Iam from tamilnadu,
thanjavour. Mallus are talented people.
Mallus can carry any responsiblity at any time.

Being a tamilian, i really wondered news coverage by kerala media, and people’s involvement in every issue.

Whether it is HMT land issue or Nilma milk issue, they will
talk about it hour and hour(Sometimes i loughed). They have the power to imidate their CM and Ministers if they fail. Can we do this in TN? You will be burned alive.

Tamilnadu is better than Kerala, but Malayalis are better than tamilians.

In Cinema Industry do you know that Greatest Comedian of Indian Film history just wasting his life in malabar.
that great versatile actor name is jagathee sreekumar.he is thousand times better than vadivelu, kanja karuppu, santhanam or paresh rawaal and jhony walker.

Tamil people can understand malayalam easily.so please watch malayalam channels, you can not find anyone in india equal to Jagathee Sreekumar,i challenge you.

Singers like Jesudass,unni menon, unni krishnan, Chitra, Sujatha, Gaythri are from kerala.

I love cheran makkal (mallus).

What you know about keralites. I can understand from your comment that you don’t know anything about kerala.It was a long time ago keralites ware nurses or typists. At the same time all Indians except keralites were cowards.

At the present time the most challenging jobs are on the keralites hands eg. ISRO, Defence Reaserch.

No one will accept your comment about keralites.

yep most of us do not know the correct english pronounciation (i am even forgetting my spellings)

so indias 55% of gulf money flows to kerala

our tribal ppl go on strike and demonstrate in front of the secretriate

u get gulf made reebok shoes in pathanamthitta than in kochi

the largest selling daily is malayala manorama

we elected the communists this time instead of the congress but guess what both r in power but sadly for us communists refuse to be part of the governments parlimentary activities (that means no ministers)

every 5 years we change our government communists and congress (so predictable)

we r the asian rally champions (well MRF is)

wherever u go u r never a stones throw away from a malayalee

keralites may be educated but they are all nurses and typists working outside kerala and sending money back.

have you heard of any keralite intellectual, writer or even great filmmaker?

kerala, in the days of the dewan of travancore-cochin was a better place. do read charles allen and sharada dwivedi’s THE LIVES OF THE INDIAN PRINCES for more abt the travancore-cochin state.

Please!! Kerala has the highest number of Gnanpith award winners (5 I think). Recently, OV Vijayan, one of the greatest of Malayali writers passed away. Adoor Gopalakrishnan is considered one of the greatest of India’s filmmakers. And Kerala has rich tradition of Carnatic music. BTW, I am not a Malayali, but a Tamilian, have never lived in kerala.

That said, there are several things wrong with Kerala. It is an economy supported by repatriation–from the Gulf and from the rest of India. Its own output is not enought o support its lifestyel. But thanks to remittances Malayalis, on the average, can afford a decent lifestyle. Malayalis as people, cultured as they are and industrious and enterprising as they are when outside of Kerala, someohow seem to have not done enough with the resources that Nature has provided them with. If a take a train journey from Kerala to TN or vice versa and pass through the Palghat pass, the change will be dramatic. Yet, TN has higher yield on crops and a vibrant domestic economy.

Regards
Srinivas

however, i still maintain that kerala offers the perfect example of mass literacy and successful population control and yet they have mass poverty.

the political economy of socialist democracy is what we were discussing (yazad’s post) and i do believe that socialism fails with dictatorship or democracy: that is, it does not matter if rulers are elected through multiparty democracy or there is one party socialist/communist rule, for the socialist project is doomed to failure.

But, capitalism not just ignores inequality, it thrives on it. Incentives and its implicit promise that you can be richer than the other guy, so fundamental to capitalism, invariably leads to inequality; in fact, promises inequality. But, we have to accept these, because they are also the drivers of wealth creation.

Now, democracy gives a balance to such a capitalistic system. A good example is the US. Capitalism there should have led to even greater inequality, if not for democracy. Measures such as GI Bill of Rights, Medicare and Affirmative Action - all government intervention in the market - over years show that democracy does indeed reduce inequality.

In India, democracy didnt do well, because its companion was socialism . In a way, socialism is to economics what democracy is to politics. Both are concerned with equality (or distribution of wealth). When both economic and political system are concerned more about distribution of wealth, its creation, naturally, will suffer.

China’s is a different case. The government there, not democratically elected, started its economic reforms in late 70s, took the country towards a kind of capitalism and to greater wealth. There have been a lot of reports on rising inequality there - mostly in the foriegn press - for a good part of the last two decades. (The collapse of the public health system in China in the reform era was possible because there was little political resistance, whereas the deficiencies of Indian primary health care are subject to constant public scrutiny). But, without having to face political pressure, Chinese had a greater control on when and how to deal with inequality. (Benign dictators can do that, cant they?)

So, the answer for the economist’s question (Why are poor democracies not better at ending poverty?) seems to be simple enough. Poor democracies are not better at ending poverty because democracy is not the tool to create wealth, capitalism is.