2019 Economics Nobel for Economics of World Poverty

After 21 years of first Economics Nobel Prize won by Indian born economist Prof Amartya Sen in 1998, this year, again Indian born economist and researcher Dr Abhijit V Banerjee won Economics Nobel prize along with his fellow economists Michael Kremer and Esther Duflo.

It is also interesting to see that both Banerjee and Duflo has came out a interesting book titled Good Economics or Hard Times

While it is both delight and slight disappointment on the prize for the works awarded. Nevertheless, the larger message from their experimental research about poverty reduction or eradication made significant elaborated debate in mainstream academia and researchers. 

The following are some of the interesting reactions on the Economics Nobel Prize from Indian media and public:

What the Nobel says about economics

We need many more women in the field of economics

Economics Nobel goes to a cook

Sorry Abhijit Banerjee, high taxes and freebies don’t create egalitarian utopia

And the Nobel Prize goes to… experimental economics

The much talked-about randomised controlled trials are more sinned against than sinning

Making sense of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics

China......there is much that RCTs and contemporary development economics have missed. 

There is nothing wrong with providing a little extra understanding, on the margins. But RCTs don't easily handle the big questions.

The limitations of Abhijit Banerjee's methods

The great liberal VS Srinivasa Sastri (1869-1946): Silver Tongue Of India

                                           VS Srinivasa Sastri in 1921

While India is already in the celebration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on October 2 and it forgets some of the equally important sons of this soil who had also contributed to freedom struggles.

In the 21st century, we need more people like Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri not Gandhi!

We have many Gandhis in our everyday walk of life protesting, hunger strike, etc. But there is hardly anyone promoting constitutional methods of fighting the government's injustice done to people, environment, etc.

I am referring the great classical liberal VS Srinivasa Sastri whose 150th birth anniversary was on last Sunday. Gandhi called him as elder brother.

"Sastri was a leading statesman during the Indian independence movement"

Sastri was born ten days before Gandhi on 22nd September, 1869 at a village called Valangaiman in Kumbakonam Town in Tamil Nadu. Unlike Gandhi, Sastri was born to a poor family and rose to school teacher and later Headmaster. 

After 17 years of teaching at various schools in Tamil Nadu, he become close associate of Gopala Krishna Gokhale in 1907 as part of Servants of India Society which was working for attaining freedom from British Empire.

Gokhale passed away in 1915 and Sastri was made as President of Servants of India Society. Sastri joined Indian National Congress in 1908 and left the party in 1922 due to differences on measures for attaining freedom from British. 

In a major reforms methods differences erupted in 1918, Sastri formed National Liberal Federation of India or Liberal Party in 1919 to fight for independence through constitutional methods which was followed by both MG Ranade and Gokhale. In 1922, Sastri was president of the liberal party.

The other main leaders of Liberal Party was Dinshah Wacha, Surendranath Banarjee, Bhupendranath, Ambica Charan Mazumdar, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Pherozeshah Mehta and M.R.Jayakar. 

Sastri was the true follower of Gokhale and not Gandhi as many would think and give wrong credit. None of Gokhale's core principles are accepted by Gandhi after he arrived from South Africa in 1914.

"in a lecture hall at Stanford, .... the eminent British historian Christopher Bayly speak on the history of liberalism in India. In a section others might well have glazed over, I heard Bayly mention Sastri’s name, clubbing him with other prominent liberals of his time: Hriday Nath Kunzru, Tej Bahadur Sapru, C.Y. Chintamani. Each of them opposed Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement because they believed the only effective opposition to the British government would come from within the constitutional process, that is, with certain deference for the law." More here.

Like Gokhale, Sastri strive from poor family to national figure after leaving the teaching profession. Both had every kind of parallels in their life and contribution to the freedom struggles through constitutional measures rather than revolutionary and direct action methods followed by Tilak etc.

Sastri was known for his masterful use of English oratory skills and diplomatic leadership role in different countries across the Empire. He was even called "The silver-tongued orator".

Sastri helped several poor students for their education. Sastri was Vice Chancellor of Annamalai University between 1935-1940. He faced the first Hindi agitation of students when Rajaji was Premier of Madras Presidency and introduced Hindi as one of the language in all the schools in the Presidency.

