Economic reforms implemented in the form of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have bought about a wide array of changes in the agricultural, industrial and service sectors in most of the countries during last decade. Understanding the implications of structural adjustment programmes on business, economy and society becomes all the more significant in the 21st century. Organisations will have to formulate new growth strategies for success, expansion and increasing gains based on the day-to-day developments and the fast-moving world. The need of the hour is to learn all the new policies, structures, measures, steps and the implications with reference to legal framework, foreign investment, exports and imports, privatisation, taxation, budget, competition, monetary policy, technology, capital market, foreign exchange transactions, corporate governance and social responsibility. Gaining knowledge about all these spectrums of business would help one to be a successful manager in the era of ever-increasing competition.

It is because of the importance of these topics and changing environment that universities and institutes have introduced Business Environment as a core subject in management, commerce and economics streams. In some institutes this course has been covered under the titles like Economic Environment and Policies, Economic and Social Environment, Indian Economy, Developments in Indian and Global Economy, etc.

This book has been written in accordance with those MBA, M. Com, BBA, B. Com and Economics courses outlined in the University Grants Commission Curriculum and will cater to the requirements of students as well as teachers. Candidates aspiring for updating their knowledge about current affairs for attending interviews will find this book as a valuable resource. The book can also serve the purpose of practicing managers who need to understand the permutations and combinations of new business rules and opportunities to take wise corporate decisions.

Many text books fail to discuss the implications of the various topics for the real world of business. There are more than 50 company based case studies and many country-cases in this book, which will be very useful for the business school students who will soon be practicing managers. I have included objective type questions on various aspects of the business, economy and based on recent developments. To enable the instructors to select questions for the examinations and to help the students to test their understanding and knowledge, I have included a quiz—a model question bank in the website of this book.

The idea of this book originated when I was teaching ‘Economics Environment of Business’ for Mumbai University’s Master of Management Studies course and ‘Business Environment’ for Executive MBA during 2001-03. There was no good book available for these core courses, which covered all the contemporary issues. Later, I got the opportunity to teach this course at Indian Institute of Management, Indore and other institutes as a visiting professor, which helped me to include various topics into the text book format.

JUSTIN PAUL