For the magazine, I decided to write my second article on the export ban on onions India had recently implemented. This was obviously an important current affairs information at the time and it certainly would provide me with an opportunity to present an economic analysis of the situation. When I had joined the magazine one of my main goals was to find a medium to turn my interest in economics into something more useful. I had decided to use that analysis to write articles that could be read by the school community in general. An important part of this was doing the proper background research and because this was a topic-based in India, I knew a lot about it, the problem I faced was simplifying it such that someone with little background information would be able to appreciate the complexity of the situation without having to necessarily google about Indian domestic policy and politics (because that can often be a mess).

So I particularly looked at international news sources that only briefly talked about the underlying politics and instead focused more on the impact on international trade. The issue gave me the opportunity to apply the economics concepts I had learnt before to a real-life example. More so, it also gave me practice for the economics commentary (IA) that I have to write for IB. Just like with writing the first article some of the problems were still present: being able to achieve set that right tone, working on the editor’s feedback and making the judgement call on whether or not I thought the article was finished and ready to be sent to the layout of the magazine.

Link to draft of second article