India

India’s diplomats are looking for both commercial and ‘preferential’ means to access oil acreage and to increase oil supplies. However, the Indian government will need to speed up...

The Essar Group’s overseas expansion is accelerating into Africa. In April, Ravi Ruia announced that his sojourn in London would become permanent. The city became his capital-raising base:...

Wherever China goes in Nigeria, India tends not to be too far behind. Chinese contractors may have landed all of the major railway deals in Nigeria (AAC Vol...

Ratan N. Tata is the Chairman of the Tata Group, an industrial conglomerate that began life as the cotton trading company of his great-greatfather, Jamshetji Tata. The Group now has...

Indian and Chinese companies have joined the race for Uganda's oil assets in the Lake Albert Basin, where at least 2 billion barrels of oil have been discovered....

The Lagos State government, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation signed an US$8 billion deal this month for a 300,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery and a...

A fly-by-night Indian company registered in Hong Kong has packed its bags and disappeared after mining diamonds and not paying taxes for more than four years. Kasaï Oriental's Direction Provinciale des...

Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile services company, at last acquired long-coveted African assets when it completed the purchase of Zain's Africa operations for US$10.7 billion on 8 June. Bharti Airtel...

Ethiopia is renowned more for its famines than for its fertile fields but land leasing has become a burgeoning business in some of the most unlikely locations. Vast swathes of...

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is sending a team of senior officials to resume the difficult negotiations with Mauritius to resolve the lingering stand-off over the 1983 Double Tax Avoidance Agreement....

After the resignation of New Delhi’s point man on Africa, Shashi Tharoor, in May, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna is taking an even more hands-on role in the cultivation of...

India is changing its tax laws in a bid to introduce greater transparency into its financial transactions with Mauritius. The aim is to stem ‘round-tripping’ of funds by politicians, businessmen and...

Minister of State for External Affairs for Africa Shashi Tharoor considered himself a modern diplomat for his embracing of the internet messaging website Twitter. Yet his tweets from...

Lessons from India’s rise can be fruitfully applied to Africa – another group of a billion or so people: this was the message Ajai Chowdhry brought to Tanzania....

India plans to increase its annual trade with Africa to US$70 billion – up from current levels of $45 bn. – over the next five years. That is...

African missions from Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe were invited to a conference in Patiala in Punjab on 26-27 March with farmers from all over the region...

State prosecutors have ordered more arrests this month, as investigations intensify into the Chinese companies and European middlemen dealing with Algeria’s US$12 billion East-West Highway project. The probes,...

There are four main strands to the sweeping the anti-corruption investigations launched in the wake of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s win with 90% of the votes cast in the...

The United Nations announced in early March that it would begin to withdraw its peacekeeping mission, the Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (Monuc) from...

The Rail India Technical and Economic Services buyout of 51% of Tanzania’s national railway company is set to collapse this month. In March 2006, RITES agreed to buy part of...

A US$40 million concessionary loan from the Indian government is mired in delays, a legal review and accusations of corruption. Moreover, the mix of army-owned enterprises, tied aid and squabbling agents...

Chinese investment may attract the ire of the Zambian opposition (see Briefing), but it is an Indian company that operates Zambia’s largest copper mine. Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources is hiding, as...

India’s push for more trade and access to African mineral resources in 2010 will be made with one eye focused on Beijing. Indian diplomats and businessmen are trying...

Indian Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari began 2010 with a seven-day trip to Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. Ties abound between India and the three countries: Vedanta is the largest...