اخبار 1

Something as obscure as fixing the price of natural gas for drillers can become a hot and loaded debate in India - proof that doing anything, anything at all,  in this country has become so difficult . This is a slightly old story, but draws some important lessons. Firstly the story itself. In March the government raised ( or tried to raise) the price of natural gas it pays to domestic drillers from $ 4.20 per BTU (British Thermal Unit - what a curious measure) to $ 8. India imports gas currently at some $12 , so on the face of this this does not seem too controversial. Yet a huge hullabaloo erupted with big charges of corruption and how the government was selling out to the Ambanis. The then Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal even filed a , constitutionally questionable, police complaint of fraud. The word "scam"; so fondly used by Indians was merrily bandied about. Consequently the policy has been put on hold  - another favourite Indian trait. We love to get stay orders ...

If ever there was  a misleading post title - this is one. But I am feeling mischievous, and since when has journalistic puritanism been required in a blog ! So read on. You may have caught the "news item" with exaggerated headlines which seemed to imply that the French had banned reading emails after 6 PM . The trouble was that they did no such thing.  What they did was a collective bargaining agreement for independent contract workers which insisted that they be given a day off after 7 days and that after 13 hours of work a day they were allowed to "disconnect communication tools".  Nowhere did it say they wouldn't read emails after 6 PM. But the point is that the news item was entirely believable, given the stereotype of the French worker as lazy and prone to long lunches. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The French work as hard as anybody else, at least in the private sector. I worked in a French company for a while - I should know. But the trouble i...

No; not P.Chidambaram , the outgoing Finance Minister of India. The PC I refer to is Political Correctness. I have a healthy disdain for politically correct expressions, usually the pet infatuation of the Left.  But what happened in Mozilla, the company which puts out the Firefox browser, is nothing short of outrageous. What happened was this. Brendon Eich was appointed CEO of Mozilla. Within 10 days he resigned. Or rather was forced to resign. Why ? Because there was a backlash against his contributing $1000 to a campaign in 2008 on a referendum on gay marriage in California . He donated to the campaign that sought to ban gay marriage. The donation was made 6 years ago. The "Mozilla community" objected to a guy who was anti gay marriage being the CEO. So he had to go. This is political correctness at its worst . There is absolutely no merit in sacking him, or if you would like it "creating conditions that led him to resign". Consider the following arguments The mat...

Maybe I should amend the title to "Can all this be sold to the electorate" ?  Well, I am not sure whether this can or cannot be sold (admittedly a difficult task), but I strongly believe it SHOULD be. In a democracy, we elect the form of government we want. However imperfect, it is better , in the long run, than any other alternative. But a sensible democracy is only possible when presented with a choice of ideas - not a choice of personalities as Indian democracy tends to be. Despite the Indian electorate being enamoured of freebies, open to bribery, largely illiterate, etc etc, it is not dumb. It is actually a highly intelligent electorate which maximises personal benefit ( why not ) and decides on the choices presented. It is the fault of the political class that they have not presented a different nature of choice. I believe, its a complete misnomer that subsidies and freebies win elections. They do not. Consider the Congress party's last 5 years. Two major doles - th...

I am not sure what the Tamil Nadu government is. A bootlegger ? A bottomless pit ? A great implementer ? A humane  carer of the unfortunate ? A bunch of eunuchs in the court of a megalomaniac ? All of the above ? Read on. I was tempted to take a one post detour from the economic manifesto for the country as a whole, to shine a spotlight on Tamil Nadu. This was prompted by a comment from myfloatingthoughts asking for an opinion on the freebies and other doles that bedevil this state. When I examined the financial situation of Tamil Nadu, it is a complex nuanced position. A mixture of the good, the bad and the awful. Judge for yourself.                                                                                                        Rs Crores REVENUES State sales taxes                                                                                33,970 Profits and taxes from liquor sales                                                      23,400 State's share of central taxes...

In the previous posts developing the economic manifesto, we had parked the issue of corruption to be discussed separately. We now address the tackling of corruption, arguably one of India's biggest problems and one which is indisputably linked with any economic road map. My first submission is that corruption can never be totally eliminated - for it stems from one of the basic human  vices - greed. We can, and should, control it as much as possible. But elimination is impossible.  Nowhere on earth has corruption been made extinct. The battle against corruption needs to be tackled on three fronts Minimise the chances of corruption by removing the need for government clearances, permits, licenses, etc except for where this is absolutely necessary Transparency and oversight over commercial transactions involving the government A powerful and vigilant independent body that monitors, checks and prosecutes cases of corruption The problem with the Anna Hazare movement is that it exclusive...

After considering the revenue side in the previous post, let us turn our attention to expenditure. This is important, as the pattern of expenditure reflects our priorities and the debate really ought to be on whether the priorities are right or should there be a different set of priorities. Even if you disagree on my classification of "productive" and "non productive" expenditure when I outlined the current state of India's finances, it is obvious to anybody that we should decrease non productive expenditure and increase the productive expenditure. However exactly the opposite has been taking place over the last 30-40 years. There is little doubt in my mind that a correction is required. But the correction should be gradual - any sudden reversal will trigger a revolution on the streets and is impractical. Here are my set of proposals for the expenditure priorities You can do absolutely nothing on the interest line as these are past commitments. However the one t...