmark international poverty line of $1.25 a day 2005 PPP, still suffer from same problems as the earlier estimates. The underlying source of the problems is the lack of a clear criterion for identifying the poor, and that basic deficiency remains unaddressed. The Bank's chosen international poverty line is still far too low to cover the cost of purchasing basic necessities, and the Bank uses inappropriate purchasing power parities (PPPs) to convert its poverty line across currencies.

Discussions about economic growth and how to generate it are back in fashion among economists, unfortunately in a period of impending stagflation. However, interesting is the fact how growth prescriptions, even from mainstream quarters, seem to acknowledge the failure of the conservative policies.

The Indo-US nuclear deal is not an isolated issue, but a part of a larger process of attempts at changing the character of the Indian State to a neo-liberal State integrated with US imperialism. Given the objective economic conditions leading to further shrinkage of the already miniscule political constituency in favour of "reforms", such a change in the character of the Indian State can be effected only through a coup d'etat as was witnessed on July 22.

Texts related to the Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) in the ongoing Doha Round of WTO negotiations, right from the time of its inception, have been biased against the developing country members. This article traces the development in the various NAMA texts and tries to bring out the factors that have come to form the core of the contention between the developed and the developing countries.

This note follows up the discussion in the author's previous article on the fallacy of neoliberal economics in laying out an effective development strategy for developing economies. This article tackles the issue of free trade in particular and argues that not only does neo-classical orthodoxy not sit very well with historical experience in developed countries, it is theoretically flawed.

This article provides a critical review of Turkey’s engagement with the IMF over the past decade which ended recently. It argues that the end of the stand by in May 2008 signifies neither autonomy from the IMF nor a successful graduation and a completion of the IMF programme. Present Turkey is characterized by high debt, speculative growth environment with jobless patterns with its government institutions under siege.

This policy brief has been written in the context of the demand of developing countries, including India, in the on-going Doha round of WTO negotiations for policy space within which protect the livelihood security of their small and marginal farmers. It uses Mexican agriculture’s integration experience under NAFTA to establish that developing country demands are justified.