The unheeded lesson from BR Shenoy

The IIM-Bangalore Professor Vivek Moorthy has written wonderful piece on Professor B R Shenoy in today's FE. Its must read article all. He starts his piece with the below lines:

• "In the aftermath of finance minister Arun Jaitley’s maiden Budget, our policymakers would do well to read and reflect upon the writings and policy recommendations of BR Shenoy (1905-1978). Most readers of this newspaper—or other papers, for that matter—are not likely to have heard of his name. Indeed, the same would apply to economics students and even to many economists in India."

Good read

Forget all this outcry over the epics and ancient India.Modern India seems replete with untold stories. Start there.

No labour pain? Rajasthan clears business blockades to encourage industrial activity, generate jobs

"Yesterday, a office driver told me that there i high level of inflation in India because there is too much loan handouts in the society. When I asked what you mean by too much loan, he said almost for anything there is some or other ways to get loans for upper middle class and middle class community both in urban and rural areas and that is creating higher inflation. Too many people chasing too few goods."

Rajaji said to the governors: “You should not imagine that you are just figureheads and can do nothing… Our prime minister and deputy prime minister do not hold that view. They want you to develop your influence for good and they expect you to find means for achieving it without friction and without prejudice to the march of democracy.”

Swatantra Party and Thiruvalluvar's birthday

Thanks to Seetha for her wonderful article on the case for "The Swatantra Party’s relevance today comes through in Rajaji’s inaugural address to the party, where he warned of the dangers of the state becoming a Leviathan, “menacingly poised against the citizen, interfering with his life at all points...hypnotising the people with slogans that are mistaken for thought and wisdom, a scheme of government in which it is taken for granted that the citizen is ignorant of what is his own interest”. 

Thanks to the great imprinting voice by Shri.Tarun Vijay, who spoke in the upper of the Indian Parliament about the need for learning of southern and other regions languages by northern Indians. The following are from his speech in the parliament on 31st July, 2014:

"The glorious history of all Indian languages is unique and supremely great. We must work to develop feelings of appreciation and respect for each other.

In this regard it is necessary that people from North India be encouraged to learn any one Southern language through a free choice option.

For example the incomparable golden heritage that we have in the form of Tamil should make every Indian proud.

Tolkappiam, ,app 5000 years old. And on a broad spectrum Silappadigaram, Chintamani, Manimekalai, Valayapathi and Gundalakesi are great classics of Tamil literature.

The onus of the greatest classic in Tamizh literature undoubtedly goes to Kambar's Ramayana, the epic poem

One of the greatest works in Tamizh, which is widely preached even to this day, is Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural .

Its imprints are found in various parts of the globe. How many of us know about the global influence and public services of great emperors likeChera, Chola, and Pandya kings ? Only Ashoka and Vikramaditya are not India, unless we have an all encompassing respect for Cholas, Krishnadev Rayas and Pandyas also. Similarly we have great history of Bangla, Malayalam, Telugu and other languages.

I demand observing Thiruvalluvar's birthday as Glorious Indian Languages Day in all parts of the country symbolising respect for all Indian languages and introducing Tamil also in North Indian schools as an optional subject for strengthening national unity. Mr Tarun Vijay ended his special mention with Palamaiyana Tamil Mozhiyar Vananguhiren."

Odd reading

At times in the dynamic world of human interaction it is good to follow a odd reading habit. I say odd with blinking  muse of three different worlds, yes three worlds within us-the society, the economy, and the politics.

I also find more useful and also peaceful to simply read things at lea-nth rather to co-opt to write and argue the same stuffs with different slang in languages.

Here are the recent odd reading:

Most of my last decade was spent working with nuts in govts.....At no point I can bear with good B.............ts as saying there are exceptions.

"eliminating good candidates and enlisting ‘educated’ idiots. If you want proof, please remember that Indian bureaucrats are world famous for being obdurate, arrogant and obsolete."

... there are too many people and too much paper money around.

