The WTO has already significantly lowered its sights since a decade of Doha talks broke down, forcing the body to focus on a much less ambitious set of reforms.
It's jobs and not more welfare that people want, says Republican gubernatorial challenger Neel Tushar Kashkari, who posed as a homeless job seeker for 7 days. Aziz Haniffa reports
Like Nehru, Modi is loathe to touch the public sector. His policy towards Israel leans towards 'non-alignment'. You can find other similarities: frequent public speeches, personalised leadership, total control over foreign and strategic policies, even stylised dressing, says Shekhar Gupta.
Rediff.com gathers digs deep, to bring you interesting facts about the Democrat and the former White House First Lady.
Rediff.com takes a look at drones as they engage in activities you'd never thought you'd see.
The economics behind the surprising popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
The Information Technology Act needs another tweak to allow a different kind of information intermediary to flourish, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field.
May be the strong United States growth will lead the world back to a period of growth and help us all put this painful recrimination behind us.
'China was the elephant in the Oval Office and Trump would have sensed that Modi's foreign policy architecture has become disoriented sans the US' pivot to Asia,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Markets end higher ahead of Fed outcome, China stimulus
US President Barack Obama's administration has faced extensive criticism for its failure to prosecute bankers criminally for behavior that led to the financial crisis.
Every year Fortune honours 10 innovators, groundbreakers and game changers as 'Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs'.
Hong Kong is the world's freest economy according to the Index of Economic Freedom 2015.
Indian-American hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal avoided jail time and was sentenced to three years probation and a $500,000 fine on charges of illegally donating thousands of dollars to political campaigns.
'Is Xi's China stable?'
'No one can say whether the regime will fall all at once or if its leaders are devising a new solid and competitive -- anything but democratic -- model.' A fascinating excerpt from Francois Bougon's Inside The Mind of Xi Jinping.
On the eve of the Modi government's two years in office, the RSS-linked Bharatiya Mazdoor Sabha leadership met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. After the meeting, the BMS claimed the FM told its delegation 'the government has realised that labour reforms are not essential for industrial growth in the country.'
'He is the man,' US President Barack Obama had said at a G-20 gathering, enhancing Lula's stature. Six years later, has Brazil's impressive economic growth turned to sand? Will a President, who enjoyed an 80 per cent approval rate in his country, be arrested? Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil, explains what has gone wrong in one of India's BRICS partner nations.
Just when everything seemed picture perfect for brown faces on American television, Showtime reverts to form with its new series Billions. Aseem Chhabra points out how popular media still hasn't gained enough distance from accents and towel-turban fixations.
Home-grown taxi booking companies which have a business model similar to Uber's might have stricter security norms imposed on them.
'He totally gets the Gandhis...' 'If anything, he pays too much attention to the Gandhis.' 'I feel that in places like UP, where the Congress doesn't matter, he often spends time blasting the Gandhis.'
'In the run-up to the summit, Trump had indicated that he might strike a nuclear deal in the course of a single meeting or over several days, but as it transpired, Trump departed Singapore soon after the meeting.' 'This raises questions if his aspirations for an ambitious outcome had been scaled back,' says Rajaram Panda.
'Omerta is a work of true moral force; it is, at the risk of sounding fancy, a motion picture for our times,' says Sreehari Nair.
Donald Trump's executive order prohibiting the entry of people from seven Muslim-majority nations widened the rift between the Trump administration and several leading American companies.
Despite the headwinds both on the domestic and global fronts, Ramesh S Damani, member, BSE and a prominent investor, says India will weather a global trade war better than a lot of other Asian countries.
The first signs of growing bonhomie between Modi and Rajan came early last year, when Modi called Rajan the "best teacher" for explaining complex economic issues to him.
'Modi is a symbol of Asia Rising; and, for the first time in decades, a non-white has the potential to be the most compelling global leader.'
'Happily,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, 'BRICS displayed new-found energy and built something real, a bank. Between needless nihilism and as yet unjustified euphoria, there are many stations for the BRICS train and we can watch its progress with renewed interest.'
Contrary to the bragging that marked its two-year anniversary, the government's timidity on reform is simply astounding.
And here's how not to make them...
Paytm will cross 100 million wallets ahead of its self-determined deadline of 2015-end. It currently has 66 million.
'In May 2014, India got its Donald Trump equivalent as prime minister in the form of Narendra Modi. Come 2016, we will know if America too gets its own version of Modi by electing Trump,' says Shehzad Poonawalla.
More companies with unconventional business models to get into messy legal hassles in India.
India needs to build its Grand Narrative, and its cultural power, which conquered all of ASEAN (then known as Indo-China), needs to be forcefully projected while simultaneously hard economic and military power are also emphasised, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'We eat first, they later; we sit on chairs and they on the floor; we call them by their names and they address us by titles,' writes Tripti Lahiri, author of Maid in India.
Rajeev Srinivasan on how Indians are satisfied with illusions, not reality.
A review of key pronouncements he made in his first Independence Day Speech on August 15, 2014.
'The director has tried to be neutral. But Talvar won't leave the audience confused, for sure.'
The chief of America's Federal Communications Commission is not a fan of net neutrality. So what's his vision of communications and digital policy in these times?
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