Quick question: In the near future, what is that one thing that the government of India will allow the people living within the borders of India to do without having the unique ID number? Think for a bit. I know it is hard to imagine an action you would be free to do without that number. You will need that number to get anything done at all. The government is working hard towards making it impossible for its citizens (and even non-citizens living in India) to move a finger without …

Indian Express reports that “Pak ’sharia’ chief wants Islamic law for entire world.”

Diwali, or Deepavali, is the festival of lights. It is also the festival of wealth. Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth is worshiped on Diwali. Among Bengalis, Mother Kali is worshiped during Diwali. The tradition is attributed to a number of occasions.

One way to ensure impoverishment in the future is to recklessly eat the seed corn. Practically everything that is good about the US comes from its awesome higher education system. It is arguably the world’s best. One indicator is the number of Nobel prizes it gets each year. Just this year, of the 12 people who shared the five (I am ignoring the peace prize joke) prizes, 10 are Americans. But how long will this last?

Two people — Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University, and Oliver Willamson, UC Berkeley — win the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009.
Go Berkeley!

Go read the story of Babar Ali, a 16-year old kid who runs a school in his village in West Bengal. [link thanks to Vipin Veetil.]

ACT 1: A Course on Development
This summer for teaching an undergraduate course on economic development (Econ171) at Berkeley, I naturally considered the major factors that affect — and effect — economic growth and development of an economy. The major headings included growth models, energy, infrastructure, urbanization, education, agriculture, and one other topic which I will come to presently. It should come as no surprise that the government of India — being one that professes a sincere commitment to economic growth and development — actively intervenes in all of those areas. …

I loved going to watch the Blue Angels do their show at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale California. I came across this picture in SFGate.

[via Fantasising Zombies.]

This morning the Nobel Peace Prize committee were woken up by a call from the Ig Nobel Prize committee saying, “Congratulations! you have won!” (The Ig Noble prize people have just gone out of business — they cannot parody the Nobel Prize any more.)

The Nobel Peace Prize has become the Nobel Joke Prize. And not a very funny joke either. Not funny at all when in 1973 they gave it to Kissinger, a man who should have been tried for war crimes. Or maybe it should be called the Nobel Politicized Prize. Seriously, there’s something rotten in this sort of shameless pandering. Timeonline.co.uk calls it a “mockery of the Nobel peace prize” and writes, “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. . . the prize risks looking preposterous …

What’s destroying the US is most likely this: government grown so big that its insatiable appetite devours the society that created it. Watching the US go down “the road to serfdom,” to use that memorable phrase from Hayek, is scary because what destroys the US can hardly not be expected to destroy weaker countries. Here’s Dan Mitchell arguing forcefully the case for limited government.

Will Durant (1885 – 1981) was an American historian, writer and philosopher. His most famous work is the 11-volume “The Story of Civilization”, published between 1935 and 1975. In a 1931 work, “The Case for India“, he had this to say about India.

In the present issue of Pragati, I argue why bribing the Naxals to surrender will not work. “While the schemes speak of getting the Naxalites to surrender, the only surrendering that is being done is by the government. Financial incentives for surrender will result in an increase in violence.” The article is reproduced below.

“Most of this month’s issue of Pragati deals with the nature of the Naxalite threat and the ways to address it. We argue that Naxalism is a manifestation of poor or absent governance but establishing good governance in Naxalite-affected areas, after successful security operations, requires the Indian government to invest in hybrid civil-military capacity that it does not yet have at the present time.” [Editorial]
To read the issue, click on the image of the cover.

Bill Easterly writes, “Entrepreneurs that do stick to fixed goals are very good at least at one thing – wasting investors’ money. An idea for an online grocery startup, Webvan, managed to go through $1 billion before finally pulling the plug.”

Dawkins has been channeling the spirit of Wodehouse. For all of us who like Wodehouse, a great piece by another of my favorite authors, Richard Dawkins. The Great Bus Mystery. (H/t — Nihar.) The first bit below the fold.

During his recent visit to the US, Rajesh Jain had a chat with Kevin Werbach, Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor. The topic was “What’s New with Net Neutrality and India’s Mobile Markets?” In the first part, Rajesh asks Kevin five questions on net neutrality and in the second part, the roles are reversed and Kevin asks Rajesh about the Indian mobile market. Very informative and interesting. An excerpt follows: