Born in Tamil Nadu, he received his BA and MA in economics from University of Madras. He is the first in his family to attend college, and the first from his home town to study economics. After completing his Master of Philosophy in 2005 from Dr Ambedkar Institute in Mhow, he has been working in the area in development economics.

After his master’s degree, he wrote an article on the “Impact of Globalisation on Developing Countries and India” for The 2004 Moffatt Prize in Economics (USA). This paper was selected later in 2006 as one of the Top 10 Most Read Economics Articles of 2006

An article of his on property rights and environmental factos was included in a book. His interests include liberalism and free market economics. He is greatly influenced by the writings of Ambedkar, B. R. Shenoy, F. A. Hayek, von Mises, and Ambirajan. He also writes a blog Hayekorder.blogspot.com.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Chandrasekaran a couple of years ago in New Delhi, and we have corresponded occasionally. I vouch for his personal integrity. Recently he wrote me an email saying:

I have written a research paper on “Was Dr.B.R Ambedkar a Free Market Economist?”

This paper is an ongoing project of mine, and has been written after a considerable reading and understanding of what he had argued in his various capacities as a student, professor, author, etc of economics in the early decades of twentieth century. As it is not surprise, he was a highly qualified authority on Indian monetary economics but there are only a few studies or articles written in analyzing his thoughts. This is true both in India and abroad. But there are many thoughts which he had expressed very lucidly (1920-30) but none of them were taken for analysis, both within academic and research institutions in India and abroad.

My research paper focuses the key elements of Dr.Ambedkar’s thoughts on Indian monetary economics which are not only completely ignored for many decades but also underestimated across the spectrum of avenues both in India and abroad. There are several ideas of Ambedkar’s which were well established and documented in his books/papers even before the economists and authors including Mr.Ludwig Von Mises, Dr.F A Hayek (Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1974), etc had argued.

There is virtually no one in India — past or present — to study what Ambedkar had profoundly argued in the banking systems and management of currency in society. My paper introduces Ambedkar as a prominent economist to the Marginalists School of Economics/Austrian School of Economics.

It is this gap which I have attempted to bridge in my research paper which has been accepted for presentation in the Austrian Scholars Conference 2011, to be held in March, 10-13, 2011 at Auburn, Alabama, USA. The Conference is organized by the Ludwig Von Mises Institute (LvMI), USA. My paper also explores possibility for broader debate on banking system and management of currency in the society world over. However, I did not get any financial support for my travel to present this unique paper in the Conference. I am also unable to finance from my own packet.

I need your kind support for making this trip to present my paper. I need some (whatever possible) financial support from you or suggest where I can approach.

Thank you.

My asking for financial support is unusual. I have never done this before. I think we have to lend a helping hand for a scholar such as Chandrasekaran. He needs around US$1,500 for airfare, $275 for registration, and $500 for hotel.

Of that, I have suggested to him that he should write to the organizers requesting that they waive the registration fees in light of the fact that no organization is sponsoring him.

So here’s my appeal to you. First, if you know some kind soul who would host him for the few days he will be in Auburn, Alabama, it would be great. It will save the $500 otherwise needed for the hotel.

Second, if you could make a small financial contribution towards the expenses, it would be great. I have asked friends and received pledges for $300, and I am adding $100 to that. So right now we are short of $1,800 towards our goal of $2,200.

If you would like to make a donation, please email me atanudey at gmail.com. When we have raised the amount required, I will post an update and close this campaign.

Thank you kindly for your support.

Update Friday 25th Feb:

Thanks to all who have responded with pledges of support. Please see the followup post for details.

Raghuveer will be on Jeopardy Dec 29th

This is exciting. Jeopardy is a favorite quiz show. Long-time reader of this blog, Raghuveer, will be on Jeopardy Dec 29th. Mark your calendars! (The last time I was in Washington DC in September, I met Raghuveer and his family.)

Go Berkeley!

While I am happy to fund the library (which means we do not need any financial assistance), we do need help to increase awareness about the unique services HELP offers, so that more people will make use of our services. We do not have a marketing budget; and are having a difficult time marketing HELP.

He is asking for ideas on how to promote the use of HELP. All suggestions welcome. Also, if you blog, perhaps you would consider linking to his post on HELP.

This public service announcement made possible by a generous grant from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous — and by contributions from readers like you. Thank you for your support!

Related Post: Irreversible Decisions. (June 2004)

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.

Stop Subsidising Pilgrimages
The Haj should be financed from private charity

In theory, according to its Constitution, the Indian state is secular; in practice, unfortunately, it is far from it. Indian governments routinely meddle in religious affairs and do not treat all its citizens as equal in matters of religion. They involve themselves in matters such as temple administration, fund management of temple donations, and subsiding pilgrimages. The most blatant example of such gratuitous meddling is the subsidy given to Muslims for going for haj to Saudi Arabia. In 2008, Indian taxpayers paid around Rs 700 crores (US$140 million) for Muslims to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Is that a reasonable thing for the government of India to do? No: it is bad in principle, economically inefficient and morally wrong. The government of a secular state must not concern itself with religious matters. India would do well to consider the example of the United States.

The first item of the US Bill of Rights, authored principally by James Madison and adopted in 1791, begins with the injunction that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” The absence of sectarian strife in the US is at least in part attributable to that amendment which, in the words of James Madison establishes a wall of “total separation of the church from the state.”

Something like the first amendment is vitally important and must be among the core set of rules of all civilized states. It traces its origins to the ideas of John Locke who held that each individual is free and equal, and that the job of the government of a civilized society is to protect the property rights of its citizens. The US strictly maintains that separation, as it should since it claims to be a secular state. It contrasts sharply with what goes on in India.

The rationale behind the Indian government’s Haj subsidy goes against any notion of social justice, fairness, and economic reasoning. Firstly, religion is a purely private affair and the government of a purportedly secular state should not get into the business of promoting any religion. Subsidizing the Haj is discriminatory and tantamount to endorsement of Islam. No other country on earth – including Islamic states – subsidizes haj.