The following are some of the most fascinating readings about Sastri's life and contribution to India's Freedom Movements.

V.S.Srinivasa Sastri - A Political Bioigraphy

by

 

Rao, P. Kodanda

SILVER TONGUED SRINIVASA SASTRY by K. Gopalakrishna Murthy

V. S. SRINIVASA SASTRI: Hero as a Gentleman by Dr. D. ANJANEYULU

Letters of Srinivasa Sastri

The Indian Express news report on Sastri passing away

Most of Sastri's works are maintained at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics 

The Right Honorable Sir V S Srinivasa Sastri: Diplomat, Politician, Liberal

Battlingstage fright: Why the urge to perform in public sometimes triumphs over the'butterflies'

A Diplomat, A Speech and A Bomb: Srinivasa Sastriin South Africa

The Challenges of Erode City

I have new article published in The Kathir Times, a online publication. I have never read anyone written the below lines or anything like that in the past. This is something ignored by everybody in the mainstream public debate. And may be conveniently ignored for their vested interests!

"The Dravidian ideology cannot stop the army of labourers who are moving in large numbers since the last two decades from north to south for education and employment opportunities. How people in Tamil Nadu are employing Hindi speaking labourers in industries from the north without even knowing the Hindi language is interesting? Partially, it’s done through bigoted managers, contractors, and modern bonded labourer systems! But it is ironic that some of the Tamils like Hindi speaking labourers but not the Hindi language."

Global Water Crisis and Local Community Antidotes

The Kathir Times has published my new article as titled above, the following are the concluding paras of the article:

"Though, India’s Niti Aayog’s Reports on Water Management has been strongly emphasizing the need for local community-led intervention for rejuvenation of bodies and creating a new one wherever feasible. However, it did not spell out the roadmap for financing and enabling the local community-led organizations across the country.

During the last few years, there have been several community-based interventions for rejuvenation of water bodies in Tamil Nadu which have helped to increase access to water for not just drinking but also for irrigation and other utilities. The efforts of Siruthuli, an NGO working last 16 years in reviving several water bodies in the Coimbatore district. Similarly, the efforts of the Olirum Erodu Foundation and Erodai Trust in Erode district, Environmentalist Foundation of India in Chennai, People’s Forum in Salem, Vettri Trust in Tiruppur and more recently the Olirum Krishnagiri Foundation in Krishnagiri have all done tremendous works to improve the groundwater table.

Moreover, the Madurai based Dhan Foundation has been pioneering the water management systems covering 2000 tanks and104 watersheds across all south Indian states in the last two decades. The community-based approaches are more sustainable for improving access to water for all segments by improving the groundwater table. Further, these models of community-led rejuvenation of water bodies were effectively stakeholders driven involving the local community, farmers, philanthropists and close coordination with government officials. We need to scale up these models across the States and country to effectively implement the water conservation intervention to improve the groundwater tables." 

Why remember Sharad Joshi?

"After meeting Sharad Joshi, my entire view and way of respecting politicians had changed. Because of him, I started understanding leaders, not from their words or speeches, but the impact their thoughts on society." More here.

I had privilege of meeting Shri Sharad Joshi ji for few times in Delhi on different occasions between 2009 and 2014. He shared some of his early thoughts about MK Gandhi and the life span of any committed professionals who aspire to contribute to the society. He gave me a draft article in English which was published in Hindi in Danic Bhaskar.

Many do not know that Shri Joshi ji was an IAS Officer and left the service very early to become farmer! His columns published in The Business Line was must read for many years.

His articles are at here.

MK Gandhi@150

Author Ramachandra Guha has given a long interview with a list of five important books about Mahatma Gandhi's life and works in UK, SA and India. Though, the list of book and the interview is good narrative is good but I would like to add in the list the tiny book based on speeches of Osho who was close friend of Gandhi's eldest Son Harilal Gandhi. Also Osho has spoken about the other side of Gandhi's life and works which is unknown among masses.

I am not against Gandhi's life and works but I am very curies to know his entire life in totality. I am not that person to believe only one side story of any human being living or lived or will be living on this earth. Human life is so complicated with wire of millions things but one need not worry about all of things about a man or a woman.

