India’s most exciting annual networking event for entrepreneurs and investors, the TiE-ISB Connect ‘08 will be held on November 5th, 6th and 7th, 2008 at the ISB campus in Hyderabad. Organized by the TiE, Hyderabad Chapter and the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED), ISB, TiE-ISB Connect enables interaction of aspiring entrepreneurs, early-stage ventures, and growth-stage ventures with potential investors, successful entrepreneurs and mentors.

I will be a panelist on the session “Next 800 Million: Challenges & Opportunities” on the 6th of Nov and chair the panel on “Energy” on 7th Nov. Here’s the schedule.

So I expect to write a few posts on the conference.

Download it.

I sent that post to one person, who shall remain anonymous, who had mailed me the GS report with obvious enthusiasm. He wrote back saying that I was too negative and that I should give my own positive recommendations on what is to be done. Evidently, the man did not bother to read the post because I did indeed give my own 5-point program. (Half the points and twice as good as the GS report, you may say )

Anyway, he wrote back saying my recommendations were impossible for Indians to do. “Who will bell the cat?” he asked rhetorically.

My response was a detailed one (which I will not post but if you are really curious, I will send it to you upon request. Or perhaps I will post the whole exchange in password protected post — without identifying the person, of course.)

The man responded.

So, you find fault with the people of India!!

I am reminded of what I read about Hitler who, at the end of the Second World War before committing suicide, is reported to have said that, because the war was lost (due to his foolishness), the German people did not deserve to live!!!!!.

You are indeed a great economist!!

Game, set, match!!

The man basically conceded defeat and descended to the street-fight equivalent of saying “your mama wears army boots.”

My Hindi is nothing to write home about. But even I can tell that Alok’s translations of the posts are excellent. I realize that my writing style is not the simplest as I favor the convoluted sentence too frequently. Yet Alok gets the ideas across. Thank you very much, Alok Kumar. Your work is much appreciated.

I asked him why he is taking the trouble. He said that he was doing his bit to add to the Hindi content on the web. The more Hindi content on the web –> more Hindi readers on the web –> more Hindi content on the web –> . . . and so on.

So dear readers, please spread the word about Alok’s translation of this blog.

This is a public service announcement. If you can avoid it, don’t give business to such a third-rate company such as Tata Indicom. I don’t have a choice because Tata Indicom is the only service provider where I live. This is what you get when you live in a socialist economy.

And this is a public message to Mr Ratan Tata: Tata Indicom is a third-rate company and you should be ashamed of the disastrously poor quality of service. I realize that Tata Indicom is another name for VSNL, a public sector corporation. Calling it Tata Indicom does not illuminate the Tata name. Please, if you have any regard for the name, get your act together and have someone provide some service. Else, get out of the business of ISP. Your ancestors must be spinning in their graves. To put it very mildly, Tata Indicom sucks chrome off the bumpers of trucks parked 400 yards away.

This message will be posted whenever the service — that I paid for but is not delivered — is resumed.

Consider yourself warned. FF 3 sucks.

Don’t you think that the cover is absolutely brilliant? Smashup job, Nitin!

Download your copy here.

CONTENTS:

PERSPECTIVE

The New Jihadis
Local manifestations of a global pattern
Nitin Pai

Getting human rights right
Are human rights activists playing into the hands of

terrorists?
Sandeep Balakrishna, Salil Tripathi & Rohit Pradhan

Towards a cultural liberalism
Governments must stop siding with intolerant mobs
Jayakrishnan Nair

FILTER

A survey of think-tanks
Feline counter-terrorism; Measuring up against international human rights standards; On what makes foreign policy tick; Assessing energy security policies

IN DEPTH

Look before you hop
A discussion on strategic affairs with Stephen P Cohen
Nitin Pai & Aruna Urs

IN PARLIAMENT

A review of Budget Session 2008
Kaushiki Sanyal

ROUNDUP

Where is the financial superhighway?
Two reports later, there is still no movement on reforms
Aadisht Khanna

Improving economic literacy
Effective delivery of public services requires sound public policy education
Mukul G Asher & Amarendu Nandy

A food credit card scheme

How microfinance and the public distribution scheme can work together
Ankit Rawal

BOOKS

History is in the writing
The changing fashions of recording history
Sunil Laxman

The latest issue is on the stands. Click on the image to download (pdf) the current issue of Pragati.

To get a preview of what’s in the issue, read the excerpts at the Pragati site.

Prof Asher’s article on the Gujarat model is a must-read. “Its focus on development, empowerment of individuals, and internal security benefits all communities and income groups, and therefore is inclusive in the correct meaning of the term.”

My take on LK Advani’s speech to FICCI recently (posted previously on this blog) is included in the Roundup section of this issue.

I maintain that it is a always a good sign that people are seriously making an attempt at forming political parties. The marketplace, so to speak, has to expand. With some luck, the good ones will take root and flourish. But the creation of a good party is not just a matter of luck. It has to be the result of some deep thinking. Impassioned calls to “WORK TOGETHER & TAKE ACTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE” by “the literate noble thinkers, bloggers & critics” is a bit premature if the hard thinking has not been done.

I am risk averse and believe that it is better to not do anything than to get all fired up with missionary zeal and rush headlong into doing the wrong thing. To an unfortunate degree, many of our misfortunes are the result of well-meaning people who thought that they were doing the right thing when in fact (and here comes my favorite quote) they were like the monkey who tried to save a fish from drowning by putting it up on a tree. I wish more people would understand the wisdom in the Zen Buddhist admonition: “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

I would like to ask any reformer these questions. Can you convince me that you understand what precisely is wrong with the system and why? Why is what you are proposing to do any different from all the others that have meddled before you and messed up?

