Interesting readings

An improved version of my blog
post Law
and order: How to go from outrage to action has appeared in
the
latest Pragati: From
outrage to action.

From
the Delhi police: Why women deserve to be raped by Lakshmi
Chaudhry, on Firstpost.

In continuation
of Faulty
tradeoffs in security on this blog, see Bruce Schneier's
review
of Against
security by Harvey Molotch.

Congress
governing somewhat better without Pranab Mukherjee by
Javed Sayed in the Economic Times.

Ila
Patnaik on the deeper significance of FDI in non-tradeable
areas such as the retail trade. And, another piece by her on the importance of unilateral liberalisation by
India towards Indo-Pak trade.

Ila
Patnaik
on Misinvoicing
as a mechanism for capital account activity. And,
another piece
by her worries about the barriers against a next wave of
investment by stressed firms grounded in a stressed financial
system.

Cut
up the RBI by Deepak Shenoy in Pragati.

A major story in India's economic growth in coming years is going
to be the evolution from family-dominated companies to
dispersed-shareholding professionally-managed companies. Writing in
the Business
Standard, Bhupesh
Bhandari tells us about the principal-agent problems that we
have to overcome in this process.

Wanted
-- some policy paralysis in banks by Dipankar Choudhury
in Mint.

The two most important stories of the coming years are going to be
the breakdown of the existing regime in China and in Saudi
Arabia. Hugh
Eakin has a great piece in the New York Review of Books
which helps us think about Saudi
Arabia. Alan
Riley in the New York Times gives us one key piece of
how the next decade will unfold.

This is politically incorrect but worth pondering:
Steven
Dutch argues that the most toxic value system in the world is
made up of: (a) extreme importance of personal status and
sensitivity to insult; (b) acceptance of personal revenge including
retaliatory killing; (c) obsessive male dominance; (d) paranoia over
female sexual infidelity; (e) primacy of family rights over
individual rights. I fear we get a lot of these traits in India.

When
you swallow a grenade by Carl Zimmer, a great article
about antibiotics.

Nick
Wingfield in the New York Times reviews the outcome
after Microsoft launched Windows 8 and a tablet computer named
`Surface'. And, Goldman
Sachs: Windows' true market share is just 20% by Neil
McAllister in the Register. His source
is Janet
I. Tu in the Seattle Times.

David
Pogue has a great collection of the Brightest Ideas of 2012,
in the New York Times.