Politics over new head of ICHR- I tend to agree more with S.Dasgupta than R.Guha.

From Guha's piece: "Contrary to what is sometimes claimed in the press, there are many fine historians in India. From my own generation of scholars, I can strongly recommend — to student and lay reader alike — the work of Upinder Singh on ancient India, of Nayanjot Lahiri on the history of archaeology, of Vijaya Ramaswamy on the bhakti movement, of Sanjay Subrahmanyam on the early history of European expansion, of Chetan Singh on the decline of the Mughal State, of Sumit Guha on the social history of Western India, of Seema Alavi on the social history of medicine, of Niraja Gopal Jayal on the history of citizenship, of Tirthankar Roy on the economic consequences of colonialism, of Mahesh Rangarajan on the history of forests and wildlife, and of A.R. Venkatachalapathy on South Indian cultural history."

From Dasgupta's piece: "as repeated controversies have indicated, history is too serious a business to be left to the “eminent historians”. For the past few decades, India’s awareness of its own past has shrunk on account of the growing insularity of its historians. Judging by the dense and jargon-infested prose, India’s historians are no longer communicating with the wider world but engaging in closed-door conversations. This has to change." 

Rajaji said to the governors: “You should not imagine that you are just figureheads and can do nothing… Our prime minister and deputy prime minister do not hold that view. They want you to develop your influence for good and they expect you to find means for achieving it without friction and without prejudice to the march of democracy.”

Some good reading

How a corrupt Judge continued in the Madras High Court-"Katju’s story, three CJIs were complicit in continuing, confirming and promoting an allegedly corrupt judge"

NGO mania in India: "Between 1993 and 2012, the number of registered associations (NGOs) rose from 15,039 to over 41,844, but through all these years only 54 per cent to 64 per cent filed details of foreign remittances received. In 2011-12, 16,756 had not filed returns. Those that did had receipts climbing from Rs 1,865 crore to Rs 11,548 crore. The principal donors in 2011-12 were from the United States of America, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. "

About 53% of AIIMS graduates actually leave the country, most permanently, and you cannot really point a finger at them

Two stories of my Courtroom

NDA's First Budget 2014

First Thought: Given the conditions of prevailing Indian political economy, the Union Budget for 2014-2015 is a good start for many new thinking of the new government. In many ways, the government has clarified the official focuses and intentions in many sectors particularly in small entrepreneurs development, infrastructure development, energy sector, and so on. The income tax and other tax saving exemptions are very important positive development for millions of people.

Sensible good people agree on all the right directions of the Budget and expose the wrong intentions. On that line here are some good points from the random experts. I do not agree with everyone on all the matters of budgeted issues/challenges.

To start with. Dr Bhalla says the "Budget 2014-15 (but not the long “everything and don’t forget the kitchen sink” speech) is one of the best content budgets of the last two decades." 

PBM says "This budget is a cross between bad elements of UPA 2 and NDA 1; there is no new Modi 1 in sight yet. The budget has no poetry and uncertain plumbing."

Dr.Desai on "the gigantic statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. I am a great admirer of him; I met him for the last time just two months before his death. But a statue of him is of the same order as the elephants erected by Mayavati, only a hundred times more wasteful."

Other useful links:

If you care about global warming, blame Keynes and follow Hayek.

What does socialism do to ethics

Primer in Economics Prospersity

Income inequality of the world is falling in last two decades

Professor Kancha Ilaiah

Recently I happened to listen to Professor Kancha Illaiah. He is a famous dalit scholar in India and has significantly contributed through number of published books and public debate. He is also known for his passion and commitment for pro Mandal movements and Other backward Classes in India. That is it.

Though, i am not a big fan of his view points on many things but yet there are some great insights from his works which we cannot ignore. 

He is the only one who predicted the rising of OBCs political leaders in India and particularly predicted that Mr.Narendra Modi would become Prime Minister candidate of BJP. That is what has happened. See my post in June.

There are many other works by Prof.Kancha. We may not like most of his works but ignoring now will cost us in a big way in future. He is on to different path now and is considerably building the next generation of leftist intellectuals in India. 