Second, the subsidy is unfair. Fairness is the cornerstone of justice. It is unfair — and therefore unjust — for the government to force non-Muslims to subsidize the Haj because ultimately it is the taxpayers’ money that the government hands out. For an Islamic state to tax its non-Muslim subjects is understandable since Islam dictates that non-Muslims pay jizya — “a poll-tax levied from those who did not accept Islam, but were willing to live under the protection of Islam, and were thus tacitly willing to submit to the laws enforced by the Muslim State.” The Indian government is not Islamic and therefore must not impose jizya on its citizens.

Third, the haj subsidy politicizes a purely religious matter. Political parties attempt to woo Muslim votes by increasing the subsidy. They are in effect robbing non-Muslims to pay Muslim, thus attempting to gain the endorsement of Muslims. This is totally unconscionable.

From an economic point of view, subsidies and taxes are sometimes justified. For instance, revenues required for the provision of public goods have to be raised in some way and taxes are one way of doing so. Subsidies are justified in cases where markets fail to provide the socially optimal quantities of public goods. Even then, from an economic efficiency point of view, the taxes required for balancing the subsidies should be paid by the beneficiaries of the public good in question.

A case can even be made for the tax-funded public provisioning of some non-public goods and services, as when very high transaction costs are involved. Collective provisioning through taxes of a private good is justified when it is too expensive to determine individual quantity consumed for apportioning costs among a very large number of users.

The haj subsidy paid for from general tax revenues cannot be justified on the economic grounds mentioned above. The Haj is a not a public good; there is no market failure in its supply; the apportioning of costs is simple and efficient.

Can the Haj subsidy be justified on the grounds that it is charity? It is said that charity begins at home. And that is where it should stay. As a general principle, governments must not appropriate for itself the purely personal decision of its citizens on the matter of which charitable activity to support and to what extent. It is a matter of property rights: one has a right to spend one’s income as one sees fit. Using tax money to support discretionary spending is tantamount to extortion under the threat of violence, since one can be imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes.

Finally, there is the pernicious endowment effect: once an unearned benefit is granted, it is very difficult to remove it without incurring the wrath of the beneficiaries. No government would like to run the risk of removing the subsidy and antagonizing a large voting constituency.

The problem has a straightforward solution: move the funding of the haj subsidy from the public domain to the private domain. Constitute a non-governmental body whose task is to raise funds from private citizens. It is possible to do so in this day and age of low transactions costs due to the internet and mobile telephony. When people voluntarily contribute to fund the subsidy, it moves from the realm of coercion and becomes truly charitable.

This also takes the politics out of the whole matter and reduces the temptation that politicians have in robbing one group to gain the support of another group. By making this entirely voluntary, it removes the deep resentment many non-Muslims feel regarding the matter.

But there is a larger point which goes to the heart of what the job of a government is. Protecting the lives and property of its citizens is the primary reason for its existence. Everything else is secondary. Citizens should be on guard and prevent the government from usurping the freedoms that rightfully belong to them. When the government intrudes into such personal matters as whether or not to support the religious activities of some specific group, the state moves a little bit closer to fascism.

India needs to become a truly secular state since it is multi-religious. Its government has to be constitutionally directed to maintain a strict distinction between matters of religion and matters of state. If this requires a constitutional amendment, then it is time to introduce such a bill. The Indian government has to stop riding roughshod over the basic inalienable rights of its citizens – that of the rights to personal property and equality before the law. India needs the equivalent of the first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America.

Untitled
18 x 24 inch, mixed media on canvas

Tulika’s current work is inspired by the contrasts and extremes of Mumbai. She examines two severe urban influences – construction and environmental impact – which at once represent the pinnacle and the nadir of human activity.

The grey-blue seas and skies, and the drab expanses of concrete and plaster provide a lyrical backdrop to the human vibrancy of Mumbai. She’s struck by the incessant need for renovation. The city threatens to fall apart at the seams but always stops just short, with everything held together by duct tape. To her, bamboo scaffolding is an allegory of this fragility. The scaffolding creeps up skyscrapers, gingerly holding on. Surely the frail jute strings are not enough and the same invisible glue is at work here.

A majority of her work is mixed media – She uses acrylics for establishing texture and oils for creating detail. She uses stark contrast to create focal lines, which guide the viewer’s eye. Her use of plaster tape tries to ‘hold’ her smaller cityscapes together. Her process uses technology extensively- a digitizer to draft ideas, a Digital SLR, a variety of lenses and a magnifier to play with scale and record inspiration.

Where?

At JĀMAAT

National House, Tulloch Road
Apollo Bunder
Mumbai – 400 039

When?

11 June 2009 – 09 July 2009
Gallery hours: 11 am – 7 pm (except Sunday)

Full Disclosure: Tulika has promised me an undisclosed commission on any sale arising from my plugging her work. She is a dear friend but I am a bit of a mercenary when it comes to using my blog for promotion of artists whose paintings are worth a pretty penny.

[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 what is necessary to protect its interests.

There is only so much any entity — states, groups, or individuals — can do given limited resources. One of the most important resources in short supply is attention. China’s policymakers are busy figuring out how China can develop economically rapidly. With economic might comes the ability to project military power and China is doing precisely that. There are scores of examples of how China is using its economic power to encircle India.

Jeremy Page, writing in The Times, May 2nd 2009, notes

[In the fishing town of Hambantota in Sri Lanka] China is building a $1 billion port that it plans to use as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tigers, without worrying about the West.

Even India, Sri Lanka’s long-time ally and the traditionally dominant power in South Asia, has found itself sidelined in the past two years — to its obvious irritation. “China is fishing in troubled waters,” Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s Home Minister, warned last week.

The Chinese say that Hambantota is a purely commercial venture, but many US and Indian military planners regard it as part of a “string of pearls” strategy under which China is also building or upgrading ports at Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Sittwe in Burma.
. . .
In April 2007 Sri Lanka signed a classified $37.6 million (£25 million) deal to buy Chinese ammunition and ordnance for its army and navy, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly.

China gave Sri Lanka — apparently free of charge — six F7 jet fighters last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, after a daring raid by the Tigers’ air wing destroyed ten military aircraft in 2007. One of the Chinese fighters shot down one of the Tigers’ aircraft a year later.