Certainly, it is very strange to celebrate about one person who was never a benefactor for long march of attaining independence life India's freedom. There are whole lot of others who were equally contributed to the freedom struggles. I mean the entire works of first generation of Indian classical liberals (1850-1915) were ignored in the Independent India. This is the period where Gandhi was not in India fully. The great works of Ranade, Gokhale, Srinivasa Sastri, Tilak, etc.

Oshos views on Gandhi are at 1, 2, 3, 4.

Dharma -Individual social responsibility

Author Gurcharan Das has very interesting article in the Times of India about functions of capitalism and revisit of Corporate Social Responsibility in India. What interest me more is the below para:

"Although two decades have passed since the reforms of 1991, capitalism is still trying to find a comfortable home. Indians still believe that the market mostly helps the rich. They do not distinguish between being pro-market and pro-business. Being pro-market is to believe in competition, which helps keep prices low, raises the quality of products, and serves everyone. Being pro-business is to allow politicians to distort the market through excessive intervention, resulting in ‘crony capitalism’. The result of this confusion is the timidity of reform, excessive number of dysfunctional public sector companies, and a nation that is not performing to potential."

What is Education?

The Kathir Times has published my new article on the Draft New Education Policy, titled "Education For Application of Mind and Skills for Children : Why change in education policy is need of the hour?" 

Two para from the article:

"Moreover, it is imperative that the purpose of teacher-centric syllabus based mainstream education has to develop the application of mind in children which will pave for acquiring competence with skills of logic and reasoning more than just numbers, theories, and history. These trainings are the ultimate real game-changer for children becoming a self- confident to face real-life challenges and core competencies in their chosen profession to stimulate thinking. In other words, true teachers or parents should show the children how to think with the application of mind and not what to think and should never be judgmental about which ways to think. 

Therefore, the proposed draft new education policy would help children to adapt, develop and nurture the application of young minds with skills to become competent enough to face the real-life situations like Self-Awareness, Empathy, Communication, Interpersonal Skills, Decision making, Problem-solving, Creative thinking, Critical thinking, Coping with Emotions, and Coping with Stress. A student who practices any five of these skills continuously would witness significant changes in their life and profession in terms of dealing with personal problems or constructively resolving the professional issues and challenges."

Listening, Learning & Leading

The Vice President of India Shri Venkaiah Naidu recently released a book titled Listening, Learning and Leading on the eve of completing his two years in Office. His speech at book launch function held in Chennai is very interesting. Here are some of the excerpts from his wonderful speech which need to be pondered:

"The Prime Minister Modi ji’s mantra of “Reform Perform and Transform” has given a new impetus to transformational development of our country. These far reaching and path breaking reforms must be further accelerated.  

How effectively are we able to deliver public services like water, sanitation, power, housing, transport, education, health?  
How effectively are we able to provide support to farmers, youth, traders, entrepreneurs and industrialists? 
How efficiently are we building durable, world class infrastructure like road, rail and air connectivity and an eco-system for growth and development?  
How swiftly and sustainably are we creating conditions for inclusive growth and empowerment of people? 

I have been emphasising the urgency to decide certain category of cases that are time bound like the election petitions and criminal cases against sitting MPs and MLAs. 

It has been found that election petitions, criminal cases and disqualification proceedings under anti-defection law are not decided even for the entire term of the legislators defeating the very purpose of these laws.  

I would suggest that we should have special judicial tribunals which will decide the cases within a reasonable time of, let us say six months or at the most one year. I would also suggest we revisit the 10th Schedule of our Constitution, containing anti-defection provisions, to ensure a time bound disposal of such cases and make it more effective by plugging loopholes. 

The procedure for appointment of judges may also have to be revisited and a credible, transparent process instituted which will steer clear of avoidable controversies. While the Judiciary didn’t quite approve of the National Judicial Commission passed by the parliament and the system of collegium has not been without certain drawbacks, the appointment of Judges needs to be done through a process which inspires confidence and credibility.  The procedures must be simplified and the proceedings should be, by and large, conducted in the language understood by common people in a particular state. 

