Freedom of speech is high on our minds in India today, with the problem rooted in laws about three fronts: obscenity, defamation and hate speech. While freedom of speech is an essential foundation of democracy, it is closely connected with other dimensions of freedom. Here are some fascinating episodes, in the liberal project of getting to personal freedom.United States, 1644Faramerz Dabholwala in the Guardian: When the Massachusetts settler James Britton fell ill in the winter of 1644, he became gripped by a "fearful horror of ...
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Reportage by Robin Harding and Michael Mackenzie in the Financial Times:The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee predicted low interest rates until late 2014 and set a formal inflation objective of 2 per cent, reflecting chairman Ben Bernanke’s long-held goal of providing greater transparency. The FOMC downgraded its estimate of growth in the coming quarters from “moderate” to “modest” and Mr Bernanke indicated that another monetary boost for the economy – most likely another round of quantitative easing, or QE3 – remained...
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
With the first release of OECD PISA results for India, and with therelease of one more year of Pratham data, there has been an upsurge ininterest in education in India. The following set of materials are auseful reading kit to get a grip of the field.Elementary educationAt the crossroads, in Pragati, 16 February 2012. Education in India at the crossroads, 24 January 2012. Ila Patnaik in the Indian Express, 20 January 2012. ASER 2011 report by Pratham. Article in the Indian Express on this by Rukmini Banerji. Accountability in education...
The debateRoughly one decade ago, there was a strong debate in India abouthow we should tackle the problem of education. There were twoviews:IntensificationOn one side were those who felt that nothing was fundamentally wrong; all that was needed was more money. So we should just continue building more government schools and hiring more civil servants to act as school teachers, and we'll be fine.ReformOn the other side were the reformers, who...
Sunday, 22 January 2012
by Naman Pugalia and Viral Shah.On 22nd December 2011, we purchased petrol worth Rs.100 from an Indian Oil fueling station in Bombay using an ICICI Bank debit card. The receipt suggested that we could have saved a fuel surcharge of 2.5% had we used an Indian Oil Citibank credit card. Upon seeing this message, we asked the cashier at the petrol pump if we would be charged 2.5% over and above the Rs.100 that we paid...
New moves in regulation of debt card payments, 4 July 2012.Transparency in the LPG subsidy, 2 July 2012.Developments on implementation of the GST, by Viral Shah and Ajay Shah, 23 April 2012.An election rally in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, with Naman Pugalia and Ajay Shah, 12 February 2012.A fueling fable: Consumer protection issues in payments, with Naman Pugalia, 23 January 2012.Excitement in electronic payments, 18 January 2011.Interpreting the 4th fastest supercomputer in the world, 19 November 2007.Should IST be broken up into two? Should India...
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
by Jeff Hammer.I was shocked by Lant Pritchett's note on the appalling performance of India's best two states on the international PISA assessment. Actually, I was not really shocked; I didn't expect anything else as I've been listening to Lant for years now. By the same token, I agree with Jishnu Das that we really don't know much about what works in education (other than that good teaching makes a difference) and that our bean-counting of inputs into education may be completely wrong headed. From conversations with him (also over years)...
Sunday, 15 January 2012
I read a beautiful article, a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html">Why software is eating the world by Marc Andreessen. It made me reflect on how the world of computers and networks has evolved over the last 20 years. It is comfortable for us to think that the world has only evolved in incremental ways. But as I look around me, it seems that the hard-driving pace of change on many fronts has added up to fundamental change, to places far away from the comfort zone of people of my vintage./aAll...
A nice pair on UIDAI from the Economist: ahref="http://www.economist.com/node/21542763?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C1-12-2012%7Ceditors_highlights">Themagic number and ahref="http://www.economist.com/node/21542814">Reform by numbers./a/aTrampling on the individual in India: a href="http://www.firstpost.com/india/now-raw-to-snoop-on-you-its-an-orwellian-story-with-indian-twist-159002.html">Akshaya Mishra on Firstpost./aa href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/devangshu-dattacompetent-authorities/458764/">Devangshu Datta in the...
Friday, 13 January 2012
It is a time for deep thinking about what has gone wrong inIndia. Here are a few excellent takes: a href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/01/08222222/THE-UPA-AND-ITS-1970s-MINDSET.html?atype=tp">Anil Padmanabhan in the Mint. /a Ila Patnaik in the a href="http://openlib.org/home/ila/MEDIA/2011/india_story.html">Indian Express and in the a href="http://openlib.org/home/ila/MEDIA/2011/welfare_fe.html">Financial Express. Also see a href="http://openlib.org/home/ila/MEDIA/2011/liberalisation.html">Liberalisation 2.0 by her. ...
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Land ownership in pre-modern IndiaIn India, 50 or 100 years ago, land was a defining feature ofwealth. The stock of land generated a flow of income. The landlesswere low-paid agricultural labour. The landed gentry of rural Indiawere the kings of their heap. They had power, prestige, position,prosperity.In the eyes of many, the initial conditions of high inequality ofland ownership were a key barrier that held India back. It was arguedthat a one-time bout of bloodshed was essential, to expropriate therich, and to transfer land ownership into a more...
Thursday, 5 January 2012
by Lant Pritchett. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill, November 1942The PISA 2009+ results are the end of the beginning. For the last decade there has been a debate. Some argued the levels of learning inside Indian elementary schools (primary and upper primary) are a national scandal and a threat to the future of India's society, polity, and economy. Others appeared to believe that the main, if not only, problem with Indian...
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