Rahul Jacob

1 month ago | sundaytimes.lk | Rahul Jacob

A fashion show all too often involves people wearing clothes too impractical to wear even to a party. Models tend to be of body types ranging from the skinny to skeletal or absurdly gym toned. Barefoot’s first fashion show in almost a decade was a role model of a different kind, however. Sixty years young, Barefoot continues to make its own rules.

1 month ago | sundaytimes.lk | Rahul Jacob

Malinee Jayasinghe-Peris’s solo recital at the Women’s International Club in Colombo as a 12-year-old may well have had the blessings of the gods. Her piano teacher, Alice Cockburn, insisted the stage be adorned with coconut flowers and altar lamps “to keep away evil spirits and the thoughts of jealous music teachers,” Malinee recalls with a laugh. Lionel Wendt asked that she wear a bottle green dress and photographed her for the occasion. She performed works by Mozart, Beethoven and CPE Bach.

1 month ago | livemint.com | Rahul Jacob

More than a decade ago, writing about its October edition, when buyers from the West throng its halls hoping to stock up ahead of Christmas, I likened it to chancing upon an army of Santa Claus’s helpers and discovering they were nearly all Chinese. This year, though, set against the backdrop of Trump tariffs, all is change. Business deals for Chinese suppliers are expected to plummet.

1 month ago | livemint.com | Rahul Jacob

In 1914, John Maynard Keynes wrote an almost triumphalist ode to globalization, just before that vision was dismantled by World War I and the subsequent Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the US.

2 months ago | livemint.com | Rahul Jacob

Less emphasis on the PLI scheme ought to create room for a new industrial policy. Let’s call it ‘NIP’ as a marker of the speed needed in rethinking our approach on several issues that bedevil the economy. These include India’s overvalued exchange rate, which should be routinely measured against a basket of our export competitors’ currencies, and concluding key bilateral trade treaties over which negotiations have dragged on for years.