London (CNN) - India's central bank says its policy focus will now be growth, after months and month of battling stubbornly high inflation.

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(CNN) – For the first time in three years, India has cut interest rates in the face of flagging economic growth. In the year that ended on March 31, Asia’s third largest economy grew 6.9% – its slowest in three years.

India announced it would cut interest rates by 50 basis points. A 25-point cut had been widely predicted. This takes the subcontinent’s lending rate down from 8.5% to 8%. The hope is that lower interest rates will lower prices and allow more money into India’s economy – thereby encouraging growth.

Right now, signs of sluggishness are easy to spot.
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(CNN) – It’s the fifth year of one of cricket’s most colorful events - the Indian Premier League T20.

The tournament, which includes star players from across the globe playing for various Indian state franchises, has frequently been dubbed a “money-spinner,” with a wealth of sponsors, high-profile politicians and even Bollywood stars backing the competition. FULL POST

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(CNN) – India will overtake China as the world’s biggest economy by 2050, a new report says.

This follows China’s rise to the top spot in 2020 at the expense of the United States, according to the 2012 Wealth Report by Knight Frank and Citi Private Bank.

The survey was published as India hosts the BRICS summit of emerging economies, which also includes China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. FULL POST

(CNN) – It’s been a bad year to be a BRIC.

As the leaders of the BRICs – Brazil, Russia, India, China – gather in India for the summit Thursday, there is a nagging reality weighing on the world’s fastest growing emerging economies – they’re not growing as fast any more.

Brazil has seen its once blistering economy slow to an estimated 2.7% this year. Russia’s recovery from the global recession has been slow compared with other developing economies, the World Bank said in a report this week. Growth in India has steadily fallen as the nation lurches from scandal to scandal, most recently a report that alleges the government lost $211 billion in coal mining contracts.

Even the economic juggernaut of China has been slowing down, with Beijing dropping its projected growth this year to 7.5% which, if realized, would be the lowest growth rate since 1990, according to World Bank statistics.

What’s going on with the BRICs? FULL POST

Hong Kong, China (CNN) – The bigger they are, the harder they fall. That's the tenet behind the Skyscraper Index which tracks a link between construction booms of tall buildings and economic busts over the past 140 years.

Some say the facts are bizarrely coincidental. Others say the numbers don’t lie. But if true, the latest Skyscraper Index report from Barclays Capital suggests both China and India are due for economic doom because of their current skyscraper boom.

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(CNN) – Nike, Starbucks and Ikea – the doors of India are now fully open to you.

Previously, under foreign direct investment (FDI) rules that limited single brand foreign ownership to 51%, foreign brands were required to partner with local investors.

Under the new rule passed by the government Tuesday, single-brand retailers like Marks & Spencer or Gucci  can own 100% of their operations in India, according to a circular released by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion.

The move was the latest in the political battle over whether to crack open Asia’s third largest economy to greater foreign investment.
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(CNN) – India announced plans to allow foreigners to invest directly in domestic companies listed in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

The government “decided to allow qualified foreign investors to directly invest in Indian equity market in order to widen the class of investors, attract more foreign funds, and reduce market volatility and to deepen the Indian capital market,” according to a New Year’s Day statement from India’s Finance Ministry.

Before only institutional investors and Indians living abroad were allowed to invest directly in local companies. The move will allow individuals to buy as much as 5% of a company’s shares. Total shares owned by foreigners, however, will not be able to exceed 10% of a company’s capital, the ministry said. The new rules are expected to take effect January 15.

While among the world’s fastest growing economies, India’s breakneck growth slowed in 2010, slipping to 6.9% in the quarter ending in September – it’s lowest growth rate in more than two years.
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(CNN) – With the eurozone debt crisis in full swing and a Super Committee on Capitol Hill that admitted at least temporary defeat, one could be caught flat-footed and miss a milestone anniversary.

A decade ago, November 30 to be precise, the long serving international economist Jim O’Neill in a paper outlined his research on the power of the “Big Four” of the emerging world, Brazil, Russia, India and China.  In his piece, “Building Better Global Economic BRICs,” O’Neill marked a turning point in economic thinking that future growth will be driven by these large emerging markets.

O’Neill boldly stated back then that the BRIC economies will surpass the G7 economies of the industrialized world by 2027 and most of his peers have lined up behind that strategy in agreement.  In 2008, most strategists believe the western led financial crisis marked the quick transformation from the G7 to the G20 context, no less than an official recognition of O’Neill’s work.

The BRIC countries sit on $4.5 trillion of foreign reserves; add in the Middle East sovereign funds and their reserves and those tally up to nearly $6 trillion.  That could explain the quick embrace by leaders during the heat of the crisis.
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(CNN) - The “King of Good Times” is facing some grim times at the moment.

Airline group chief and billionaire business tycoon, Vijay Mallya is struggling to keep India’s Kingfisher Airlines afloat due to surging fuel costs and fuel taxes.

In the past week, the Bangalore-based carrier has cancelled 200 flights in hopes to reduce its debt from Rs. 6,500 crore (about $1.4 billion) to Rs. 3,000 crore ($600 million). Kingfisher has suffered a loss of Rs.1027 crores ($200 million) in the past fiscal year, adding to its mounting debt.
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