What we need to guard against today is to take all media posts as authentic. We need media literacy and an ability to identify the fake news, biased analysis and material that is intended to promote hatred, division and discontent. 
The media should be a dispassionate watchdog, an honest messenger, a friendly adviser and a wholesome entertainer.  This is the ideal we must aim to achieve. Media should also like other organs of governance be more accountable for the authenticity and objectivity of the content. 

We should focus on the five ‘D’s I have already mentioned: 
‘Discuss, Debate, Decide, Decentralize and Deliver’.  This can transform the quality of our polity. 

And we have an excellent set of circumstances to transform our country. We are a young, aspirational India. An untapped demographic dividend, a fundamentally sound economy that is growing faster than most of the other countries, a pool of front ranking individuals and a strong leadership at all levels.  "

1909-2019: Remember ONE NEW PERSON on Independence Day

Friends,

Yesterday was a important day for all of us. Its our Independence Day!
I have a bit of different take for this year's Independence Day.

Let's pledge each one of us to the truth that our Nation attained freedom because of the tireless life of millions of people who fought for our well being, safety, peace and prosperity. And we should not merely pay homage to only one or two who has been branded mistakenly by many in the contemporary world.

So, my humble request to all of you is to remember at least ONE NEW PERSON whom you never heard till now but he or she would have given their life to our beloved country's independence.

Past one month, I have been reading the works of several people who have done great jobs securing the constitutional methods of approach to attaining freedom from evils regimes in British India.

When I say constitution, do not mistaken me only with B R Ambedkar or the galaxy of people in the drafting committee or panels. He did great works no doubt about it but who else have done equally great works is our duty to remember faithfully that they don't merely pass away from our dutiful memory.

The independent India's intellectuals have done great injustice to many great classical liberal thinkers of first half of twentieth century. These classical liberals were the main freedom fighters unbelievably working closely with British Empire before the hegemony of Gandhi and Nehru period.

Indeed, there is quite striking similarity between the current year 2019 and 1909. For first time, the Indian National Congress was split on major reform policies evolved during 1908-1909 into two groups: main leaders were called extremists vs liberals. This split in major reform policies mindset and the ideology still hunts us in today's contemporary public policy making whether it is Congress or BJP or any other family run State level parties.

So, there is a amount of rational way of bringing reforms and policies through constitutional methods instead of protests, fasts, strikes, blacking public vehicles etc. The constitutional approach to protest for policy reforms was adopted by Dadabhai, Ranade, Gokhale, VS Srinivasa Sastri, Ambedkar, etc. The fasts protests etc were adopted by Tilak, Pal, Rai, Gandhi, Nehru, etc. Is these extremists leaders who captured the mainstream political power by ignoring the voices of the liberals scholars.

But the contributions to freedom struggles by Ranade, Gokhale and Sastri, etc. were completely ignored by every section of the society. I find this as ridiculous to continue for several generations.

The entire gamut of public policy making minds in India since the independence are the second rate category with protests, strikes etc without any differences in political parties.

We need to come out of this crude mind set of wild act without any logical reasoning on subjects. There is great amount of tragedies done through the act of strikes, protests, etc. both morally and psychically in the name of one community or segments of population or particular region.

Therefore, do take few minutes to ask your parents, grandparents, friends etc to remember the freedom fighters in your locality and also try to know some of the forgotten great souls of our freedom movements. 

Jai Hind,
Chandra....

Poems and Books

Great Tamil poet Subramania Bharati wrote: "We will learn both scripture and science We will explore both heavens and oceans We will unravel the mysteries of the moon And we will sweep our streets clean too"

The above poem was quoted by the President of India in his address to the nation on August, 14.


Nobel prize winning scientist Prof. S. CHANDRASEKHAR wrote a poem in 1993  titled "Gods", the poem starts:

"Secularism has only been on our lips.

In its most modem form,

It says not what it does

And does not what it says."

and ends with the following lines

"Man’s collective consciousness

Runs riot when stripped

Of reason, and at journey’s end.

When culture is consumed at religion’s crossroad

In the name and altar of righteousness."

What he says in between are the lines about Gods.

