Kamal Chenoy's article, tracing the evolution of industrial policy in India and the growth ofmulitnationals, argues that even in the early-Nehru years, the Indian state had already adopted a favourable attitude towards foreign capital despite the opposition of the top echelons of the Indian bourgeoisie. It is only later that the Indian big bourgeoisie's attitude to foreign capital changed, and, what is more, it even allied itself with foreign pressures for "liberalising" the economy and restricting the scope of the public sector. Refuting the arguments advanced in advocacy of multinationals, Chenoy details the net foreign exchange loss caused by the MNCs, the technological parasitism they perpetuate, and the hazards they pose for public health and environment; but he questions the characterisation of India as a "dependency", even while recognising that the direction of capitalist development is such as would constrain over time the autonomy of the Indian state. Biswajit Dhar's paper, though concerned with the fertiliser industry in India, has a wider relevance. The fertiliser industry is one case where considerable technological ability had developed in India under the aegis of the public sector R &: D organisations. How this ability, instead of being systematically put to use, was subsequently wasted, and multinational corporations were invited to set up fertiliser plants to the exclusion of our own public sector units, is the story narrated in the paper, which highlights the consistent pressure applied by the World Bank to change India's fertiliser policy. The paper leads to an important conclusion: for keeping multinationals at bay, it is not enough to develop a technological base domestically; as long as a country is dependent on "aid", pressure from "aid"—givers is a powerful factor promoting the induction of multinationals even in areas of developed domestic technology. Finally, the paper by Kristoffel Leiten and B. Rajender studies the modus operandi of one particular multinational in the Indian economy, namely Philips India. A number of general points often made about multinationals, e.g., the retention of foreign control despite "Indianisation", the foreign exchange loss involved in MNC operations, the higher profitability of local MNC offshoots compared to the parent compcufty^tc., are estab^shed here with information pertaining to this particular MNC. At a time when the government has started avowedly pursuing a policy of inviting multinationals to invest in the Indian economy a policy very much in conformity with what the Reagan administration has been demanding of the Third World in general, the focus on MNCs in the current number should be an apposite one.