“China’s arms sales have been the decisive factor in ending the military stalemate,” Brahma Chellaney, of the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, said. “There seems to have been a deal linked to Hambantota.”

Since 2007 China has encouraged Pakistan to sell weapons to Sri Lanka and to train Sri Lankan pilots to fly the Chinese fighters, according to Indian security sources.

China has also provided crucial diplomatic support in the UN Security Council, blocking efforts to put Sri Lanka on the agenda. It has also boosted financial aid to Sri Lanka, even as Western countries have reduced their contributions.

China’s aid to Sri Lanka jumped from a few million dollars in 2005 to almost $1 billion last year, replacing Japan as the biggest foreign donor. By comparison, the United States gave $7.4 million last year, and Britain just £1.25 million.

The important thing to note is that China is able to buy influence around because it has the money to do so. How did it get the money? By getting its economic policies right. In the end, economic policies matter not just for domestic prosperity but also in the state’s ability to project power beyond its borders.

India’s policymakers got the economic policies wrong. Around 1978, India was pretty much at par with — if not marginally ahead of — China. Today China is miles ahead of India and the gap will continue to widen.

The problem is at least partly that Indian policymakers have different goals. Their attention is diverted to such things as how to distribute the limited production among competing interest groups. They don’t worry so much about how to increase the economic output of the state, as about how to take from one group and give it to another group that has “a first claim” to resources. That is what electoral democracy in India is about: take from Paul to give to Peter so that Peter’s support is assured.

If your attention is fully occupied with instigating domestic squabbles so that you can mediate and win the approval of some sections of the voters, you cannot think long term about economic development. Without economic development, the state is too poor to do anything — including influencing its neighbors and winning friends.

The Congress party has governed (more accurately, misgoverned) India for most of its existence as a state in modern times. Nehruvian socialism dragged India into a hole so big that it would take decades for it to climb out of. Then the Congress party, to continue to remain in power, decided that the best way was to discriminate against people based on religion and caste, and hand out goodies to specific groups.

I think it is still not fully in the public consciousness that India is pathetically poor because of what Nehru did to begin with, and then the subsequent descent into the abyss was done by his progeny. Only when the Indian voter actually realizes the source of their misery — misgovernance by Congress — will there be change.

China changed in 1978, and is continuing to change. The question that should occupy us is when will India change?

This public service message brought to you courtesy of an anonymous reader of this blog and in the interests of the on-going general elections in India.

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.

India goes to the polls in a few weeks’ time. A new government will be in place in a couple of months.

The ‘honeymoon’ period of the first hundred days offers a new government the opportunity to implement important reforms that might otherwise face the greatest resistance. Of course, follow-through is important, but setting the momentum early is crucial. Most importantly, the honeymoon comes but once in a government’s life: so it is important to have a plan of action to make the most of it. Plan ahead, as they say, to avoid disappointment. This issue outlines a honeymoon agenda for the new government in three vital areas: economic reforms, national security and education.

Some of you are involved in preparing policy agendas for political parties. A few of you are even contesting the elections. We hope reading this issue will help you make a difference.

Our proposals are ambitious. How can they not be? But we are also realistic about how much a government can accomplish. Our recommendations, at the least, will allow readers to see how far the actual performance falls below our benchmarks.

This leads us to the other theme in this issue: the importance of voting. At an individual level you will make a difference when you vote. Don’t wait for the perfect candidate to come along—please vote for the best of the existing lot, and encourage your friends to do so. The articles in our perspective section make the case for voting as the necessary condition to effect change.

In addition to the other regular features, we present the results of our reader survey in this month’s issue: we had asked you if you’d subscribe to a print edition of Pragati. Two-thirds of the respondents said “Yes”, but those who said “No” gave some good reasons. Your feedback was extremely useful: we’re acting on it. More on this later.

[Download PDF of Pragati April 2009]

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 them by publishing an article that pointed out that certain beliefs are silly.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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

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.


Indicore

Indicorps, an international non-profit, offers competitive fellowships for people of Indian origin willing to challenge themselves for one to two years on unique grassroots development projects in India. Fellowships are designed as one-of-a-kind transformational experiences, emphasizing both public service and personal growth, building upon leadership skills and the capacity to make a difference.

Indicorps announces over 30 competitive new projects for the August 2009 Indicorps Fellowship. Indicorps seeks a few dozen dedicated young Indian leaders who are willing to challenge themselves and “be the change.” Fellows will have the opportunity to tackle real issues in education, microenterprise, social entrepreneurship, environmental conservation, public health, urban infrastructure, and much more. They will be able to live simply and dig deep to learn about real India; projects span from Kanpur to Pondicherry, Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh.

To learn more, visit the Indicore website. Or write to outreach at indicorps dot org.

Global Search for Innovations in Farming and Rural Communities

Excerpts from a press release:

WASHINGTON, Mar. 3, 2009 Ashoka’s Changemakers announced today the launch of “Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities,” a global, online competition to seek out the most innovative solutions in farming and rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and around the world. The competition is funded as part of a grant awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Using the Changemakers’ open-source online platform, the competition will be open to anyone striving to stimulate rural development and agriculture.

The Changemakers community is an open, online forum for anyone who is passionate about social change to participate in a vibrant exchange of ideas and friendship,” states Charlie Brown, Changemakers Executive Director. “This competition is the opportunity to expand our reach even further, into the rural areas of Africa and India, to work with those innovators who may or may not have online access.”

The online competition will showcase innovative solutions, encouraging members to comment, network, and assist one another in making a difference. Nominations and submissions are welcome until May 13.

For more information, contact Delyse Sylvester: dsylvester at ashoka dot org. Visit Changemakers.net.

“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 our belief that at this point of time the BJP is the better alternative. It is not a selection between black and white, but opting for the one with the lighter shades of grey.

The subtitle of the Friends of BJP blog says, “Because India Deserves Better.” Is that true? Most will agree that India’s governance has left much to be desired. But merely desiring something does not make one deserving of it. I desire lots of things but I sure am not deserving of them. There’s much hard work between desiring and deserving.