Just look at some his books with rather interesting titles:

• Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism
• The State and Repressive Culture
• Why I Am Not A Hindu
• Post Hindu India

Some pondering lines from his works:

"A people who refuse to listen to new questions and learn new answers will perish and not prosper…"

As a south Indian I would take like his views on language. Some of his Asian Age columns are food for thought particularly when we wanted to see the other idea which is not in our focus or attention.

What is more interesting is the following lines of thoughts from Prof.Kancha. I fully agree with him on the following:

• The dalit's main agenda is not reservations. My way of equality is English education. Even if 10% of our children got English education, the intellectual field would have changed. This country would have changed. My hope is education, not reservation — and I emphasise, English education. Read the full interview from here.

Good reading

Responding to the distress in Indian banking

Minor tweaks haven’t worked

Traders not to blame for food inflation

Two suggestions for Ms Irani

Narendra Modi's golden opportunity

Fixing the Indian economy

good reading

New socialism in India

Hazlitt’s Way to Will Power

Let the good times roll

The mainstream remains clueless about F A Hayek in India

the strongest had fenced off plots of land for themselves and forced the weak to acknowledge the right of private property. 

Prof Bibek Debroy on Speculating and hoarding and making them legal by nuuy state

Why more IITs are bad idea for Modi government

Professor Kancha on CM turned PM Modi

Prof.Kancha Ilaiah wrote in 2002 something very interesting about BJP and Modi. Those wise wisdowms become true to the words of Prof. The following are two paras the beginning and the concluding one:

• "NARENDRA MODI'S victory with a two-thirds majority in Gujarat has signalled the emergence of a strong, independent OBC (Other backward Class) leader in the BJP. Earlier, two independent OBC leaders — Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav — had emerged from the fold of socialist politics in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. But that was in the context of the Yadavs emerging as landed gentry with some socio-economic capital.

• There is a lesson here for the secularists and the communists. As Hinduism did not allow Dalits to get into temples they began to move towards Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. If the secularists and the communists do not allow the OBCs to grow in their organisations Mr. Modi will become their national leader and their Prime Ministerial candidate too. And in such a situation, feeble OBC voices like mine will be drowned."

Good reading

Interesting observation by Swapan Dasgupta.

"You could, at a stretch, be permitted the luxury of advocating market economics and criticising India’s socialistic pattern of development. But since the Swatantra Party had gone into voluntary liquidation in 1973, this was an indulgence the socialist Establishment conceded to those whose only expression of organised opposition lay in attending Nani Palkhivala’s annual budget sermons in Bombay and Calcutta."

Why Gujarati Muslims are with Modi

Good reading

Some really good articles have been penned by both friends and others on the new government in Delhi and the power of free market economics: 

India must promote market competition to eradicate social discrimination

Fighting poverty through markets

Seven sins of hubris of UPA government

Article 370: Answers for a friend

Nehru death @50th

It has been 50 year after India's first Prime Minister Nehru passed away. Given the kind of economic and social development we had all these years after his death, it is completely fair point to say that not much has been done to the masses of this vast country. For All wrong reasons he has been given due credit always. Here are some reading which appeared in today's print media about Nehru's good and bad things: I am too young to accept his good things, so i take mostly his bad things first!

"Nehru could have done better with the realism of Patel as well as the free market instincts of C. Rajagopalachari by his side, but the former died too early while the latter drifted off towards lonely dissent."

"The Nehruvian state, in this domain, had become, “maximum arbitrariness, minimum freedom”. Can creating the republic anew reverse this presumption, towards “maximum freedom, minimum arbitrariness”?"

"Even in Nehru’s time the system had become what C. Rajago­p­alachari, better known as Rajaji, rightly described as “licence-permit-quota raj” that inevitably bred corruption. This system should have been ended preferably by 1970. Sadly, Indira Gandhi stretched it too long primarily for political, not economic, reasons, as I.G. Patel, economic affairs secretary at that time, has recorded in the case of bank nationalisation."

