Global Financial Crisis & the Indian Economy

The current global financial situation continues to be uncertain and unsettled. What started off as a sub-prime crisis in the US housing mortgage sector has turned successively into a global banking crisis, global financial crisis and now a global economic crisis. It has been billed by experts as the worst since the Great Depression of late 1920s and early 1930s that originated in the advanced economies and rapidly engulfed the whole world. The financial turmoil which surfaced in August 2007 in the US financial system as a result of defaults of sub-prime mortgage loans has blown into an unprecedented financial crisis engulfing international money, credit, equity and foreign exchange markets. India has remained relatively immune from the fallout of the crisis due to several reasons including prudential, supervisory and regulatory framework of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). More importantly, the Indian banking system has shown remarkable market discipline, docility, and sincerity of purpose as against the financial gimmicks and dubious practices of the financial institutions in the US. It is heartening to note that in India, complex structures like synthetic securitisations have not been permitted so far. This book contains 18 articles on the subject by experts in the field of finance and development, covering almost all dimensions of the ongoing world-wide financial turmoil.