However much India “desires” otherwise, India gets poor governments because collectively it deserves poor governance. This hard fact needs to be better appreciated by Indians. Reality cannot be wished away. Any worthwhile change requires hard work. That is a trite observation and unfortunately for lazy people (and I am a card-carrying member of that tribe) it is true.

You may have heard the joke about the Zen buddhist who goes to the hot-dog vendor. The H-DV asks, “What would you like on it?” ZB says, “Make me one with everything.” ZB gets his hot dog, pays his money and asks for his change. H-DV says, “Change comes only from within.”

Fortunately, change does happen. Not always, but sometimes things unexpectedly change for the better.

Anecdotal evidence of people and organizations reforming are in plenty. Legend has it that Valmiki, the sage who composed the Ramayana, used to be a robber. His personal transformation was positive and extreme. He had to work hard for years before he could work out the consequences of his past misdeeds. That’s karma, neh?

The bad karma that Indians have collectively accumulated over the decades is manifested as bad people governing the country. Things have come to such a sorry pass that criminals routinely contest and win elections. Every society has criminals; but it is only in sick societies that criminals get elected by the people.

Just one example: Sanjay Dutt was associated with Islamic terrorists and got lethal weapons and explosives from them. He was convicted under the Arms Act for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings. Ram Jethmalani, one of India’s foremost criminal defense lawyers actually argued for Dutt’s bail in court. The strong implication is that if anyone other than Dutt himself knows about Dutt’s culpability, it has to be Jethmalani. According to him, Dutt is a criminal.

Sanjay Dutt is a movie hero. His fans adore him for being such a nice guy, a guy who introduced the term “gandhigiri” to millions. The Samajvadi Party wants Dutt as their candidate for the member of parliament from Lucknow. Why would they want to do that? Because the people of that constituency will vote for a criminal and make him win. That’s why.

Ram Jethmalani gave a press statement and wrote an op-ed piece. Here’s a report from the TOI

“He (Dutt) does not deserve to be a Member of Parliament and any political party that sets him as its candidate is totally impervious to the security to the nation,” the noted criminal law expert said in a press release.

He [Jethmalani] being a loner in politics with little influence over the voters was of little consequence for the noted lawyer as he vowed to “fight all the way against him (Dutt) and any party that supports him, the ruling Congress included”.

“I will at least have the satisfaction of having warned the nation,” the lawyer said. Asked what was the provocation for this sudden outburst against Dutt, Jethmalani said from Mumbai that it was because of his personal knowledge and the country’s interest being foremost in his mind.

He said he has written to the Congress leadership over his strong opposition to any support to Dutt’s candidature and expressed his dismay over the SP’s decision to field him as a candidate for the Lok Sabha elections from a constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

The Supreme Court had on November 27, 2007, granted bail to Dutt and 16 others, who were convicted and sentenced by the TADA court in the Mumbai bomb blasts case.

Though Dutt was acquitted of TADA charges by the trial court, he was convicted under various provisions of the Arms Act for keeping an AK-47 given by the conspirators behind the serial blasts and was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment of which he had already served 1 year and 6 months in jail.

Criminals run India because a very very large number of Indians (perhaps counted in the hundreds of millions) are quite comfortable with having criminals run India. India will deserve good a government the day Indians collectively grow a moral sense.

Very strictly speaking, the demand for good government is low. The supply keeps pace with what the market demands. If India wants better government, then it will have to earn that through hard work. The change has to come from within the people.

It’s all karma, neh?

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]

The first and foremost reason is that that the BJP is not the Congress party. The Congress party is responsible for what India is today — a desperately poor country of 1.2 billion people. For most of its history since its political independence from colonial rule, India has been ruled by the Congress party. For decades since 1947, it had a near absolute control of the country. All the promise and potential that was India was squandered recklessly though decades of misgovernance. It essentially reduced India to a kakistocracy — government by the most corrupt and the least principled.

The Congress party appears to have one aim: to be in power. Its insatiable appetite for power drives it to adopt the most heinous of politics. It divided the country along caste, creed, and religious lines. It fractures civil society, it destroys institutions. The most despicable act has been its wanton destruction of the education system — which, mind you, wasn’t much to write home about anyway. Its policies are calculated to keep the population poor, uneducated and dependent on the government. It does whatever it can to restrict freedom — individual, political, and economic. The license-quota-permit-control raj is the monstrous bastard-child of the Congress party.

In my considered opinion, supporting the Congress party in any of its incarnation is an act of treason, if not an act of senseless ignorance. Those who vote for the Congress after what the party has done to them are either ignorant (like the masses who only need the “Gandhi” name to vote for the party) or are pathologically self-serving who would ride any train that would get them to power, never mind that it is anti-national, anti-development, anti-growth, anti-anything good and reasonable.

The second reason I support the BJP is because it is not wedded to a dynasty. Dynastic rule is worse than democracy because it does not allow competent leaders to emerge. I feel that the Congress party would like nothing better than to have the system that North Korea has. North Korea, as Christopher Hitchens puts it, is a necrocracy (government by the dead). There they have as the titular head of the state Kim Il-sung who died in 1994 but still rules. He rules though his son, Kim Jong Il.

Nehru died a few decades ago, and so did his daughter, and so did her son. But though they are dead, they live on as rulers.

I traveled from the Rajiv Gandhi International airport to the Indira Gandhi International airport to be at an event of the Indira Gandhi Open National University and took the Sanjay Gandhi flyover to spend the afternoon at the Nehru park before going to the Jawaharlal Nehru University for a discussion on the Sanjay Gandhi Yojna . . . Actually, I cannot separate the names of all the places and institutions I had to visit in the last week or so but that is understandable because all were either Nehru or Gandhi.

Rule by a dynasty is a nasty idea, whether in North Korea or in India.

