yazadjal.com

The gross miscarriage of justice in the Jessica Lal case is symptomatic of the fact that Indian socialists have an extremely warped notion of the role of the state. Nehru wanted to make steel; Indira added banks, insurance, mines, airlines and what not; and Manmohan wants the state to teach the unlettered and give jobs […]

While considering the merits of the judicial order to demolish over 18000 private buildings in Delhi, a few plain truths must be borne in mind. First and foremost is the fact that overbuilding and overcrowding are not caused by private greed. Rather, they are a result of poor transportation. There is surely enough land in […]

Reading between the lines of the budget, it was clear the 1,00,000 crore rupees (or 1 trillion rupees) are being stolen from the citizenry by the personnel of ‘the system’, both elected as well as appointed.
50,000 crore rupees (500 billion) are being spent on the 8 ‘flagship programmes’, including the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Sarva […]

This article of mine appeared, in a slightly abridged form, in The Times of India recently. I cannot find the link:
Sexual morality is very big in India. The entire establishment is sexually straitlaced. A couple kissing on the dance floor led to the police closing down a Chennai hotel. Mumbai’s dance bars were shut down […]

My column, “Antidote”, which ran in The Economic Times from 1998-2002 is back, this time as a monthly offering on The New Indian Express on Sunday. This time, the topic of discussion is imports, and why “import-promotion” is a very good idea! Enjoy the difference!

Sir John Cowptherwaite was the man responsible for the spectacular rise of Hong Kong, post WW II. He achieved this by refusing to intervene in the economy and doing only those things that a government should - nay, must - do. This great colonial civil servant, of the kind that came to India with […]

Prime minister Manmohan has hinted at a new pay commission that will significantly raise the salaries of our ‘misproductive’ babus. Which rational Maharaja would jeopardize the health of his treasury by recruiting millions and paying them wages higher than market rates?
Those who worry about the fiscal problems that will surely follow may note that William […]

It seems prime minister Manmohan Singh’s honeymoon with the media is finally over. Thank heavens! Here is Sandipan Deb’s hardhitting column on the sheer nonsense that Singh’s press conference was all about. The Indian Express also warns us, in an editorial, that all is not well with Singh’s much-trumpeted ‘rural employment guarantee scheme.

I have an article in The Times of India arguing that the “freedom of expression” is a meaningless right without private property rights. Where these rights are not protected, as in India, many find their freedom of expression violated - like the dancing ladies of Mumbai.

Here is an excellent review of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed by Keith Preston, who is billed as America’s revolutionary vanguard.

Another blow for unilateral free trade and methodological individualism - this time from The New Indian Express on Sunday - the south Indian paper.

I have argued for the legalization of cannabis in The Times of India today, based on an “experiment with truth” that I undertook at Devprayag, where the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi meet, and the river thereafter assumes the name Ganga. Enjoy!

Every barbarian knew how to bring a city to its knees: he laid siege to the city. How did he achieve this? Let us take the example of the walled city of Delhi, as it was even 500 years ago, and think up what any barbarian would do to lay siege to the town.
The walled […]

I have an article at TechCentralStation arguing that India should abandon the WTO and opt for unilateral free trade. There is a lot to gain from this approach, as imports of cheap food, cheap cars (second-hand) and cheap everything else will mean that the possessions of every Indian will increase in a quantum jump. The […]

Cristopher Lingle has a nice article at TechCentralStation on India, which begins by saying how rich we and our rulers were when the great European explorations began; how even little Indian princes were rich. It discusses why we are poor today, and what be done for the future of today’s youth.

Here is the full, unedited text of a provocatively titled piece I wrote for The Times of India.
Communists despise private property and idealise commonly held property. But I’ll bet Brinda and Prakash Karat don’t share a toothbrush! So let us conduct a “reductio” thought experiment as to what would happen in a city or town […]

I wrote a piece for the special year-end issue of Outlook magazine which I had titled as above, “The Death of Politics”. The article has been re-titled - but has been much appreciated by many. I am providing the link here. Hope the blogging public likes it. It does make an important point: that at […]

PM Manmohan Singh has just launched an ‘urban renewal’ plan that mainly talks about ‘helping the urban poor’. This, after parliament has legislated to the government the responsibility of ‘guaranteeing employment’ to the rural poor. For how long will the poor suffer such insincere affection? Blatant ‘pork barrel politics’ designed to add to the powers […]

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got it right in his first televised address to the nation when he said that it would be his top priority to get the government machinery to work properly, and that reforming this machinery would be his topmost priority. This first lecture by the PM went down well with Indians from […]

Or how the rich get richer while the poor get poorer
When a bad king debases his currency, by mixing some base metal with gold, he and the officials of his mint act as counterfeiters plain and simple. The immediate effect of the debasement is that the king now has ‘money’ with which to build his […]