Trade, Naoroji and Poodbill

"...free trade areas should all be seen as building blocks of a liberal international order that could include and embrace China. China would obviously then have a right to shape that order, alongside Western powers, but its participation would also eventually help to move China domestically towards more openness, pluralism and rule of law, as desired by a growing number of its own people." More here.

"Naoroji, five-thousand miles away in London, only learned of his son’s death through a series of telegrams dispatched from Mandvi and Bombay. One can imagine the sense of shock, loneliness, and utter helplessness he felt after receiving these brief messages, knowing full well how impossible it was to avail of family support and solace in this time of grief. A telegram reading ‘console Dad’ provided the only fragile link with family members back home in Bombay." More here.

Illusion that was called pBill. "Putting aside for a moment the wide-ranging fiscal implications of the Bill, which are clearly negative, it needs to be evaluated under many non-financial criteria. There is a clear distinction between having needs and being needy. It is nobody’s case that the needy should not be protected. But is it fair to artificially pander to well above the majority of the population?"

Why do bad for the nation?

"Some of the issues, such as the right to property, have been on the files for three decades and require examination by a bench of 15 judges."

"Freely available and properly formatted government data could be the second plank towards a “transparent state”. In the 10th Five Year Plan, the government had declared its intention to make publicly available most of its data—but this has not been achieved yet. The idea was that the Indian state should be a “SMART” (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsible, Transparent) one."

"I think when posterity judges this period it will judge it as exactly like the end of 1960s and mid 1970s. Having said that, at least under UPA  1, things got done."

Direct Cash Transfers: What Money Can Buy

Must read

The following articles are really must read one everyone interested in the Idea of India:

Let us debate the idea of India

The story of India’s telecom revolution

Why Prakash Ambedkar’s big ‘casteless’ idea falls fla

India's Growth of the Telecom Sector since 2000

 

Source : TRAI, For more see here

People who matter, not the places

From Reinventing the wheel By William Easterly

• When I worked at the World Bank, management was always checking up on us to make sure our research was relevant for real-world economic development. The standard test question was, "What would your research suggest the finance minister of country X should do?" This question reflected the standard view that has endured since the beginning of development economics six decades ago -- that all countries begin with a blank slate and that development happens when today's government leaders execute wise policies. My job was simply to tell the leaders what those wise policies were.
• Imagine the dismay of my managers if my advice to the finance minister had been, "Make sure your country was well caught up on technology -- 500 years ago." But seemingly irrelevant as that advice might be, it's actually true. If a country had the printing press and the magnetic compass in 1500, it's a pretty safe bet it has a strong national economy today. Ancient history still matters for today's development, providing unique insight into why the lights are still off in the dark corners of the world and what we might do to change that.
• Strangely, history has never figured into the equation when it comes to exploring why some countries prosper and others don't. To understand how it might relate, Diego Comin at Harvard Business School, Erick Gong at the University of California, Berkeley, and I started by compiling a list of 11 ancient technologies that were around in 1000 B.C.: Was there written language? The wheel? Agriculture and iron tools? We drew today's boundaries on the ancient world and assigned each separate technology history to the future country that would form within that territory. Then we expanded the survey to 1500 A.D., looking for the adoption of 24 technologies, including oceangoing ships, paper, printing, firearms, artillery, the magnetic compass, and steel.
• We found that there was a remarkably strong association between countries with the most advanced technology in 1500 and countries with the highest per capita income today. Europe already had steel, printed books, and oceangoing ships then, while large parts of Africa did not yet have writing or the wheel. Britain had all 24 of our sample technologies in 1500. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga had none of them. But technology also travels. North America, Australia, and New Zealand had among the world's most backward technology in 1500; today, they are among the wealthiest regions on Earth, reflecting the principle that it's the people who matter, not the places. As migration has transformed parts of the world that were nearly empty in the Middle Ages, technology has migrated with them.

• So what does this tell us about the prognosis for bringing the world's bottom billion up from poverty? For one, it tells us that we've been doing development wrong. The traditional approach to development was as a top-down process led by great men and benevolent autocrats, advised by great experts. Former World Bank chief economist Stanley Fischer used to joke about a new grammatical tense he called the "World Bank imperative form": Country reports were long lists of things that "must be done" by the authorities, ranging from grandiose infrastructure projects to implementing detailed plans to meet health, nutrition, sanitation, and education needs. But our research shows that development is not about what you dictate, but what you discover. Little penicillin did far more to improve the world's lot than big plans conceived around a conference table.
• The World Bank imperative approach gave us Africa's stagnation, the failure of economic reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, and the disastrous transition from communism to capitalism in the former Soviet Union. These and many other disappointments over the past half-century do not predict a cheery future for the great-men-cum-great-experts approach.
• Most importantly, what the history of technology tells us is that the blank-slate theory is a myth. Top-down development programs simply don't work. In fact, the principal beneficiaries of Western largesse today -- African autocrats and dysfunctional regimes -- are themselves the main obstacles to development. If there's anything that "must be done" to spur future development, it's to create the conditions necessary to empower the ordinary individuals who will create new and unforeseen technologies out of old ones. There's a Thomas Edison born every minute. We just have to help them turn the lights on.

Read the full article here

Waiting List of BSNL in Rajasthan

It is amazing to heard this kind of news from Rajasthan where people are having Waiting list of applicants for WLL, landline etc see below list:

Landline – 536
WLL – 078

No demise of License Raj but Competition is increasing in Telecom!

Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology A. Raja says in Hindu “The existing operators do not want competition. There are four or five operators in all circles. I added another four or five. This will only mean more people will benefit. The reach will be much larger. The new operators will go to the rural and semi-urban areas. I have allowed telecom companies to share towers. Wait and watch rural teledensity grow in the next few years. Then you will say that my actions were right. I am presiding over a silent revolution in the telecom sector.

The total amount collected in 2004-05 by way of licence fee and spectrum charges from all operators was Rs.7,953.13 crore. In 2006-07, this grew to Rs.10,747.42 crore. The next financial year, 2007-08, this more than doubled and stood at Rs.24,381.88 crore. In the first quarter of this year, we have received Rs.4,083.05 crore. In all, from 2004-05 to now — the first quarter of 2008-09 included — we have received a revenue of Rs.55,055.15 crore.”