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