CBS LINE

  CBS LINE Volume 4(1) Interviewee - Prof.Veeramani Professor C. Veeramani is a distinguished economist currently serving as the Director of the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram. With a career spanning over two decades, he is widely regarded as a leading authority on International Trade, Global Value Chains (GVCs), and Industrial Productivity in India. Before leading CDS, Professor Veeramani held key academic positions at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), IIT Bombay, and ICRIER. His expertise is frequently sought at the highest levels of policy; his groundbreaking research on "network products" was a cornerstone of the Economic Survey 2019-20, shaping national conversations on job creation through global production sharing.  A Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) alumnus and recipient of the prestigious EXIM Bank International Economic Development Research Award, Professor Veeramani also serves on several high-level committees, ...

  CBS LINE Volume 4(1) Is India ready for the EV boom — and the rising demand for transition metals? The global push to electrify transport and decarbonise energy systems has put a single commodity front and center for the next decade: copper (and other “transition” metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite). India’s ambition to scale up electric vehicles (EVs) and green infrastructure is real — but so are the structural constraints in raw materials and the value chain that threaten to slow that transition unless addressed now. Where the metal sits — mining geography Most of the world’s primary deposits of metals needed for EVs are concentrated outside India. Countries such as Chile and Peru are dominant copper producers, while the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the world’s main cobalt source; large lithium resources are concentrated in Chile, Argentina and Australia. Global mining statistics and reserve data show that India’s endowments of these transition m...

CBS LINE Volume 4(1)   Budgeting Belonging in the Second Childhood: Gendered Ageing and Digital Inclusion in Kerala Niranjana M S Department of Development Studies Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development                                                                                              Population ageing is accelerating globally, with one in six people expected to be aged 60 years and above by 2030. While developed countries currently account for the largest share of older persons, developing regions are witnessing much faster rates of demographic ageing, often without adequate institutional preparedness. Kerala, long celebrated for its human development achievements, once again stands out this time as India’s most rapidly agei...

CBS LINE Volume 4(1) Quiz Corner CBS Line 4(1) Start Quiz Current Affairs Quiz| January 2026 No Limit Back Next Finish 📊 Your Performance Retry Quiz Home Fidha Fathima  Msc in Econometrics and Financial Technology

CBS LINE Volume 4(1) 🏛️ Economic Policy RBI holds at 6.5% – Pause in rate cuts continues. India-US trade talks launch – Target $500B trade by 2030. GST cuts likely in 2026 – Essentials 7-13% cheaper Budget ’25 focus : Infrastructure, digital, inclusion. 💳 FinTech UPI 2.0 adds credit lines – Loans now via UPI. Real-time payments boom – 81% prefer instant. Biometrics dominate – 76% pick scans over passwords. AI fraud detection spreads – 90% of fintech adopt. 🌍 Global Economics Trump's “America First” trade push ; tariff prep underway. Trade fragmentation grows – Splintering into blocs. China grows 5.4% in Q4 – Imports surge pre-tariffs. ECB cuts to 2.75% – 4th cut amid uncertainty. 📊 Macro Update ...

CBS LINE Volume 4(1) The Shrimp That Took a Detour When news arrived that the United States had raised import tariffs on Indian marine products, many people quietly smiled. The thinking felt simple and reassuring. If exports became difficult, fewer shipments would go abroad. If fewer shipments went abroad, more shrimp would remain at home. And if more shrimp stayed back, prices would finally soften. For once, a global trade decision seemed ready to favour local plates. But nothing happened. Shrimp prices stayed exactly where they were. Markets did not overflow. Menus did not change. The shrimp that was expected to settle down locally never showed up. Somewhere between policy headlines and dinner tables, it quietly vanished. The explanation lies in how quickly markets react. India is one of the world’s major seafood exporters, and shrimp sits right at the heart of that success. It is efficient to produce, widely demanded, and highly valuable abroad. For years, the United Sta...

CBS LINE Volume 4(1) Nandumon MSc in Econometrics and Financial Technology

  CBS LINE Volume 3(12) Interviewee :  Prof. Pinaki Chakraborty                           Visiting Professor,  NIPFP Interviewer - Joshni , MSCEFT, Centre for Budget Studies         From academia to public institutions and policy commissions, you have seen economics from every side. How has this journey shaped your understanding of what good economic policymaking truly means? A good economic policy making is about understanding what best can work in a given context. The assessment of that context needs to be based on data, past precedence, relevant international experiences, policy priorities and their acceptability. Many people see economics as theory and numbers, but your work shows how deeply it connects to governance and people’s lives. How do you see the relationship between economic research and social progress? Understanding of economic theory is a tool to under...

CBS LINE Volume 3(12) Midas Touch or Economic Burden? Unpacking India’s Complex Relationship with Gold Gold has proven its mettle not only as a precious material but also as a deep-rooted symbol of riches and a necessary component in the cultural and economic construct of India itself. Long considered a rare and beautiful commodity with attributes of being a medium of exchange and a safe investment in times of turbulence and uncertainty, in modern-day markets, it appears in two chief forms: physical gold and paper gold. These two facades represent the actual attributes of gold itself: rarity, divisibility, acceptability around the world and its resistance to any form of corrosion or deterioration. All these qualities come together to make gold a class in itself in the market. A lot of factors influence the price of gold worldwide. Starting with the supply side, the limitations are real with the current grade of gold reserves having reduced from 2.0 grams per ton of ore in the year...

  CBS LINE Volume 3(12) Renewable Energy Transition: A gigantic hurdle for Global South The global renewable energy transition represents one of the most profound transformations of our time. Between 2015 and 2024, worldwide renewable capacity more than doubled from 1.85 million MW to 4.44 million MW, an increase of 140% in less than a decade. This exponential growth, driven by falling hardware costs, binding international climate commitments, and heightened energy security concerns, suggests a technological revolution that could democratize energy access and reduce global inequalities. Yet, beneath this optimistic narrative lies a stark reality: the renewable transition is reproducing and even deepening the structural dependencies that have long constrained the Global South, which puts a huge-burden already affected by global power structures of inequalities based on unfair trade policies and austerities of International organisations like IMF. The persistent challenge is highli...