In states that are not ruled by dynasties, at least there is a reasonable chance that policy will be dictated by competence, and not by people whose only qualification is how sincerely they sing the praises of the dynasty. Lest you think that I am making this up, just take a look at Dr Manmohan Singh. He declared that the NREGS is a gift from his dear leader Sonia Gandhi to the nation. It seems that he believes that the thousands of crores of rupees came out of the personal checking account of the Gandhi family and not the taxes of citizens. That’s loyalty. Loyalty to the dear leader’s family matters. Here’s a bit from a blog post from April 2004:

India’s democracy is at best a cargo cult democracy. Here is a brief news item from today’s The Times of India page 3. The Maharashtra Congress Committee vice-president Anant Gadgil plans to switch to the Shiv Sena because he did not get a ticket for contesting the elections. He wrote to the chief Sonia Gandhi and said:

Our family is known for its loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family, and to the Congress since independence. We always remember the recognition given by Indira and Rajiv Gandhi to my father for his utmost loyalty. Please let me know whether loyalty has no meaning left in the Congress party.

If those words don’t epitomize what Indian democracy is all about, I don’t know what does. Here is a person who wants to represent the will of the people, his constituency. And all he has to show for his qualifications for that task is his loyalty to a particular family. He does not plead that he has served the people of his constituency competently, he does not point out that he is capable of helping his society do better, he does not say that he understands the problems that his people face and that he has solutions, etc. Most likely he has not done any service nor is he capable of doing anything for the people. In keeping with the prevailing customs of the political parties in India — especially that of the Congress Party — all that he has to show is that he and his father have always been loyal lap-dogs of the of the ruling family.

Mr. Anant Gadgil may be an ignorant wanna-be. But he is not alone. His sentiments are shared by practically all “leaders” of the Congress party, from Messers Manmohan Singh and Narasimha Rao to the lowliest party worker. All they have to demonstrate is unquestioned loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family and they will get the nod. As self-interested rational individuals their stance cannot be faulted. The tens of millions of ignorant illiterate voters will vote for the Congress party simply because they recognize the Gandhi name. Therefore all Gadgils and the Singhs and Raos have to do is to plead their loyalty and they will get a ticket and therefore get elected.

The third reason is related to the previous one: I believe that the BJP is capable of building institutions. Institutions matter, not personalities.

Institutions matter because they are rule based. They are not dependent on subjective arbitrariness — the whimes and fancies — of personalities. Institutions persist and outlast individuals and therefore have a longer memory. They are also less likely to be hijacked by narrow personal interests and can pursue socially beneficial objectives.

When institutions are hijacked by personalities, they decay. The Indian National Congress was a worthy institution until the Nehru-Gandhi family made it into their personal fiefdom. The tranformation was tragic and it will continue to be a dysfunctional political party as long as it persists in elevating personalities over the institutional character of the party.

One can conjecture that it is the legacy of our feudal social system that is the cause of our dysfunctional emphasis on personalities rather than on institutions. After all, the raja ruled at his pleasure and did not bother with constitutions. The serfs realized that the law was basically whatever the raja said it was. Survival in this sort of a system depended on unquestioning loyalty to a person.

A modern highly complex economic system requires the rule of law, rather than the rule of men (or women). Arbitrary decisions based on personal prejudices cannot in general lead to socially beneficial outcomes. One can imagine an enlightened benevolent dictatorship but they are rare and rarer still is the possibility of a long succession of benevolent dictators. The odd raja may be good personally but his successors are likely to be rapacious murderers.

Sadly, rajas continue to exist in India. They go about in cars with led lights flashing. They consider themselves above the law (just another institution). They hand out or withhold favors depending on whether they personally gain from the deal. The license-permit-quota-subsidy raj is the only institution that these rajas find worthwhile.

I cannot guarantee that the BJP will build institutions but of this I am sure that the Congress party has destroyed institutions and is incapable of building institutions because it is personality based.

All things considered, I am supporting the BJP in Elections 2009. Though I will not be voting (never voted in India), I will make sure that my family and friends understand why they should support the BJP. I hope to do my little part in seeing that India develops a bit. The first step is to remove the biggest hurdle to India’s growth and development: end the dynastic necrocracy of the Congress party.

CONTENTS

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 compensate monetarily. Twilight Fairy, Archana, Bobinson have pointed it out before. And now, Shrinidhi finds one of his pics on the Times of India.

So how does one respond to theft? By reporting it. And by using the law. But then, you have to have laws against intellectual property theft and have the time, money and persistence to go through with an expensive and protracted legal case. But what about petty intellectual theft? It’s possible but very unlikely that any individual has the capacity to drag something like The Times of India to court.

I guess that in the case of petty plagiarism of the sort that Sudipta is pointing at, the remedy is that sufficient people call “Shame on you!” Perhaps the word will get around and will deter theft.

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 biggest science experiment in history is ready to be tested. The “Large Hadron Collider” is an experiment created by the greatest minds in physics. It cost $10 billion and its resulting data has the potential to explain why we and the Universe exist. Their idea is to smash protons towards one another at the speed of light, trying to mimic what happened in the milliseconds after The Big Bang. Viewers will go on an amazing journey involving the struggles to plan and build the LHC, how it was constructed and what are its mechanics. Explore the future of what’s possible through the geniuses of today. [The History Channel]

For some absolutely stunning pictures (27 of them), go to boston.com’s The Big Picture.

To get a quick tutorial on how a particle accelerator works, play the LHC game. (Click on English, then click on the green arrow, the click on 1, 2, 3, etc.)

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

Issue Contents

PERSPECTIVE

Making a leader
Excerpts from a lecture on leadership and discipline
Sam HFJ Manekshaw

Our voice in our history
Academic freedom, private funding and historical research

Jayakrishnan Nair

Letters
On whether or not India has a coherent foreign policy

FILTER
A survey of think-tanks
On China policy; Fixing the FATA; An Indo-Israeli alliance?
Vijay Vikram

IN DEPTH
Hold steady in Afghanistan

India is on the right track and it should stay that way
Shanthie Mariet D’Souza

A bigger military presence is essential
…if India is to shape Afghanistan’s future
Sushant K Singh

The myth of Taliban tribalism
The folly of trying to set tribes against each other
Joshua Foust

IN PARLIAMENT
Monsoon Session 2008—What’s in store
Legislative brief
Sarita Vanka

ROUNDUP
When it’s good to slow down
The why and what next about rising inflation
V Anantha Nageswaran

The historical roots of the services sector
…calls for a strategy that plays to India’s strengths
Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta

Profiting from education
Resistance against commercialisation is fruitless
Atanu Dey

BOOKS
Four books about Pakistan

On nuclear proliferation, military politics and society
Nitin Pai

Underdevelopment, poverty, and all other ills that plague India are an unavoidable consequence of poor public policies and choices.