"But they too could recognise, including stalwarts like Minoo Masani, a socialist of the 1930s who had become one of the founding members of the pro-free enterprise Swatantra Party in 1959 along with the true-blue conservative like C Rajagopalachari, who was close to Nehru before they drifted apart on the question of public sector dominating the economy"

Modi Govt invitation to President of Sri Lanka:

Modi Govt invitation to President of Sri Lanka:

This is something I have been thinking since last week about the PM Modi Govt's invitation to President of Sri Lanka. I would be very happy to know the views of my buddy domain experts like Jeganaathan Jayakumar,   

Being a Tamil, i find, there is nothing wrong in inviting President of Sri Lanka for the oath taking ceremony which just took place in New Delhi today. My main reasons are as follows:

First, people in Tamil Nadu (including politicians, different organisations etc.) along with rest of India has been blaming Sri Lankan President for years for his alleged role in killing of thousands of Tamil people in Sri Lanka. UN took some actions along with USA, what happened, nothing;

Second, time and again, there has been several incidences of arresting or attacking fishermen of Tamil Nadu. In order to stop such things in future there has to be a close coordination at top level, this is a great chance to take further;

Third, simply not talking to a neighbour for too long period is too dangerous and it cannot go on like it was in the past govt at centre. Remember, the unspeakable or poor spineless top leadership in India.

Fifth, believe it or not a new era of leadership is just beginning in our country with a mandate of new kind and new order ever in Indian political history. Why fear so in not talking to our immediate neighbours?

Sixth, this new govt's approach may be different from the past govt. Hence, there could be every possible constructive dialogue between countries and people.

Seventh, Let's do something beyond the blame game of any two nations and that's too without the intervention of third nations like USA or organisations like UN etc. Its time to think beyond the limited possibility of political will which may be conventionally ill defined. But let's define a new one which will take us to longer journey and a truly pragmatic journey with peace and prosperity.

Interesting time, ahead

However, it may be the case for nature to have some or other odd events in the world of Indian economy, but for sure, a very very interesting time is ahead for all of us in India. 

Let's not underestimate a body of man's mind and actions over the nature to do right things in life. Life changes when you change your actions or you simply be in actions, all the time to do right things with one simple tool: commonsense.

The following are some good reading:

The Modi magic: why voters kicked out liberal economics along with cong?

A call to arms: Modi offers window to push liberal agenda by Seetha

• The Swatantra had limited success because the intellectual climate in the sixties and seventies was overwhelmingly leftist. That is no longer the case. 

Salli secularism doses by S.Gurumurthy

PBM's ponderings and musings on history of Indian polity: 

• "The key distinction is between those who wanted a conception of citizenship beyond compulsory identities and those who did not. Many who wanted a united lndia, like Abul Kalam Azad and Gandhi, thought, nevertheless, that India was a collection of distinct communities, which could flourish together. Nehru and Ambedkar wanted to transcend that India. Azad and Muhammad Iqbal may have different implications for the territorial unity of India, but their metaphysics of community identity is more similar. An intellectually underrated figure these days, like Lala Lajpat Rai for example, is actually closer to Nehru and Ambedkar in the way he thinks about finding a conception of citizenship transcending community than his politics would suggest."
• "The compromises of practical politics and opportunism blurred these intellectual lines and created strange bedfellows. This is a heretical thought. But in terms of underlying positions, in any other world, Nehru, Lajpat Rai, M.G. Ranade, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Ambedkar, perhaps even Jinnah, would have been in a similar party: looking for conceptions of citizenship that transcended traditional community affiliations and created space for individual freedom. They happened to disagree on whether you could do it in one diverse nation. Gandhi, Azad, Purushottam Das Tandon, Deendayal Upadhyaya, and perhaps Iqbal, would have been in a similar camp: the modernist project as enacting community identities rather than transcending them."

