yazadjal.com

Parth at Spontaneous Order asks a sharp question:
My personal example: my younger brother has a house in Detroit with electricity, water, phone connections. I’ve an apartment in Delhi with similar connections. Every other month or so, the telephone linesman would knock on the door, “Kaise he SAAB?!” You know what he is asking, surely not […]

I go to visit a friend in a nearby town. I buy some stuff from him. I meet some of his friends and buy some stuff from them also. Happy with my trip and my purchases, I return home.
As I am about to enter my house, a highwayman stops me and asks me for […]

Rajni Bakshi and I are looking to start a study group on traditional Indian social and political systems. We intend to meet periodically in Bombay amongst ourselves as well as with other learned people to discuss various issues on this theme.
We’ll start with the question (framed by Rajni): What are the various Indian traditions […]

Don Boudreaux makes a telling point while discusing the military draft.
The state, at its best, provides protection against violence. It is a service. It is a valuable service, perhaps even an especially valuable service. But it is a service. The supplier of this service is entitled to no greater claim on the rights or property […]

While a debate rages on privatisation of Public Sector Units (PSUs) in India, it’s interesting to note that there is very little being talked about the usefulness of certain ministries. Today’s lead edit in the Times of India suggests abolishing the ministry of heavy industry as it interferes too much into PSU functioning.
A quick […]

I love the way Don Boudreax connects computer viruses, war and government bureaucrats.

My city goes to the polls in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections tomorrow. I saw a banner today claiming that the definition of an idiot is one who does not vote. I was disgusted by the cheap tactic of insult used to goad someone to voting. There are many people for whom the […]

Channel [V] had invited me to be panellist on their program “Choose or Lose” which was focussed on voting. The other panellists were Nafisa Ali, Milind Deora and Mahesh Bhatt. The program airs tomorrow (Sunday) April 25th at noon (IST).
Have a dekho!

If I vote in the coming Lok Sabha elections, my vote will be the least valuable in India. Where am I?

Turns out that my vote is not actually the least valuable. That honour goes to a resident of Outer Delhi, which has a constituency size of 3.1 million. My constituency - Thane comes second - […]

When I talked about legalizing corruption, I was thinking of payments to political parties. Recently the CII called upon its members to donate to political parties only by cheques and in accordance with the law.
Now whether they pay openly or on the sly, companies (or individuals or unions for that matter) are not doing it […]

Ravages asks about my argument for legalizing corruption, “And if corruption were legalized, would you have a law that says how much of corruption is within the limit?”
Actually, if I remember correctly, the Supreme Court has answered that question in atleast one case. What happened was that a company claimed the bribes it paid at […]

Ok people, I have some posts pending. I want to make a post actually defending Nehru and another post attacking Nehru. I am also not going to shy away from the challenge thrown at me by a couple of commenters, asking me What Would I Do In 1947.
This is in addition to the next post […]

Shailesh Gandhi and others have launched Satyameva Jayate in response to the heightened degree of corruption and criminalisation in India. This is one of the many civil society responses to the break down on governance.
They have brought out a booklet and the site is the e-manifestation of their efforts. A nice set of […]

Look people, Nehru’s claim to greatness is that he was supposedly a visionary. A visionary doesn’t mean “someone who saw visions”. If your visions are any different from hallucinations, then they must roughly correspond to what actually happens in the future. So if you think that Nehru was a visionary, then it is only […]

One Kersi Shroff makes the following comment in response to this entry of mine
Just one little point to be noted….
The IITs which are government run educational institutions giving top notch education at amazingly reasonable prizes(compared to the top western universities) were entirely a Nehruvian socialist idea. So stop critcizing Nehru when you’re just a […]

Digdug made this comment on Ravi’s driving license post.
For me “we” own the roads(opposed to your view of the government owning the roads) and the government only administers them on “our” behalf.
I wonder how “we” as citizens own the roads. The only analogy that comes close is that of a shareholder in a company. […]

I got my driving license recently. I did not have to actually take the test or anything. The driving school had bribed the RTO officials and we got the license just by going there.
I believe that this is the norm all over India. Even when the test does take place nominally, it […]

Jivha makes a post that essentially says: “If school dropout Uma Bharati can become CM of Madhya Pradesh, why can’t school dropout Sonia Gandhi become PM of India?”
Then he wants Ms. Bharati’s supporters to
‘justify why an illiterate nun is fit to lead India’s largest state instead of giving me adolescent comparative arguments along the […]

Jivha says
Pramod Mutalik, VHP organising secretary and Bajrang Dal South India convenor(not exactly the best of references I know!), says that even though the “means” adopted by Mattennavar(planting bombs) might be wrong, the purpose was “genuine”.
Such arguments are so alarmingly stupid that refuting them debase the intellect of the person doing so, but nevertheless, refuted […]

The Supreme Court in Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Lakshmindra Tirtha Swamiar (1954) points out that
tax is the compulsory extraction of money by public authority for public purpose enforceable by law and is not payment for service rendered.
This little gem I got while studying The Consumer Protection Act, 1986. A taxpayer cannot be considered […]