Wall Street Journal ⁽⁷⁾

The BJP got voted out of power not because its reforms left the poor behind--they did not--but because the success of the reforms in raising the incomes of all including the poor gave rise to a revolution of rising expectations. Read full article 24 May 2004 In India's favorite sport of cricket, fortunes change with startling speed. Indian elections, too, can be mercurial affairs. The confident Indira Gandhi, seeking to end her controversial Emergency rule and regain democratic legitimacy, was roundly defeated in 1977 by a motley crew of opposition parties. The diffident Sonia Gandhi, the leader of a seemingly lackluster Congress Party, triumphed over a Bharatiya Janata Party which believed itself to be formidable -- so formidable, in fact, that its leader called for elections earlier than he needed to, in the belief that his party's reward for domestic economic prosperity and international political success would be another term in office. What the two election surprises -- in 1977 and 2004 -- have in common is the fierce aspiration of India's masses: political in Indira Gandhi's defeat, and economic…

Read full article (September 16, 2003) Abstract: Just prior to the Cancun WTO Ministerial, a compromise on access to medicines for poor countries had raised hopes that the Developed and the Developing could resolve their differences after all -- and that the Doha Round might actually move forward. But the talks at Cancun have collapsed and the opportunity is lost. The collapse was in no small measure due to the unwillingness of developing countries to make credible market-opening concessions of their own, to match those they demanded from the rich countries. This is tragic since such liberalization would have only benefited them -- and helped open the markets of their partners. Of course, Cancun is no Seattle. At Seattle, the WTO members tried and failed to launch a new round whereas at Cancun they have failed to move an ongoing round forward. The more apt analogy is with the failure in Montreal in 1988 when developed and developing countries had failed to advance the Uruguay Round. The round was, however, successfully completed in 1993. Ironically, differences between rich and poor countries on…