Author Gurcharan Das has listed books which are important to read in some or other ways to recount the India and other narratives. The list is here.

Author and writer Aravindan Neelakandan has listed seven books which will change your views about India's of last seven decades. The list is here.

Some people in India are eager to learn about Nazis, but not about caste oppression in India

The title of this post is from the interview given by new Dalit Scholar Suraj Yengde, i really like what he has expressed ton reservation to resources poor people that is how I would call it the so called SC, ST and OBCs. Particularly, the below two para is really worth to ponder:

"I'm all for abolishing reservations, BUT only after we redistribute sources equally and we ensure equal education for atleast four generations so that they can be on par with the privileged. We also don't want to fight over limited seats. However, the empirical data suggests that very few people who even occupy these seats and often the government is unable to fill up these seats. And I don't really believe it when people say they care for poor Dalits. How many Dalits get any benefits at all? "


"See, people read about Nazis, the Auschwitz campus, Mussolini, Hitler, we invest time and study what happened there. If you're so genuinely interested, why are they not interested in studying what is happening here? The dominant castes need to realise that this is a common project for all and it should be centered in liberating themselves first. They are so interested in liberating us like it is a charitable deed but we busy liberating ourselves. This is where education comes in, the dominant castes should feel ashamed to be sitting on the resources they have and feel bad about not distributing it democratically. They should know they are part of the oppressive clan. They cannot expect a response that is emasculating and comforting. When we have to keep repeating our problems that's when it shows that even liberal people or people with good-intentions are casteists."

Public Policies for Helping The Most Needy

In the run upto 2014 General elections Mr Dean Nelson who is news reporter for The Telegraph quoted me in one of his article about middle class voters in India. He asked my opinion after reading a article - "Defining India's NRMB" which I wrote for RGICS Blog at that time.

"This is an aspiring class which has just come out of poverty and is trying to enter the stable economic class. They are in transition and need help from the government in terms of policies to strengthen their financial position," said an analyst from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies think tank, who asked not to be named.

Eminent Journalist Mr Swapan Dasgupta is also quoted in the article.

The full Telegraph story is here.

Educating children for application of mind and skills

I always believe that abolition of poverty and hunger is possible in long run only by having an education system which imparts or trains young minds of children with application of mind and skills.

The management of mind is quite different from learning particular matters at different age groups for all children.

Many thinkers like S Radhakrishnan, Sri Aurobindo Goshe and Swami Vivekananda have said long before that children needs psychological methods of teaching with their own natural pace of mind growth instead of brutally imposing the contents all the time till adult age.

Dr Kasturirangan who has chaired the Draft New National Education Policy Committee says very rightly that

"But to bring in Dalits everytime… even they may not like being treated like that. I know many people who are doing well in society. They are proud of living as responsible and active members of the society. I use them all the time in my mind to make sure we don’t unnecessarily draw lines. I think today, in a modern India and the way we are looking at people, these [differences] are slowly going to melt. A twenty-year programme like this for a ten-trillion economy – dalits will be enjoying probably the best status in this country with their own intelligence, efforts etc. I think they will be asking for no special concession."

And 

This is very interesting and long overdue in India that

"School teachers are going to build the youth of tomorrow. That requires a deep knowledge of child psychology, child development, questions of comprehension, environment, interfaces with society and parents. So, we think school education teachers should come from higher education institutions. Not by giving a teacher course, but it should be multidisciplinary and across the spectrum. This can come only from higher education institutions."

India's Flawed Skill Development Mission

The title of this post is a new article I have contributed in Deccan Herald on this Monday commenting of the recent Union Government Budget. 

The current Union government budget did not speak about two aspects in details, one is achievements of last five years on skilling youth and the initiative of smart cities for 99 cities. Both have received bare minimum focus, is it because the previous Modi government failed miserably? 

The institutional capacity to expand the skilling of youth has not increased as it was expected when the Vision 2022 was launched in 2015. Moreover, the quality of imparting skills to youth by different training institutions whether it is government run or private run, both were lacking the marketable skills for employ-ability.

We need to set right the institutional governance first and then we need to focus on private sector driven funding for the skilling with mutual interests.