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Global foreign direct investment flows had risen modestly to 1.24 trillion dollars in 2010, but still 37 per cent below the 2007 peak of 1.97 trillion, reflecting slow-paced post-crisis recovery in global industrial output despite some rebound in trade, according to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report (WDR-2011). However, the emerging trends underline the significant shift in international production, and more recently the weight of global consumption, towards emerging and transition economies, which absorbed half of the world FDI flows for the first time.

What began as a limited crisis in one publication of the Rupert Murdoch media group in Britain, the now-closed News of the World, has grown into a tempest which threatens the world’s greatest media empire and could politically singe Prime Minister David Cameron. The 10 arrests made so far—including that of News International CEO Rebekah Brooks, and Les Hinton, who headed Dow Jones, the business information agency which also runs The Wall Street Journal—and the resignation of the London Metropolitan police commissioner, have thrown British society into turmoil.

B.S. Yeddyurappa is God’s gift to the BJP’s opponents. While the party has other controversial chief ministers, such as Narendra Modi, as well as those who face corruption charges, as in Uttarakhand, none of them can match either the scale of the Karnataka chief minister’s malfeasance or his brazen insouciance in the face of allegations.

Will the sharp dip in the US-Pakistan relations impact the situation in Jammu and Kashmir? The question gains importance as it is Kashmir and terrorism which have contributed to the deep slide in their relations. For an answer one has to have a closer look at the factors responsible for their deteriorated ties.

BHOPAL: The monsoon session of the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha that commenced on July 11 ended on July 22. In between, no sittings were held on three days due to holidays.

The demand for a separate administrative entity for the Darjeeling hills has a long history. The Gorkha community has been looking for official recognition of its political identity ever since Hillman’s Association raised the demand for some form of self-rule for Darjeeling in 1907. The violent agitation for statehood in the 1980s, under the leadership of that the Gorkha National Liberation Front, had culminated in the formation of the semi-autonomous Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. But starting in 2008, renewed demand for a separate Gorkhaland state by the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (JGM), meant the hill council couldn’t continue in its given form and shape.

A fatigue against continuous hikes in interest rates appears to have already set in. Otherwise how could those who could benefit from interest hike have asked for a pause. Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has asked the Reserve Bank governor, D. Subbarao, to take a pause and not raise interest rates following a review of monetary policy slated for July 26. With progressive interest hikes, credit growth has tapered off, while deposits are growing. Thus, the banks are getting saddled with interest liabilities without matching income.

KOLKATA: Slowly but surely the ground rules of politics have changed in West Bengal over the years.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The fragility of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Government was severely exposed when the Government came perilously close to being voted out of power on Wednesday.

Even before the ink settled down on the agreement paper creating the self-ruled Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) within the geographical map of the State of West Bengal, the Gorkha mutineer Bimal Gurung, who made it happen, assured members of the militant Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) that the Gorkhaland state would soon become a certainty. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, a key contributor to the tripartite agreement along with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, may now have little defence against those Andhra agitators demanding Telengana’s statehood. If only three sub-divisions of the Darjeeling district, having as small an adult population as just around half-a-million, is accorded the self-rule status, the centre has little moral and legal ground to prevent the division of Andhra Pradesh to create the Telengana state.