TOwing to globalization, there has been a significant policy shift towards outward-looking market-oriented developmental strategies, which is more evident in the developing world. This trend has led to a remarkable increase in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows as a means of acquiring technology and skill contributing to the overall economic development of a country. Since FDI offers to channelize resources towards productive activities, this has propelled researchers to investigate the role of FDI in promoting growth, more particularly in developing economies. The growth literature reveals a shred of conflicting evidence regarding the growth-performance of FDI. So, the present study serves to be an addition to the existing literature conducted to re-examine the FDI-growth linkage using recent data over a relatively long period for the fastest growing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) economies selected meticulously for being representative developing economies and significant players in attracting inward FDI. Using the cluster regression estimation method for random effects over the period 1987-2018, the study finds a significant positive impact of FDI on the economic growth, thereby supporting the growth-enhancing role of FDI.

Financial inclusion is the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services to the economically disadvantaged groups. In India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government have undertaken various measures and introduced several schemes for financial inclusivity, including the setting up of a new category of bank called the payments bank in 2014. Payments banks aim to provide services to the unbanked, mainly for the migrant workers and those from lower income households. This paper tries to study the reasons behind the need for payments banks and the challenges to payments banks with regard to financial inclusivity in India, and accordingly proposes a framework for payments banks to ensure financial inclusion more effectively in India. For this purpose, variables or factors for 'Drivers of payments banks for financial inclusion in India' and factors for 'Challenges to payments banks in financial inclusivity in India' were identified from the available literature. Then, the dependencies of the factors on each other were established using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), where the relationships between these factors were determined through experts' inputs via a template to understand the importance of the factors. On the basis of the output of ISM, Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification, i.e., MICMAC, analysis has been used to categorize the factors based on their capacity to affect other factors.

Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) have turned out to be a major stumbling block, affecting the performance of Indian banks. Several measures were initiated by the Reserve Bank of India to reduce incidence of NPAs. For the first time in the last several years, public sector banks in India witnessed decline in gross NPAs for the year 2018-19. In this paper, an attempt is made to understand the reasons for the incidence of NPAs during 2006 to 2019 by studying the public sector and private sector banks in India. Dynamic regression model was deployed to understand the influence of past NPAs on incidence of current NPAs. Surprisingly, the influence of previous year asset quality is not significantly influencing current year asset quality. Size of the bank, profitability, credit growth, priority sector lending, accretion of NPAs and economic growth continue to have significant impact on the asset quality of the banks in India.

Dr. Marapalli Govinda Rao was born on April 7, 1947 in Korangrapady village, about 3 miles south of Udupi town in Karnataka. Growing up under the tutelage of his mother, who managed the family and the farm and cattle, while his father was working away from home, young Rao stood up to the expectations of his mother by studying in a school that was three miles away from home and passing every class regularly.

Passing through the vicissitudes of village life-"planting trees, growing vegetables, plucking wild fruits, working in the farm and tending to cattle"-garnering rustic wisdom, enthusiastic Rao, as he grew, became more persistent and determined to construct his life and circumstances more coherently to become somebody. When he wanted to study BSc with Maths, Physics and Chemistry, the head of the department of Physics, MGM College, who never took a liking for him, told that he was unfit to study science. This village lad, realizing that even if he had secured admission by begging, he would have to survive his disliking for him for three years, decided to study BA with Economics. At the behest of his elder brother, Prof. U R Rao, he joined Gujarat University for MA in economics. Having cultivated immense capacity to stand things and to last, he, overcoming hurdles such as teaching in Gujarati by studying on his own, could attract the attention of the newly joined Professor of emeritus Lakdawala in the classroom. And this activism fetched him the job of Research Assistant at Sardar Patel Institute.

On Dr. Shibshankar Prasad Gupta-a student of Alan Peacock and Jack Wiseman, two public finance stalwarts-joining Sardar Patel Institute as its Deputy Director, an enthusiastic Rao was assigned to work under him on the project, "Determinants of Fiscal Capacities and Needs and Their Implications for Federal Transfers". Later, Dr. Gupta moved to Sambalpur University as professor. Influenced by Dr. Gupta's persuasiveness and his research pursuits, this young scholar too moved to Sambalpur University to work for PhD under him. It was only after going there, he realized how daunting it was to work for PhD at Sambalpur. Nevertheless, being never ambivalent of his goal, it was only after submitting the thesis-"Determinants of Tax Revenues and Non-Plan Revenue Expenditures of the States in Indian Federation: A Time Series Analysis"-in 1977 that he left it for good.

In December 1977, Dr. Rao joined National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi as lecturer and he never looked back thereafter. Under the mentorship of Prof. Raja Chelliah, Dr. Rao grew to become a professor within 8 years. In 1980, Dr. Rao went to University of Maryland, USA, under a postdoctoral fellowship. It is his interactions with Prof. Wallace Oates on fiscal federalism and Prof. Mancur Olson on public choice theory at Maryland that gave him a strong footing in fiscal federalism. He went to the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra as Fellow during 1995-98.

He worked as Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore from December 1998 to December 2002. He then became Director, NIPFP, New Delhi in 2003 and continued in that capacity till 2013. In between, he was made Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India (2005). He was appointed as Member, 14th Finance Commission (2013-14).

He had also been a Consultant to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank and UNDP and worked in several developing countries on various fiscal-related issues. As a Chairman (3) or member (15) of various boards/committees constituted by government such as Committee on Taxation of Services, Committee on Universal Healthcare, etc., he contributed immensely.

In his long innings as an expert in public economics, he has authored/edited 19 books; published 80 papers spreading across public finance and fiscal policy; fiscal decentralization, federalism and intergovernmental finance; tax policy and reforms; public expenditure policy; and state and local finances in national and international journals and 36 working papers. He was also a regular columnist for popular national financial newspapers for about eight years.

In all these endeavors, he portrayed confidence and faith in whatever he did duly fragranced with humility. Despite being the brother of an iconic scientist, Prof. U R Rao, who built a robust space program for democratic India, Dr. Govinda Rao could arduously carve out a niche for himself as an economist of repute in the field of public finance and federalism by expressing himself freely and frankly, and that is what you would enjoy reading in the following pages.