Modi: India, Indians and its economy

The new idea of India is here. The 2014 Lok Sabha elections have really changed many usual musings of social scientists in India and abroad, of course for the betterment of India and Indians. During the announcements of the elections results its always very interesting to listen people who have bothered to utter something before the elections and now match with the change if their mind and muddles.

Here are the reactions of some liberals in India:

Towards Economic Freedom

Seven Thoughts on Modi’s Mandate

Modi’s moment alone

The dying light of freedom

We are moving beyond the politics of social arithmetic

What has nearly ended is communist politics. The Left parties managed to obtain only 10 seats, half their 2009 number, and ended their masquerade as a national party.

Congressmen such as Gokhale, Gandhi, Nehru and Patel took the party (and country) beyond sectarian divides

Some interesting reading

It is very interesting to see that the China seems to be moving on right track...:

• "...an affirmation of the Chinese leadership’s long-term goals: maximize national interests by augmenting economic benefits and engage distant lands in far-flung shores for doing so. This, however, would not mean China introducing political reforms for making its engagement more appealing. While the lines are clearly drawn between economic and political spheres, what is bit baffling is the way the leadership plans to go about in maintaining these distinctions. From an economic and business perspective, it seems prepared to accept the Western institutional and legal approaches in discussing issues related to investment, services, competition and procurement. The Western legal and institutional approaches though are largely shaped by principles underlying democracy, which discourage both political and economic monopolies. China seems to be aiming to achieve one without the other. Whether it will be successful in this unique experiment will be revealed only over time. "

Here is another not so interesting but.....

According to Aiyar Mr.Arvind Kejriwal told the Financial Times:

• “It is only private business which can create wealth and employment in this country. Indians are born entrepreneurs. Yet the government has been acting as an obstacle in everyone’s business. It is so difficult to start and run a business in India unless you pay up money. All these laws and policies need to be simplified, but then the government’s job should be to ensure the laws are followed.” 

What's on your Head?

Yes, the nunny State and the nation of elections are over, yet the fever created by the nunny state is still with us perhaps the new animal would be born on 16th May to govern the beast of government and its apparatus of mechanics. 

By the way, it is interesting to note a study's findings with which I was musing since this morning. My take is this. While we celebrate the Indian elections in the name of democracy, here are some ironies. Out of 83 crore eligible voters in India, only 55.13 crore (66.42%) have voted in the elections. Thus, 27.87 crore (33.58%) eligible voters did not vote. This is huge number! 

Here are some good reading to bite meanwhile:

Accidents of history, and how they might be corrected by Ashok V Desai
The message in the increased voter turnout

More bad news about Indian economics and the new government of hope and hyps

"Unfortunately, many other Indian political parties have also adopted similar autocratic and dynastic structures." 

Indian economist Bibek on what next government should be immediately. 

Also read his other blog Shake out Old LAWs

Professor Gary Becker (1930-2014)

Its really sad that Professor Gary Becker passed away. I say sad because I used to his co-hosted blog regularly for some years until recently. He was 83 year old. He was a kind of revolutionary economist in the 20th century for his works on human capital and so on. 

Hundreds of tributes have been poring around the world to remember him and his works in economics and social sciences which are sort standing truths for ever.

Prof Becker gave the 2010 IEA Hayek Memorial Lecture.

Here are some really interesting tributes and reflections on the Prof Becker's contributions in economics and humanity at large:

• "Together with Milton Friedman, he helped make the University of Chicago the world leader in free-market economics. While Friedman was more famous to the general public, Becker was equally influential, or perhaps even more influential, among professional economists. (Each won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics—Friedman in 1976, Becker in 1992.)" 

• "Inside of economics, too, Becker’s prediction proved prescient. If you get a degree in the subject today, the stuff you learn is pretty much the same as what was being taught before the financial crisis."

• "His work led him to favor school vouchers, a volunteer army, pay for college athletes, legalization of drugs, stiffer criminal sentences and relaxation of minimum-wage laws."

Nearing POST Poll Drama

Elections noises are nearing towards end. The following are really very interesting reading one should read it!

