THREE main factors explain why the effect of the world capitalist crisis that erupted in 2007-08 and is still continuing was not felt by the Indian economy for a long time. Each of these three countervailing factors, however, has now run its course, leaving the government with no means of coping with the ongoing crisis. On the contrary, whatever it can do now will only compound the crisis.

THE Left upsurge in Latin America appears to be abating. In October 2015 Jimmy Morales, the conservative candidate in Guatemala,  defeated the Left-leaning Sandra Torres in the presidential elections. On November 22, Mauricio Macri, the conservative presidential candidate in Argentina, defeated Daniel Scioli, his Peronist rival, by a narrow margin, to bring to an end a long period of Left ascendancy under Presidents Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

THERE are two basic, fundamentally different, and mutually exclusive positions on development that are in contention in the present period.

THE WTO has been a major weapon used by the advanced countries to roll back the structures that the third world dirigiste regimes which came into existence after decolonisation had erected for achieving a degree of self-reliance. The TRIPS agreement for instance which tightens the multinational corporations’ stranglehold over technology was pushed through the WTO. But the advanced capitalist world has of late found an even stronger weapon, which consists of bilateral or regional trade agreements (RTAs) like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

UNDER the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), education is to become a tradable service. In August 2005, India had made a market access offer in the sphere of higher education under the GATS; this offer will become a firm commitment later this month at the Nairobi ministerial meeting, which is set to bring the Doha Round of WTO negotiations to a final conclusion, unless India withdraws from it.