Indian expert sees meltdown without reforms

India and China likely face financial meltdown if "political compulsions" don't give in to urgent fiscal and financial reforms, the chairman of India's Centre for National Renaissance told a Tsinghua University conference attended by IMF and other officials. Subramanian Swamy said India and China are headed for a financial crisis that could be averted by reforms, provided there was "a major political commitment to adopt". He said India's coalition politics would not permit essential fiscal reforms, suggesting "a crisis seems thus inevitable as was [the case] in 1990-91", the Press Trust of India reported.