Daily Hindu Editorials

Stocks may be set to experience more volatility than in the last few years Investors who expected 2018 to be yet another blockbuster year for stocks may have to temper their expectations. After a strong start to the year, since the beginning of February, stock markets around the world have witnessed a sharp correction. The U.S.’s decision to impose import tariffs on steel and aluminium was the latest development to infuse a sense of uncertainty. As of Tuesday, the Sensex and Nifty are marginally down since the beginning of the year. While the poor state of health of public sector banks has added to the pain, market breadth suggests a more broad-based decline. Notably, this correction comes after a record bull run that stocks enjoyed in 2017. While the Sensex advanced about 28% in 2017, the Nifty climbed 30%. Judging by the initial trading sessions of the Indian indices in March, markets look likely to keep investors on their feet. After the sharp correction in February, many expected...

As Italians reject the mainstream parties, EU integration could take a hit As the dust settles on the Italian parliamentary elections, it is unclear who the next Prime Minister will be. But two things are clear. First, the election was a strong rejection of the incumbent, centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which has managed just 19% of the vote. Second, there is a strong anti-establishment undercurrent, with the largest vote share (32%) to a single party going to the Five Star Movement (M5S). Given the recent changes in Italian electoral law, which now combines proportional representation and the first-past-the-post system, a party or coalition will need at least 40% of the vote to form the government. The centre-right coalition, which includes the scandal-ridden former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the anti-migrant and Eurosceptic Lega and the far right Brothers of Italy, has secured 36%. What’s more, Lega, led by the rabble-rouser Matteo Salvini, has won over 17%...

India is sliding towards a situation where it is neither feared nor loved by other South Asian countries Almost four years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his term with a “Neighbourhood First” moment, by inviting leaders of all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries to his swearing-in ceremony, India’s neighbourhood policy is clearly adrift. New Delhi’s connect with its South Asian neighbours is weaker than it has been for a very long time. A perfect storm? The first problem is that for various reasons other governments in the SAARC region are either not on ideal terms with New Delhi, or facing political headwinds. In the Maldives, President Yameen Abdul Gayoom has gone out of his way to challenge the Modi government, whether it is on his crackdown on the opposition, invitations to China, or even breaking with New Delhi’s effort to isolate Pakistan at SAARC. In Nepal, the K.P. Sharma Oli government is certainly not India’s first choice, and Ka...

Assembly Elections The Left must consider new tactics for alliance-building and popular mobilisation Seven years after they lost power in West Bengal, in 2011, where they had ruled for 34 years, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its allies have suffered another setback, this time in Tripura after an uninterrupted 25-year reign. The blow here, administered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), has been more shocking than what had happened in West Bengal. After all, the defeat of the Left Front (LF) in the Assembly elections in West Bengal was the final act in a series of losses in other elections in the State — local-level polls in 2008 and 2010, and the Lok Sabha election in 2009. Slide in bastions The slide of the Left in Bengal also came after years of struggle by the Trinamool Congress, with the agitation against the land acquisition policy of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, finally turning the t...