Comments on: Governance Cafe Baghdadi Style

By: National Interest - Realistic or Moralistic? at Nerve Endings Firing Away

National Interest - Realistic or Moralistic? at Nerve Endings Firing Away — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:23:51 +0000

[...] d Nation, Indian Foreign Policy since 1991. still be waiting for that elusive phone line [via] let alone an Internet connection. The shift to a more capitalistic-friendl [...]

By: shiva

shiva — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 15:30:36 +0000

And OK Manu after you are done with Gokul, hop over to Cafe Leopold and make it a point to go upstairs to finish up. Next morning walk across to kamath’s for brekker, and after a liesurely stroll down the Causeway to Navy Nagar and back, polish off a nice lunch at Olympia (try the roti, dal, mutton fry with plain green chillies) and then on to Martin’s for dinner! And that’s just the weekend!

Manoj,

Milton Friedman is the Amartya Sen of his end of the spectrum. Two economists who ventured far beyond their areas of competence, and prescribing harebrained schemes that no one has thankfully implemented. Milton Friedman’s pet theories of monetarism have been quietly shelved. And Sen’s Maoist prescriptions were thankfully never implemented in India. But of the two Sen is more of a poseur. While Friedman never claimed to be an expert in any intellectual tradition before what is called the Scottish En;lightenment, Sen claims to be a “Sanskritist” and “philosopher”. That’s for another day.

By: Manoj

Manoj — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:50:46 +0000

Atanu

I dont know if you watched the PBS series of ” Free to choose” by Milton Friedman. I remember one episode on Public education and where Friedman strongly argues for slow elimination of Public schools and implementation of Vouchers for the poor to pay for education at private schools.

I Definitely agree with him and you

By: Aashish

Aashish — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:32:20 +0000

Shiv,
I think it might be interesting to find out if BSNL is currently profitable selling its services around your rural godown in dodballapur.
-Aashish

By: Manu

Manu — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:48:49 +0000

ah! Baghdadi afternoons, followed by bade miyan evenings and Gokul nights. With Mondegar mugs and regal movies in between.

Oh and yes, I agree with the govt and bureaucracy bit.

By: shiv

shiv — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:51:56 +0000

The real demon here seems to be the grant of a monoploy by the brit trained oligarchs rather than any specific issues with PSU ownership. Since we consume a lot of telecom services in running our business, we have a pretty decent picture of both BSNL and Airtel. At this point we dont see much ‘technical’ difference except that BSNL can wire you up anywhere which none of the private telecom guys can or will (also fault repair and customer service is far superior at airtel). The essential dichotomy here is that BSNL is saddled with the USO (universal service obligation) as part of their business plan, whereas the private operators have been reneging on their commitments. While i am with the basic argument that a service cannot be provided unless affordability is in place, the whole argument of empowerment due to telecom is based on rural areas getting hooked up. The data i have indicates that, at least for airtel karnataka, bangalore contributes 90 % revenues and the rest of the state 10 %. Clearly ‘privatization’ is no silver bullet. For me as a bulk telecom (voice and data) user the indian telecom revolution has brought down my cost by an order of magnitude. But if i want my rural godown in dodballapur to get wired into our data network there is no solution other than BSNL….

By: RJ

RJ — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:02:30 +0000

Aashish,
I think Government has not got out of Telecom. BSNL is still the largest telecom provider in the country. All that has happend is the government monoploy in telecom is gone. I think the same would work for education. Government can still keep running its schools. It just needs to free scools from the current bureaucartic stranglehold.

By: Aashish

Aashish — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:27:39 +0000

i agree with you on the communications revelution, but i think u really are stretching things a lot when talking that the government get out of the educatiion sector. as a student of economics, i do know that the market system isthe best, but one thing i also know is that government can sometime improve market outcomes. Indeed, basic education, healthcare etc are necesdsary duties of any government, and i would actually argue that the government should spend more in education, rather than less. indeed there is a daunting task in educationg millions of indians, and the government simply cannot abdicate of its responsibility here. i also recommend to you that please for once try to read development as freedom by amrtya sen, particularly the section on education, hunger as well as health. awaiting ur response.

By: jala

jala — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:42:11 +0000

Dear Atanu,
I am not sure, what’ll happen if Govt gets out of Eductaion.

True, Telecom is an example.
I got Nokia Mobile Phone & Airtel connection faster than my Dad got the BPL Phone & Dept of Telecommunications (DoT, it seems so old now……) connection, because there was no Government.

However, If I think of Private Schools, their War-mongering attitude on all kinds of fees (LKG Kid has to pay more no. of fees than the subjects she studies), I fear what’ll happen.

I too studied in a private-school and my parents have paid hefty fees.
Still, I recall my father paying lesser fees in I’st year Engineering than he did for my II’nd PUC.

By: apu

apu — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:25:29 +0000

The underlying assumption is captured in your last paragraph – that people do not know how to behave, and babus know better than them on anything, including things that they know nothing about ! The latest is the blanket ban on AXN…why can the government not work with industry to set standards as to what sort of material can be shown when, and leave it at that !