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Through Vikram Doctor and Titoo Ahluwalia I received an email about the medieval and abhorrent Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with punishment upto life imprisonment. Section 377 is being challenged by various groups in the Delhi High Court lead by Naz India, a […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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.

There’s an interesting debate on in the Indian blogistan about regulation and free markets. I may add my 2 paise later. For now, here’s a question: who regulates the regulators?
Cop show flouts 10 pm noise ban
The Mumbai police last night flouted a law they are otherwise adept at enforcing — the 10 pm deadline […]

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 […]

The Centre for Civil Society has started a unique Livelihood Freedom Campaign.
After the 1991 liberalisation, the poor do not seem to have gained as much as the rich. The truth is there has been hardly any liberalisation for the working poor. For them it has been all LPQ (Licences, Permits and Quotas) and little LPG […]

Multi-party democracy with universal adult suffrage is a very recent phenomenon in human history. Europe had Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs and Romanovs till the end of WW1. Even in Britain, till the mid-19th century, the vote was restricted to wealthy property owners and the total number of voters was only about 500,000. My point is this: since […]

The Economist has an interesting article on why democracies are slow in eradicating poverty.
Why might democracy militate against poverty reduction in poor countries? Mr Varshney has two suggestions. First, democracies have a bias towards �direct� methods of tackling poverty, such as subsidies and hand-outs, which, in the long run, are less effective than �indirect� methods�ie, […]

Shekhar Gupta makes an important point
if our major urban centres rot and decay, so will the rest of the country. Like all rapidly developing countries, India is urbanising at a fast pace. Some of its more developed states � Kerala, Gujarat � are already ��reurbanised��. Big cities are both cradles and magnets for enterprise […]

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 […]

Ever wonder at the incongruity of state awards? And see how similar it is to monarchs of yore handing out the goodies to loyal servants?
I agree with Romila Thapar’s decision to return the Padma Bhushan. She makes her reasons clear in this interview.
In 1992, I was given precisely this award. I decided I would stay […]

There’s a lot of talk about an early warning system after the tsunami. Jayaprakash Narayan tells us out that the key point is not the information, but how that information is disseminated.
It is the height of insensitivity and complete failure of imagination to say that even if the authorities knew, they could not have alerted […]

Since we’re arguing about the virtues of free markets in many blogs, these research papers may be of interest.
The privatization of water services reduces child mortality
Is Trade good for the environment? (short version, long version)

As expected, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Y.S. R. Reddy has had to reconsider his populist strategy of free electricity for farmers. Quite unsurprisingly, rich farmers were major beneficiaries of this scheme. The Financial Times reports:
Jayaprakash Narayan, head of Lok Satta, a “citizen’s movement” in Hyderabad, says there is already nostalgia for Mr […]

These senseless attacks on livelihood really get my goat.
BMC demands Rs 1,200 for a bicycle
On Wednesday, 74-year-old Mohammad Rangwala � who works for the Royal Society of Mumbai as a collector for the daily saving scheme � left his bicycle outside a shop at Abdul Rehman Street as he went in to collect money […]