DANGERS OF HERO WORSHIP -- Reading Ambedkar in the time of Modi

Fact Check: Naughty noughty history

Government employees are the biggest challenge for the next PM

Leader or led?(actually simply followed)

what India expects from Modi

Why the number of independent MPs is declining

Generational justice: Target poverty reduction than income inequality

Thomas Piketty’s Improbable Data

Good reading

Piketty’s “Capital,” in a Lot Less than 696 Pages

The Oligarchy Fallacy

Hard-wired to extinction

Former CACP Chairman Dr. Ashok Gulati on ariculture growth in Gujarat in the 1990s and in 2000s

Why Modi's selfie campaign is not picture-perfect

Writings on the wall: Navi Calcutta

This anti-Modi battle cry is lazy, illiberal and an affrontto Muslims — and to Hindus.

The dangerous disconnect

Just name calling and fooling time and again

The secret election-day diary of a Lutyen’s Delhi liberal

Its ALL about elections in India

The election time is here and running up quiet fast. Bad time to read good things about anything under the sun. Everybody lies about anything but future of polity and politics. The citizen is once again fooled by all kinds of promises about material and non-material things in society. Not matter, its all about groups in which you favour.

Big storms are here and there for all kinds of political reasons. Here are some strange readings about India and its economy-policy, polity and people.

I have waited long to read Dr.Sanjay Baru's book on Manmohan Singh. Here are first excerpts from the book. Its must read for all Indians.

Amit Verma writes about Indian polity and politics over election fever.

• "There are two factors that shape politics in India. One is the nature and structure of government. Ours is far more powerful than it should be, with an excess of discretionary power over the common man. We are worse off under our government, regardless of which party is in charge, than we were under the British. Our government is effectively set up not to serve us, but to rule us — and to extract hafta. Think of political parties as rival mafia gangs fighting for the right to loot us for five years."

Shanu has good piece in the DNA on Sanjay Baru's book on Prime Minister Singh.

Whatever you say wrong about Gujarat. It is the top state with higher level of economic freedom which means more chances to produce wealth and prosperity for the people.

India "move towards a centrist politics"

Some useful reading:

"India is definitely ahead of Europe in how so many diverse cultural, linguistic and even religious communities have all kept together in a federal political system. Look at Europe — it has become more and more divided into countries. Within several countries that are much smaller than India, deep and violent divisions persist. Ireland is one example...

But I must add that one dangerous phenomenon has emerged — post-election alliances. What should happen is that parties get together before an election, declare some kind of common programme and then face the electorate. Instead, I see parties openly declaring that they will enter into alliances after the results are out. This is not fair to the voters and leads to problems in the political system. " More here.

The quality of governance matters, not 10-year averages.

 the Praetorian guards of the “idea of India”

No political party can hope to win even a municipal election in India by relying on the votes of rich Indians. 

Socialist parties have had the enduring slogan of Bharat verses India. Leaders and intellectuals have argued that cities are colonising the countryside and creating a conflict between villages and cities. 

Must read

Swatantra's Real - AAP's Fly by Night Politics

"Independent politicians like Masani, who did not believe in the socialist route taken by Nehru, rallied around Rajagopalachari. In the General Election of 1962, within three years of its formation, the Swatantra Party won 22 Lok Sabha seats. The next election in 1967 was its highpoint. It got 44 Lok Sabha seats and was the largest opposition party. It got 9.6 per cent of all votes polled and won 256 assembly seats in various states. And then, just as abruptly, by the polls of 1971, it slipped to eight Lok Sabha seats with just 3.1 per cent of votes polled. By 1974, the main party had ceased to exist." More here.

"The Swantantra Party had become the more legitimate voice of the free market...A decade ago, Mr. Vajpayee’s free market policies were staunchly opposed by Sangh affiliates such as the Swadeshi Jagran Manch. Mr. Modi managed to banish them all from Gujarat, making it a middle class utopia. The anti-capitalist strand in the Hindu right that repelled the modernising, pro-market middle class is now invisible and inaudible." More here.

