The year of living dangerously has been recycled in Internet time. Developing nations were supposed to be hotbeds of growth in 2011, not rife with revolution. No forecast mentioned that people power and social media would combust in Egypt in a force strong enough to topple its dictator of 30 years in less than three weeks as rebellion sweeps the Mideast. At press time, Libya's erratic strongman Moammar Gadhafi vowed to fight rebels to "the last ounce of blood," or perhaps the last drop of Libya's annual oil output, ranked 17th in the world.

It's not too late for companies to heed the political risk wake-up call and create a plan, writes contributing editor Dave Lindorff in this issue of Treasury & Risk, while senior contributing editor Russ Banham points out that not all the world's a stage for political unrest just yet. India holds a huge potential for multinationals, despite ongoing challenges, and now rivals China as one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

India's northern neighbor, however, is suffering growing pains, prompting U.S. companies buying products there for export to come up with new strategies to deal with rising costs, reports contributing editor John Hintze. Meanwhile, treasuries with a vision for tomorrow are looking to push their semi-automated processes to straight-through status, and who better to talk about that with senior contributing editor Richard Gamble than the leaders of two treasury powerhouses, Microsoft and Google? Technology is not for wimps.