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Abheek Barman makes a bold suggestion in today’s Times
the only policy that makes sense for India is this: Export governance and institutions to Nepal. Run it as a protectorate.
I.e. invade Nepal, and rebuild it’s institutions, strenghthen democracy, rule of law, it’s economy (market based?), etc. On paper it sounds good. But leaving aside realpolitik hurdles […]

My suggestion for the May Meet of the Bombay Blogger’s Blah.
Date: Sunday, May 15, 2004
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Not yet fixed. Needs to be accessible, quiet (so that we don’t have to shout over the music– i.e. CCD is out) and with some coffee / food thrown in. Suggestions please?
As before, this is open to all […]

is always true of government interventions. If we must have the government tax and regulate, let us have the minimum possible. That’s why I am happy to see this piece on flat taxes in the Economist which shows how the idea is not just fine in theory but has worked in practice as well.
And this […]

Welcome to the weekly Bharateeya Blog Mela. It’s going to be a nice long leisurely read, so bookmark this page and drop by as often as you like over the next week.
Let’s start with some sport. Dilip D’Souza sees cricket through a friend’s eyes. While we’re on cricket, Avinash Tadimalla thinks Ganguly will make a […]

The Roman satirist Juvenal first raised the question “Who guards the guardians?” as a barb to Plato’s concept of a philosopher-king. For centuries the best (but still unsatisfactory) answer was to have ethical and upright officers as the guardians of society. But only with the advent of technologies like the video recorder and the mobile […]

is like a bakers dozen and concerns itself with the number 13. Last Sunday’s blogger meet had 12 bloggers and 1 non-blogger. And to demonstrate the great power of blogs (or bloggers), within 48 hours, the non-blogger started blogging. Bravo and welcome to the club Chandrahas!
Here are some accounts of the blogger meet:
Arnab has a […]

And we have only three nominations. Folks please don’t be shy and nominate the gems from your blogs. Don’t wait for someone else to showcase your superior writing. Do it yourself and do it now! Scroll down or click here for the announcement post.
And we have competition from the nascent Bharateeya LiveJournal Mela. Hey LJers, […]

Amit Varma tries to get a grip on events and the Gujarati psyche just before today’s ODI between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad.
Gujaratis are expert at constructing order out of chaos. What could have more tumult than the trading floor of a stock exchange, for example? There you will find, making sense of the thousands […]

A lot of cellular operators are unhappy about Reliance Infocomm offering unlimited talktime tariffs (Reports in the Hindu Business Line and Business Standard). They’ve gone crying to TRAI calling it unfair and “predatory”. They’re wrong.
Firstly, it’s not predatory pricing. Note the explanation from Wikipedia:
Predatory pricing is the practice of a dominant firm selling a […]

I like the Asian Age, especially it’s features in the weekend edition, but I rarely link to articles written in the Age. There’s a good reason. If you use Firefox, like I do, you will not be able to view the Age’s website. Go on, click www.asianage.com. You’d get to see this:
“This page can only […]

The Express gets it right in its editorial today on trade policy.
When the state trumpets about “targets” for exports, it is an embarrassing reflection of a sixties mindset. Modern economies no longer set “targets” for exports. Exports are the outcome of a market economy, and not something that a government controls.
…
We no longer need to […]

From Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City.
[The Taj] is less a hotel than a proving ground for the ego. The Taj lobby and its adjoining toilets are where you test your self-worth; theoretically, anyone can come in out of the heat and sit in the plush lobby, on the ornate sofas, amid the billionaire Arabs and the […]

Hope to meet a lot of bloggers tomorrow. Once again, the details are:
Sunday, April 10, 2004, 3 pm
Cafe Coffee Day, near Pritam Hotel, Dadar East
If you’re coming by train, get off on the Eastern side of Dadar station and ask for Hotel Pritam — it a 2 minute walk. The CCD is quite prominently located […]

Time for another mela at AnarCapLib. We’re hosting it on April 14–the day Babasaheb Ambedkar was born, the day Abraham Lincoln was shot, around the time of the Spring festival of Baisakhi, and three days before a neighbouring general visits Delhi to see a cricket match.
The Rules

Posts must either be made by Indians or […]

Yes, sanity, not insanity. It seems sex might just help fend off dementia. No idea whether if the research is junk or not, but it sounds like fun!

Cricket is in the air. Yes, I know it’s a cliché (Amit won’t let me get away with it), but it is so true. I was walking back to office a few minutes ago and I got to know the state of the match without asking anyone.
Guy with ear to radio: “Ek aur wicket gaya. […]

New Delhi’s Liberty Institute has a superb page on Ayn Rand to commemorate her centenary year. To Ayn Rand, I owe two debts. Her writings showed the hollowness of my agnosticism and made me an atheist. From her I learnt that morality needs no conception of God. And she goaded me to have the courage […]

My suggestion for the April Meet of the Bombay Blogger’s Blah.
Date: Sunday, April 10, 2004
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Cafe Coffee Day, near Pritam Hotel, Dadar East (very close to the station and ideal for both Eastern and Western suburbies)
And hey, it’ll be great if we can have some LJers as well.
This is not restricted to the […]

Dilip D’Souza on the incompleteness of “divine” or “inner conscience” justice.
We’ve had innumerable horrible crimes in India — the Delhi massacre of 1984, the Bombay one of 1992-93, the Gujarat one of 2002, the Bhagalpur blindings, assorted ghastly caste slaughters in Bihar, add your own. Pretty much never have we been able to punish the […]

Ever wondered why Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize? He was nominated five times: 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948. The Nobel Foundation’s site has an article explaining the omission. Interesting commentary, more on the Nobel Prize process than on Gandhi’s “suitability.”