How the UPA government made mess of India's economy

Raising the minimum wage is a formula for causing unemployment among the least-skilled members of society. 

How not to stop Modi

The impending demise of the Left....on May 16, do not forget to note history in the making, with the Left seats in the low teens if not at a single-digit level.

Chinese president Mr.Xi says "Constitutional monarchy, imperial restoration, parliamentarism, a multi-party system and a presidential system, we considered them, tried them, but none worked,"

"Indian society internalised the Victorian critique"

Interesting reading

The 80 year old Economic Freedom lover S.V Raju shares many things on the birth and death of Swatantra Party (SP) in India. SP was the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha in 1967 with 44 MPs. It won about 256 assembly seats in various States. The party ruled in states like Gujarat and Rajasthan. The article also talks about other old men who were with SP and now with NCP, etc (Open Magazine page:42-44, April 7,2014).

" if reservations are to be expanded, political parties should begin with quotas in their own leadership."

An unconventional take on the Partition

"There is right now no shortage of ideological grandstanding but little analytical insight on inequality in India" "....inequality came down during the socialist planning era while it began to increase after liberalization"

Free the market in Indian agriculture sector

Very insightful thoughts from Ashok Gulati. Many interesting things he shares with BS. I did met him in one of the conference in Delhi recently. Inf act, he had shared most the following things in that talk he gave:

• "export controls is one way of taxing the peasantry by suppressing prices"
• “The problem is the government is trying to achieve equity through price policy and not using income policy, so you have massive misallocations. This is how Soviet Russia collapsed. We need to get out of this socialist mindset and allow markets to function,”
• “This is the area where the second Green Revolution is supposed to happen. It was a bumper year, but you had export controls so you didn’t allow foodgrain to go out, you restrict the private sector domestically, plus you are not procuring. So the market collapsed for farmers in Bihar. Yet you are procuring from Punjab, which earns Rs 4,000 crore extra by charging a tax of 14.5%, what the heck!”
• “He said, ‘Tumne saare desh ka theka le rakha hai? [are you responsible for the whole country?] The government has made you a chairman. Enjoy life’.”
• He found Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar “progressive, more market oriented than other ministers and with a broad vision.”
• “Well, the food minister wanted to protect consumers, the agriculture minister the farmer. Each ministry works in a silo, so, really, it is for the prime minister to take a call. That’s when you need a leader.”
• “Vajpayee didn’t say much but he listened. Once, there was a discussion on deficit financing and Montek talked about how we need to disinvest in Maruti, Ashoka Hotel and so on. Vajpayee’s response was, ‘Bawaal khada ho jayega’ [it will become a problematic issue]. Yet, 15 days later, that’s exactly what the government announced. That’s leadership.” 

Rajaji, Jaswant Singh and Jan Sangh/BJP

Apart from one wing of the Swatantra Party that lived and died with the privy purses, 

K.K.Pathak says:

"I am somewhat surprised to note Jaswant’s unique understanding of Rajaji’s views and opinions as exhibited by him in his charming explanations of them in true national interest."

"C.Rajagopalchari wanted to unite the Opposition before the 1971 elections. Prof. N. G. Ranga, the then Chairman of the erstwhile Swatantra Party, was hobnobbing with the RSS, he even addressed its annual rally. He wanted a merger of the Jan Sangh and the Swatantra Party. C. Rajgopalchari was much influenced by Ranga in favour of a merger between the two parties. M.R. Masani was General Secretary of the Swatantra Party and was against Ranga’s move. Rajaji asked me what I thought of the proposal made by Ranga. I quite remember my remark: For God’s sake let’s do nothing to pollute the sanity of the Swatantra Party with the fanaticism of the Jan Sangh. When Masani came to know about my opinion he congratulated me for speaking the truth without mincing words. Today I feel I was right and Ranga was wrong in pleading the cause of merger. Nothing has changed over these four decades after I gave my opinion to C.Rajagopalchari in response when he asked me to unlock my heart." Read the interesting story from here.

