Interesting readings

• Developments in India and China on internationalisation.
• Watch Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey on Ila Patnaik's TV show: part 1 and part 2. [also see]
• Anne Sibert on the problems of Iceland being a small country. I would enlarge her comments, and add Dubai or Singapore into the class of countries where the (inadequate) fiscal backstop of a small government leads to somewhat reduced confidence in the international financial centre. And, her last paragraph applies equally to India:

  Many very small countries are islands, and thus isolated. It is more difficult for senior officials to travel to a neighbouring country if they live on a remote island than if they live in Luxembourg. This leads to a danger that policymakers in small and far away locations might become insular in their thinking and that they might not have access to advice that their counterparts abroad might offer. It is thus important that senior officials in out-of-the-way locations make an attempt to attend conferences and other professional gatherings abroad.

  I think staff with greater work experience with economics and economic policy in good countries would do a world of good in improving Indian policy making. Come to think of it, greater exposure to the private sector in India would do a lot of good, particularly for the agencies in India with weak HR practices.

• Jeff Hammer in Indian Express on India's brush with swine flu. And, Ila Patnaik on how to better utilise NREG funds.
• There's been an upsurge of criticism of economics, including sloppy pieces in The Economist. Robert Lucas responds.
• Eswar Prasad in Financial Times on the big opportunity for Manmohan Singh.
• Will India ever be a global aviation hub? by Ansgar Sickert, in The Wall Street Journal.
• The walking class must protest by Vivek Moorthy, in Mint. (Click on the image to see it more clearly).