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!

My friend, Dr Aniruddha Malpani, is an IVF specialist in Mumbai. When he is not busy getting women pregnant, he runs “HELP” — the world’s largest free patient education library. Now he needs help. He wrote to me, saying,

The August 2009 issue of Pragati is out. I have a contribution in there. My perspective is that the Indian government must stop subsidizing Muslims who go on haj, and the more general case that the government must stop meddling in private religious affairs of the citizens. The text of my article is below the fold, for the record.

Untitled
18 x 24 inch, mixed media on canvas

[Download May 2009 pdf edition of Pragati 3.7 MB.]
In an editorial piece for Pragati, Nitin Pai writes:
At a time when China seeks to play in the same league as the superpower of the day, it is to be expected that it will try to extract advantageous positions in the Indian Ocean region at India’s expense. The big scandal is not that China is securing bases in India’s neighbourhood by shoring up nasty regimes and abetting their outrageous policies; but rather, India does not even show any sign of doing …

It is widely reported and generally held as a fact that the appointed prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, is weak and ineffective. He was appointed in 2004 and has dutifully followed the orders that were given to him. It is heartening to note that the widely held perception that he is weak and spineless is being challenged by his superiors. I am very pleased to note that he is being supported by those who appointed him and for whom he toils day and night (except on those nights …

This month’s Pragati is about “What the new government should do in its first 100 days.” I have a piece in there about the structural changes required in education. What else is new, you’d ask. Below the fold are the editorial comments for the issue. Please read and distribute.

YouTube has banned the James Randi Educational Foundation channel.

The reason is not yet known. I fear that it did so because of some religious group was offended by the JREF’s rational argument. Can’t really blame them since even governments are bending over. Recently the UN was the site of an unsightly scene where it was decided that any expression that offends the followers of one particular religion was to be banned. In India, they jailed a newspaper editor because thousands of violent thugs demanded his death for offending …

Download PDF. Online at Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review.

Indicore in the process of accepting applications for their August 2009 Fellowship. Their application deadline is March 15th. More details below the fold.
Ashoka Changemakers are launching an online competition to search for system-changing innovations in agriculture and rural development. “Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities” is hosted at Changemakers.net. Details below the fold.
This public service announcement bought to you through a generous grant from the Xyzzy Foundation and is made possible by support from readers like you.

The Friends of BJP is a recently formed organization with which my colleague Rajesh Jain is closely associated. On his blog today, Rajesh explained that
“The goal is to galvanise the youth and professionals to engage with the political process to bring about transformational change in India.”
The Friends of BJP is a subset of the educated civil society that is BJP-leaning, and willing to be vocal about it. We are not part of the BJP. We also do not agree with everything the BJP says or does. It is …

This issue argues that if a stable, prosperous and peaceful Pakistan is in the common interests of India, the world’s major powers and indeed the wider international community, then it is incumbent upon them to engage in a MacArthur-like intervention to transform Pakistan. Merely providing more financial assistance, albeit under different budgetary heads, is unlikely to suffice. In fact, as our in-depth look at one of Pakistan’s biggest jihadi organisations suggests, the export of terrorism from the country is only likely to grow.
[Contents] [Download 2 MB PDF]

Governance matters because how a society functions is clearly determined by how it chooses to govern itself. I have my doubts about democracy as a good form for organizing society — smacks of majority rule — but it’s better than many of the available alternatives. Democracy is, in my opinion, a first-best solution applied haphazardly in a second-best world. But given the world we have rather than the world we would like to have, democracy is the best we can do for now. So when it comes to choosing between …

The latest issue of Pragati: The Indian National Review, Dec 2008, is available for download here (pdf; right click on the link and “save target as”.)

CONTENTS

Sudipta wants bloggers to wake up:
Bloggers, wake up! For long the mainstream media has been plagiarising pictures from our blogs for long. And they seem to get away with it with impunity. Because they don’t respond to emails. They don’t publish letters sent to the editor about their reporters lifting images with impunity. How can they — these losers can’t stand up to own their mistakes; . . . They copy images, text, opinions, and they aren’t man enough to acknowledge the source: let alone ask for permission or …

Now for some smashing news. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will be firing up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It will happen at 1 PM (IST) on Wednesday.
The first attempt to circulate a beam in the LHC will be made on 10 September at the injection energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV). This historical event will be webcast through http://webcast.cern.ch, and distributed through the Eurovision network. See http://www.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam for further details.

[Via Cosmic Variance.]
Watch a documentary on the LHC on the History Channel.
After 40 years of planning and construction, …

The September issue of Pragati is ready for the taking. Download (pdf).

Anyone familiar with the disastrous state of India should not be overly surprised to learn that the Indian parliament has an overwhelmingly greater percentage of criminals than the general population. How effectively a nation functions and how successful it is depends on its leaders who make public policy and thus critically determine the outcome. India’s failure to develop and achieve its potential is proof positive that its leadership is lacking.
Underdevelopment, poverty, and all other ills that plague India are an unavoidable consequence of poor public policies and choices.