Must read!

For me, T.C.A Srinivasa Raghavan is one of very interesting writer as far as the economics is concerned. He is also writes so excitingly about the political economics of India. I have been reading his articles for about a decade. However, I must confess that he writes so well and interesting topics only when he is with BS. His other works in newspapers like BL etc. were pretty bad and the reasons are know to any regular reader of The Hindu group. Infact, T.C.A wrote some very critically interesting articles on Indian political economy during the period 2004-2009 but for that he paid huge price in the next few years! 

Here are some interesting articles by T.C.A in the BS:

• India's 20-year itch-Indian politics has been subject to a roughly 20-year cycle for the last 100 years
• Economics' smileys-Kitabkhana
• Lost in translation
• Silence can be useful, too

"India’s self-styled liberals have sprinted ahead of them"

Very moving lines to ponder over it for months to come before and aftermath of coming general elections in India:

• India’s self-styled liberals have sprinted ahead of them. Seduced by the intellectual and financial patronage enjoyed under Congress dispensations, they have come to believe in their own unsubstantiated innuendoes against Modi as incontestable truths. They could neither hear, see nor smell anything wrong with the Congress in the past. Now the courtesy has been extended to the AAP despite evidence staring them in their faces.
• Between cussed, old and yet ambitious politicians and pseudo-intellectuals, they have succeeded in reducing India into a socially dysfunctional economic rump.
• If they succeed in stopping Modi from becoming prime minister after these elections, they will complete the task of making India an irrecoverable economic basket case. Restoring trust in the country’s leaders and institutions will be a lost cause forever if, even at this juncture, personal interests trump national interest.

B.R. Ambedkar, the greatest economist India never had

Whenever I hear about anything on to B.R.Ambedkar- bear with me- I only think of him as a greatest economist India never had at least so far. Of course, I am not overestimating him as an economist. All I am trying to say is that let's give him due credit to him for what he had achieved by giving wonderful original economic ideas in the field of economics which become dominant factor in the second half of last century. Its, strange that none has bothered to look at his many books and scholarly articles published in professional journals on economics. 

As far as the people are concerned virtually all are passionate about Ambedkar's contributions in the field of politics, social development, constitutional morality, etc. Out of all these, the one which comes to public attention and occasionally the attentions of authors and experts is the issue of Caste on which Ambedkar made some extremely controversial arguments. 

Remember, Ambedkar was neither a Marxist nor socialist. At the age of 45, Ambedkar wrote this text purely for a lecture to be delivered at Lahore but it was not delivered due to its controversial content. His work on Annihilation of Caste is the book which has been revisited by none other than the Marxist and socialist.

Arundhati Roy has written an introduction to the new edition titled Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition B.R. Ambedkar with ‘The Doctor and the Saint’ . The Caravan has published her introduction almost in full version. On the whole, she merely takes Ambedkar's thinking into a wild argument of why people have not taken serious about the Ambedkar's work as compared to M.K Gandhi. Of course, she try to give some idea of the role of castes in India in today's context.

In the early part of introduction Roy writes and rightly so that "Ambedkar was a prolific writer. Unfortunately his work, unlike the writings of Gandhi, Nehru or Vivekananda, does not shine out at you from the shelves of libraries and bookshops." This is something I quite agree with her as a matter of fact. That is all I can agree with her!

M.K.Gandhi vehemently criticized Ambedkar's work by saying its a big challenge to the Hinduism. Ambedkar replied to it with much muse in it.

One of Ambedkar's half-truth-full follower revisited his text and had written about recently in a English magazine. Nothing new in it.

Here you can see the range of people commenting on Ambedkar's revisited work. Why don't we have such similar authors/experts to comment on his economic writings?

The Hindu also carried Roy's shorter version of the introduction. Also another shorter version in the outlook. She also has some long interview with the Outlook magazine. Somehow I did not liked the interview and the kind of words she used.