FDI: Over to the media

Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s efforts to convince the opposition on the merits of a higher foreign direct investment limit (FDI) in insurance and pension have not yielded any results. The finance minister, however, has put the blame squarely on the media for its failure to highlight FDI and foreign institutional investor (FII) inflows as important instruments for financing the current account deficit. “My regret is I haven’t seen a debate in the papers in FDI and FII. It is always some ideological debate. I’m putting the ball in your court to discuss these issues,” he said.