One should be able to defend oneself against honest critics. Indeed, one should welcome criticism because that is the way to improve one’s chances of success. It is like product testing which reveals what bits need to be designed better. If the response to criticism is defensive posturing, it is a sign of trouble.

My criticism of the Jago party is that they do not fully appreciate the importance of economic thinking. Setting prices, as I had pointed out earlier, is completely futile. Mr Joseph’s explanation of why Rs 2 is the correct price for electricity is not persuasive. In fact, just that explanation reveals that he did not quite understand what my objection is and why that objection matters.

His claim that Jago party’s knowledge of economics compares favorably to Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav’s could be true. But that still does not mean that the Jago party knows any economics at all. I would conjecture that Mr Yadav’s knowledge of anything at all is a very low bar and any educated high school child can step over it with ease.

My feeling is that Jago party does need to do some serious thinking. In my opinion, any party that holds Arundhati Roy in high regard needs to seriously examine its beliefs and core principles. Perhaps she is a good fiction writer but her grasp of reality is tenuous at best. Any party that even mentions her favorably is more likely to hinder India’s development than to help in any way.

One of the greatest sins that well-meaning but poorly informed reformers commit is that of arrogance. Yes, they want to help the poor. And how they propose to do so? By dictating to them. “Here, you must go to the schools we have built for you, and you must learn what we have decided you should and for how long.” That sort of arrogant attitude characterized Nehruvian socialism and has created most of our present problems.

Mr Joseph writes:

Reserving seats in education – In our manifesto what we say is that: All poor Indians: (i) will get free/subsidized modern day education (ii) Mandatory education upto the 10th Std.

Why “free/subsidized modern day education” (whatever that means) instead of, say, “all poor Indians will get free/subsidized food and healthcare”? What are the trade-offs involved in forcing “the poor” to be educated up to the 10th standard as opposed to making the opportunity available for everyone to become as educated as they wish? To me that seems to be a better option. It is both economically efficient and morally defensible because it gives people a choice to do what they feel is in their interests.

This is an important point that I feel lies at the core of our previous public policy failures: the failure to realize that socialistic paternalism is not a good thing. It is alright to call someone “Chacha” affectionately but the moment that uncle of yours decides what you should do, it is time to tell the Chacha to back off and keeps his hands out of your pockets.

Mr Joseph concludes his comment with

I think our greatest challenge, now is to convince people like Sh. Parijat Garg that it is high time we stop criticizing people who want to do something instead the need of the hour is to pool in our talents together & work in unison under this open platform which we have readied called – “JAGO”.

I respectfully disagree. Critics serve a valuable function. I think that we should call bullshit when appropriate. We should never stop critically evaluating all proposals regardless of who it is and how much “sacrifice” the proposer has made. “You must swallow this because you can hardly imagine how much trouble I went to in making this for you” is barely tolerable when it comes from one’s mother but is not palatable from those whom one does not yet have much reason to trust.

Yes, we have to do something and it is going to be hard. But let us not fool ourselves that figuring out what to do is going to be any easier than the doing. Therein lies the real challenge.

I have two pieces in there. The first is a reprint of an op-ed piece for Mint which I had with Reuben Abraham. The second is a piece I titled “The Age of Profound Ignorance.” I try to make a case why India needs to liberalize its education sector.

I must say that Nitin Pai and the team have done a fine job. I am sure that the Indian policy establishment will find much of value in Pragati. Please feel free to pass it on to the movers and shakers within your circle.

I should add that there is nothing wrong in the fascination of the masses with bread and circuses — they need that and are willing to pay for it. As an economist I have full confidence in markets and individual freedom. If that is what they want, then that is what they shall get.

Sorry for the digression. The point was that Marianne (see her blog L’Independante) wants to hear your story regarding cricket. She writes:

“I am a French journalist, living in Pondichéry. I’m reading your blog every day. A french newspaper asked me to write an article about how indian people are going to live this cricket world cup. I need some testimonies supporters who are doing crazy things to support their team or to see a game. Please, if you know some of them, give me their email. Otherwise, can you put a message on your blog ? It will be so great !”

So there. Write to her at enaultmarianne at yahoo dot fr.

If you want free SMS updates on cricket scores (god alone knows why), just send an SMS “START CRI” to 98453 98453. This free service is provided by MyToday.com. The only cost to you will be the cost of the SMS to start the service. You can stop the service anytime you wish by sending a “STOP CRI” SMS to the same number.

This public service announcement has been made possible by a generous grant from the folks at MyToday.com. And by support from Readers Like You. Thank you.

IEB is brought to you by:

Contributors

* Amit Varma
* Atanu Dey
* Naveen Mandava
* Prashant Kothari
* Reuben Abraham

Contributors – Guests

* Amitabh Arora
* Blue Sky
* Edward Hugh
* Gaurav Sabnis
* Kaushik Banerjee
* MadMan
* Nitin Pai
* Ravikiran Rao
* Salil Tripathi
* Yazad Jal

An advertiser has got their pricing seriously wrong, offering 10 pounds for each person that signs up for their free demo (no credit cards, no payment, no software download, seriously, just name, address, phone number, confirm with emailed log-in). It’s the Easter weekend so they won’t approve anyone else to run the ad, and they’ll almost certainly change their prices come Tuesday. It is also my birthday on Sunday. This sounds like a perfect opportunity to move money from their account to mine, and getting the word out to as many people as possible seems to be the best way to do it.

Always good to help out a friend. Please see his post Urgent Blegging.