One does not have to know criminology to suspect that criminals cannot make good public policy makers. For support of this position, one has to look at the dismal record of the criminals in charge of public policy in India. It is not that every single politician in India is a criminal; only that a significant number of them are criminals. But it is unbelievable that even one member of the Indian parliament should be a criminal. That we don’t rise in revolt against this outrage shows that we have come to accept it as par for the course and have resigned ourselves to it. Worse, it could mean that the Indian population is so morally bankrupt that it finds crime so normal that it elects criminals to political power.

All this lends support to the claim that the people deserve the government they get. Perhaps because the people in general are immoral criminals that they accept — perhaps even promote — criminals to represent them. The resulting Hobbesian existence — solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short — the majority live is something that they are ultimately responsible for. Until the people change, there is no possibility of a change of leadership, and the consequent change in the circumstances.

But there is still some hope; as long as there is life, there is hope. India has not yet descended to the depths plumbed by its western neighbor because it still has as part of its civil society people who deeply care about the quality of leadership. One organization of note is the Association for Democratic Reforms. I got introduced to it when I met one of its founder members, Prof Jagdeesh Chhokar, in New Delhi last week.

ADR’s mission is “to work towards improving and strengthening democracy and governance in India.” I will leave you to take a look at their many achievements since they started in 1999. Here I would like to share with you some statistics that ADR has compiled. (Thanks to S Ramachandra for forwarding the files.)

Here’s an excerpt from a press release dated July 10th, 2008:

The coming general elections to the Lok Sabha do not forecast a bright future if the composition of the Lok Sabha 2004 at present is any indication. There are 120 MPs with criminal cases against them out of 543, or 22.1%. Among the major parties, the BJP has 29 MPs with a criminal record, the Indian National Congress (INC) 24, the SP 11, RJD 8, CPM 7, BSP 7, NCP 5 and CPI 2.

The number of cases of serious crimes is 333, with several MPs having multiple cases. If we look at violent crimes like murder, attempt to murder, robbery, dacoity, kidnapping, theft and extortion, rape, other violent crimes like assault using dangerous weapons or causing grievous hurt, the Samajwadi Party (SP) leads with 80 cases, followed by BSP 43, BJP 17, INC 16, RJD 9, CPM 5, CPI 1, NCP 2. Other crimes like cheating, fraud, forgery, giving false oaths to public officials and so on have BSP 23, RJD 22, INC 21, BJP 11, SP 11 and CPM 6. [Emphasis added.]

Becoming informed is the first necessary step to bringing about change. So do talk, write, blog, etc., about this. Spread the word. Most of all, blog about this frequently enough that it becomes impossible to not know about it. And put your money where your mouth is — for starters, you could help support ADR. They need Rs 3 crores (US$ 750,000) for the coming 2009 Elections campaign.

For the record, I am publishing their proposal below.

Strengthening Indian Democracy:

Proposal for the coming General Elections in 2008-09

Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR: www.adrindia.org)
July 8, 2008

About ADR

ADR was founded in 1999 by a group of Professors from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and some alumni to work towards strengthening democracy and governance in India by focusing on fair and transparent electoral processes. Since its founding, it has worked with over 1000 NGO partners around India, disseminating information on candidates and political parties to voters. ADR has also worked closely with the media, the Election Commission of India and eminent citizens around the country. Its founder was elected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008.

The major impact of ADR’s work is at four levels:

1. Lobbying lawmakers and implementers (various Courts, Election Commission, parliamentarians, etc.) to institute laws and procedures to increase accountability and transparency
2. Strengthen the monitoring of candidates and political parties on accountability, funding and for transparency.
3. Increase awareness among the public about important facts and issues regarding candidates, funding, political parties, elections and democracy.
4. Cause a shift in the profile of candidates winning elections towards people with clean backgrounds.

Sample Impact of ADR’s work

Here is a representative list of impact achieved by the activities of ADR:

1. ADR filed and won two landmark judgments on candidate disclosure of criminal and financial records from the Supreme Court in May 2002 and March 2003.
2. Made transparent the financial details of political parties using the Right to Information Act in 2008 after 14 months of persistence with the Income tax Authorities and the central Information Commission.
3. Has established a network of over a thousand NGOs around the country to do Citizen Election Watch for all major elections since December 2002, disclosing candidate background information to the media and the public.
4. Has initiated Civil Society non-partisan Election Watches in different states:
a. In the Lok Sabha 2004 Elections, 19 States and 5 Union Territories carried out Election Watches.
b. Have conducted Election watches in about 20 states
5. Bihar Election Watch in Oct-Nov 2005 resulted in intense pressure on the Chief Minister designate for the first time perhaps in decades to have a Council of Ministers without any known criminal record.
6. Clearance of lakhs of rupees of outstanding dues to the Government for rent, electricity, phone bills, etc. by Members of Parliament (MPs) before standing for (re)elections.
7. A measurable impact in the fielding of non-tainted candidates by applying pressure on political parties to filed clean candidates.

Objectives for Lok Sabha elections April-May 2009

The coming national elections in April-May 2009 provide a unique opportunity to leverage the network already in place, and the information already collected, to carry out a campaign to further improve democracy. ADR wishes to take a campaign to:

1. Improve the profile of candidates contesting elections: ADR has already achieved this in the past in state assembly elections, but we expect to take this nationwide through the proposed campaign. Political parties have started reacting to media exposure and have begun cleaning up their Act (e.g., see in Sample impact for Bihar)
2. Enable voters to make an informed choice: As of now, the information available to voters is limited, and the existing database of over 25000 candidates with ADR will be used to raise voter awareness significantly.
3. Help keep election expenses transparent and within the legal limit: Again, information dissemination is key.
4. Strengthen democracy by making candidates and parties more accountable to voters and citizens: Our experience shows that in pockets where dissemination was intense, the candidates and political parties did respond. The campaign will take this nationwide.
5. Create a platform or platforms beyond the elections to help citizens and Governments work more closely together: We will use our network of over thousand NGOs in the campaign to achieve this.

ADR has information on all major National and State elections in India since 2002. Specifically, ADR will disseminate information to voters around the country through following means:

1. Traditional print and electronic media,
2. The Internet (though its reach is still limited in India),
3. The network of NGOs,
4. Through mobile technologies(which has grown rapidly in the recent past) ,
5. And Voice technologies.

One time support needed for Lok Sabha elections April-May 2009:

ADR is currently supported for its establishment expenses by the Ford Foundation. However, it does not have financial support for next year’s general elections. This involves 543 seats to the Parliament (Lok Sabha), and involves around 670 million voters. It is the largest democratic election held anywhere in the world. We estimate that a modest $750,000 can help us do the campaign. We are looking for a one time support for these elections.

How the fund will be utilized

The broad strategy is to use the existing information base, supplement it with more research, and disseminate it steadily starting now until the general elections. As mentioned earlier, this will be done traditional print and electronic media, the Internet, the network of NGOs, mobile and voice. Previous experience of such limited campaigns in Gujarat and UP showed good results with positive reaction from political parties.

For instance, we will build Member of Parliament profiles, political party profiles, and election expense information from our existing data base. Dissemination will be done in English and Hindi (the major language that about 35% of India knows) at the very least. We also hope to do it in 7 other major languages.

Pragati July issue is available.

Dear Mr.Tata,

I trust that you will take the decision to locate the proposed commercial port in coastal Orissa only after due consideration about, and the serious study of, the Olive Ridley Sea Turtle. Thank you.

Kind regards,
Atanu

[Reference.]

The vision of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 is to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery. All humans should realize the impact of astronomy and basic sciences on our daily lives, and understand better how scientific knowledge can contribute to a more equitable and peaceful society.

Go watch the trailer on YouTube. Or better still, download one of the many high resolution versions from here.

Totally thrilling stuff.

The first two articles are on the loan waiver to farmers.

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Be very wary of people with lean and hungry looks who think too much.

[Here's Act 1, Scene 2 of The Life and Death of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.]

POSTSCRIPT: All sorts of bad things happen on the ides of March. In 1876 on the ides of March, test cricket was born with a match between England and Australia.

Good intentions are not enough. One has to be able to reason through the problems — which are definitely informed by economics as we are talking about an economy — to figure out a solution. Not knowing some basic economics is a needless handicap. One needs to know the fundamental principles of economics just as much as one needs to be basically literate and numerate. It is easy to believe that whatever economics one needs to know one can grasp intuitively. But for most of us, many of the basics of economics are somewhat counter-intuitive and people systematically misunderstand them. There is really no substitute for a knowledge of economics. It is really dangerous to substitute knowledge of economics with good intentions and a passion for reform.

One of the lessons of economics is that you don’t have the luxury of setting prices. We have to take what we get. Meddling around with prices is a sure-fire means of creating grief. Jago needs to wake up to that. They write in their mission statement (among other things) :

24 hours electricity supply for all towns & villages at just Rs. 2.00 per unit ( without any subsidy ). Electrical departments, railway and all government owned business will be privatized. Government has no business to do business . Their main product is corruption .

How do they know that the right price is Rs 2 and not Re 1 or Rs 3? Who decides and on what authority? It is not a minor quibble. It takes some degree of understanding why and how markets work to fully appreciate that setting prices is silly.

Reservation for none. Job for every one through job oriented education .

Reservation will be provided only on economic ground . . .

I agree with no reservations. But how do they justify reservation “on economic ground”? To reserve seats in education because one is poor is to bark up the wrong tree. If one is poor, and yet is capable and desires an education, the solution is to give financial relief (in terms of grants or loans), not reservations.

There are lots of things that the team at Jago need to work out a little more rationally. I hope they succeed in whatever they are trying to do and I wish them all the best.

Netcore’s MyToday is a bold and visionary effort to reach out to all of the 250 million or more Indians who possess a cell phone with innovative data services on SMS and GPRS, – with ‘something for everyone’. Through MyToday Dailies, Netcore offers unique content services on SMS. A comprehensive mobile portal, MyToday.mobi offers relevant content to Indian mobile users on the go. While through the community group and chat services – called MyToday MOBS and Mytoday Chat, it reaches out to the fast growing mobile youth segment of Indian market. Netcore has been able to establish mobile as a medium that caters to need of consumers and also offers path-breaking modes of mobile advertising and marketing.

MyToday Dailies is the largest non-telco, direct-to-consumer Mobile Service, with over 2.5 million subscribers spread across the country. With 25 successful channels that have succeeded without mass media campaigns, MYTODAY DAILIES has grown virally through pure word-of-mouth.

To receive updates from me through Mytoday, SMS “start atanudey” to 575758 or to 98453 98453. It’s free and you can unsubscribe anytime by sending “stop atanudey” to the same numbers.

It’s simple. If you are in India, send an SMS saying “Start AtanuDey” (case insensitive, and without the quotes) to 575758 or to 098453 98453.

You will start receiving messages that I publish, starting with an acknowledgment message from “ATANUDEY”. What will it cost you? Nothing except whatever it costs to send that single “start” message. Anytime you wish to stop receiving messages from “ATANUDEY”, send an SMS saying “Stop AtanuDey” to 575758 or 098453 98453.

This is what is called the “pub sub”–publish subscribe–paradigm. Basically you are in control and so don’t have to suffer spam.

I intend to use the channel sparingly. Once in a while I will high-light some post of special significance. For instance, I may say, “Go read my opinion piece in today’s Mint”, or “Catch me on BBC World TV at 8 PM.”

I would also publish “Where in the world is Atanu today?” type of SMS. For instance, I am in New Delhi on the 9th and 10th. So I will send an SMS saying “Visiting N Delhi 9th and 10th. Meeting Esther Dyson for a chat about education and technology.”

Catch you on SMS.

By the by, you too can create any channel you want and keep in touch with your friends, family and colleagues. Just go to MyToday.com and get started. It’s the coolest thing to hit the mobile scene since sliced bread.

I have a piece on why India should invest in solar power R&D (which is posted here on this blog.) Quick look at the content below the fold.

Private property, right!

Issue Contents

PERSPECTIVE

Ironies on the road Raj Cherubal
The unlikely new heroes in the saga of the return of the right to property

The killing fields of Bengal Arnab Ray
Behind the story and the intellectual outrage over Nandigram

The new Manhattan project Atanu Dey
Energy security calls for government investment in renewable energy

FILTER

Securing Pakistan’s crown jewels; Still with Musharraf; Arming Pashtuns…again; SIMI’s networks; Wither India-Russia relations; China’s nuclear deal with Kazakhstan

IN PARLIAMENT

A new section on the issues before parliament: prepared by PRS Legislative Research

IN DEPTH

Improving fiscal responsibility Mukul G Asher
Institutional reform is a must for medium-term fiscal management

ROUNDUP

A crisis profound Harsh V Pant
Indian universities need reform, not fatalism

Doctors across borders Rohit Pradhan
Some conclusions about emigrating doctors are hasty

The Akhond of Swat Manan Ahmed
A closer look at the separatist religious movement

BOOKS

Banally in love with India Chandrahas Choudhury
A review of Shashi Tharoor’s The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone

Quoting from the page linked above:

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “all rights reserved” (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.”

So what license should one choose? Various conditions are listed on this license page such as “Attribution,” “Non-commercial,” “No derivate works,” and “Share alike.”

Here’s the license that I have chosen for this blog:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

If you click on that last link, you will find a fuller description of what I am actually allowing and what I am disallowing. Note especially one condition: “Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.” So, for example, while I am not allowing my work to be used for commercial purposes, depending on the case, if I am asked for permission, I can easily grant that my work be used for commercial purposes.

I would encourage you to read the FAQ on the Creative Commons.

Finally, an institution such as the Creative Commons, is an excellent example from the set of institutions that form the foundation upon which a modern liberal prosperous society is built. This institution primarily expands the range of choices that people have in presenting their work to society at large. By doing this, it allows greater cooperation between people and thus increases the ability of people to build on prior work. It is also just another example of an innovation that people in the US have achieved. Thank you Creative Commons.

The idea behind the Why Democracy? project appears to me to be to ask what democracy actually means and if it works as advertised, and if not, what are the deficiencies in the real places where it exists, etc. Go check it out.

Contents

PERSPECTIVE: Soft power, hard reality, Channel !ndia, The Indian corporate century, Climate change & international security

FILTER: On India-US relations; India’s consumer market; The Doha round and free trade in services; Productivity miracle; and Climate change and the Indian farmer

IN DEPTH: Leveraging Remittances

ROUNDUP: Microfinance: Charting new territory; Globalisation: Readying for the next round

BOOKS: In extenso: Six great revolutions; Review: PLU engaged in WMD

Contents :
Editorial – A leap of faith
Perspectives – on Pakistan at the crossroads, and on the abuse of ’social justice’
Roundup – on Bangladesh’s disappearing democracy, flying tigers, a report on clean energy and the missing debate on property rights and institutional autonomy
Agenda – unshackling education

Do read and share!

This publication is the product of independent minds, who are—transcending ideological pigeonholes—united in our determination to see a better future for our nation.

If that grabs your attention, please download the first issue of Pragati. Feel free to distribute as a softcopy, or else print it out. Distribute the hardcopies free to friends and charge your foes an arm and a leg.

This public service announcement has been made possible by a grant from the Freedom Foundation (which hopes to have an office in India in a few centuries.)

As you know one of the biggest problems today is that Indian journalists are not always proud of their own culture and roots and as result tend to have a very negative outlook on India, which in turn influences western correspondents posted in India. It is therefore very important that we train a new generation of Indian journalists. It is for this purpose that we have started a new school of journalism in Bangalore called the Sri Sri Center for Media studies. There, we teach the best of journalistic knowledge, both print and electronic, along with classes (which I take myself) on Indian history, the ideal of true journalism and a little bit coaching in pranayama and meditation these two ancient Indian sciences which impart a good and intuitive mind.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of competition both within India as well as Bangalore, and schools such as the Asian school of journalism, sponsored by the newspaper the Hindu and the BBC, which form journalists in the old secular/Marxist mould, have much more students and funds than we do. Now what we need is students – both from India as well as from the US – and this is where you can help. We see today that US correspondents based in India are often very hostile to our ideals. If you could send some of your children, whether they are first, second or third generation Americans, to our school, we would coach them and when they go back to the States they can enter mainstream newspapers and after acquired some experience, they could ask to be posted to India, having a natural advantage over White Americans, by being of an Indian origin and hopefully speaking Indian languages. In a few years time, the entire India coverage in the States could see a very important shift. At the moment we only offer a one year post graduation course, but eventually we will have a three years complete graduate course. Next session is end of September and we need 50 students. I must emphasize that a journalistic career is very rewarding not only in view that you get to travel a lot, meet interesting people, but also that it is one of the highest seva you can do for India, as journalists today are the most important people in the world – even the politicians are afraid of them ! It is time that all of you start thinking about other careers for your children than doctors or software engineers for being exported to the US and being lost to India forever!

For further information please go to http://www.sscms.org/.

We are also looking for donors to sponsor deserving students in India, whose parents do not have the means to pay the 100.000 rupees fees. Each sponsor will be put in touch with the students they sponsor and can monitor their progresses. cheques should be made in the name of FACT and sent to Francois Gautier, Auromodel, Auroville, 605101, Tamil Nadu (by Pondichery). Tel (91) 413 2622255. We have income tax exemption and you will all get a certificate. For those wishing to contribute in foreign exchange, please contact me.

Thanks to all and let’s keep up the good work

François Gautier
Convener FACT

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