Elections: Little debate on national issues

The Founder of Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha Mr.Sharad Joshi says: 

• “There is every likelihood that the post-2009 government will last no more than 24 months and that fresh elections will need to be called, at the latest, sometime in 2011.
  
• The Third Front would, of course, like the country to go back to the old days of socialist protectionism. In fact, they are convinced that if India has come off rather lightly from the present crisis it is because of the reservations they made when they were a part of the UPA.
  
• The Congress Party would be embarrassed to talk of ‘return to socialism’ and, at the same time, present Dr Manmohan Singh as their prime ministerial candidate. The party is resorting to gimmickry by shrouding socialist philosophy in its ‘aam aadmi’ philosophy.
  
• This populist thought has its origin in Nobel Laureate Dr Amartya Sen’s exhortations. In the hands of the politicians it can be summarised as: Enticing voters by waving promises of ‘free lunches’ and perks of all kinds at the cost of the state exchequer and using a highly leaky state pipeline to carry the goodies.”
  

Big idea of Indiauncut!

Indiauncut blogger Mr Amit Verma has been ranked in a list of India's 50 Most Powerful People 2009 in Business Week. 

Congratulations Amit!

Long live millions of poor!

A IAS turned economist turned RBI Governor turned nominated Member of Parliament in Indian Raja Sabha (upper house)  Mr Bimal Jalan wrote a piece recently in The Hindu in which he express his concerns on the function of Indian Parliament. 

Some excerpts: 

• “The time allotted to different parties and nominated members is decided in terms of their number as a percentage of the total membership of the House. Nominated members who constitute 4 percent of the total members of Rajya Sabha are entitled to a maximum of only 4 percent of time allotted for debate on any subject. What is even more significant is that their turn comes after all major parties have spoken and the House is virtually empty.
  
• First, the accountability of ministers to parliament has been considerably eroded. We now have coalitions in power with a large number of parties of different sizes. Leaders of different parties can continue in cabinet without any individual or collective responsibility to parliament or, for that matter, Prime Minister. 
  
• Second, in view of anti-defection law, individual members of a party are completely subservient to their party leaders. Interestingly, this law does not apply to small parties which join a government. Thus, there is a built-in incentive for any leader to set up a separate party with even 4 or 5 members. If he or she is the leader of a small party, that person would command a huge premium and would be sought after by dominant parties. Third, the rules of business in parliament can be ignored with impunity without any adverse consequences. Fourth, the overwhelming primacy is given to whatever government wants to be done by parliament, including passage of bills with or without discussion. 
  
•  An immediate priority is to make anti-defection law applicable to all parties which join a government rather than only to members individually. Similarly, changes in business procedures of parliament are required to improve the speaking order and minimum time allotted to individual members who wish to participate in debates. Under no circumstances should a legislative bill be passed without discussion and actual voting. Another priority area for reform is the internal democratization of political parties. 
  
• Let me end with a quote from a note handed over to me by a Member of Parliament who was a distinguished member of a political party: 
  
• “You made an excellent speech and a lot of us totally agree with you. The Anti-Defection Amendment has curbed the consciences of MPs. We have to follow party whips even if we do not agree as in this case of the Offices of Profit Bill. Congratulations.” 
  
• I am, of course, grateful for the above generous remarks. However, it is equally disheartening to note that even if that member were a great “celebrity” and a recognised genius, she would not have been able to express her views. 
  
• It would benefit citizens, if in addition to counting questions and attendance of members in parliament, public-spirited organisations and media were to highlight the urgent need for political reforms to make the working of India’s democratic institutions less oligarchic and more people-oriented.” 
  

We had peoples President, now we have peoples car but we do not know where is our people’s parliament?

Imbalance is the balance: real vs money and balance of payment

Kaushik Das has good piece in today’s Mint emphasizing the real sector and money growth but what will never happen is what he is also concerned about it. He says in an economy the “...M3 growth should equal nominal gross domestic growth (GDP) growth (ex ante Real GDP growth plus ex ante inflation) after factoring in the income elasticity of demand for M3 growth”.  

The same logic goes with the countries balance of payment which is not balanced.

Not a single party leader was ready to make that promise

In a interview with Rediff Mr Jayparakash Narayan President of Lok Satta Party says: 

• In what way Lok Satta is different from the other political parties? 
  
• The conventional parties are trying to make the people a beggar by offering free things like free TV, free rice and free electricity. Instead of seriously making efforts to eradicate poverty and enabling the people to stand on their own feet with dignity, they want to reduce them to beggary. They have made politics a business. They buy voters with money and liquor and on coming to power they make ten times more money. They eat the public money and remaining they would use for distributing free TV, free rice and electricity. Divide and rule remains their political philosophy. They divide people in to Hindus, Muslims, in the name of region and castes. 
  
• What is your agenda? 
  
• We need do three things on top priority. Eradicate poverty, decentralise the government completely, and third -- bring accountability, transparency and fight against corruption.
  
• Poverty can be eradicated within five years and with the present budget of Rs 1 lakh crore for Andhra Pradesh. For this we need four things, compulsory education for every child irrespective of his/her community, caste and creed, free, in private or government sector, with English and computers. We need to develop skills in the youth to make them employable. We want to build 1,000 small towns across the state at a cost of Rs 30,000 crore generating 50 lakh jobs stimulating the economy. We will provide urban facilities in the rural areas. 
  
• Third, we need free health care to the people as a national policy ranging from preventive cure to the treatment and surgery for any big ailment. We can do it through private-public participation and competition between the service providers. Fourth, in agriculture and traditional occupations like weaving, pottery etc, we will enhance income by upgrading skills, using technology and providing access to the market. 
  
• Will it be same as the Zilla Parishad? 
  
• No. It will be much better than that. The will have more power. It will be a local government at the doorsteps of the people. 
  
• Secondly, we will try to achieve Rs 1000 per capita to every town, village and ward. Suppose if a village has a population of 5000, we will give them Rs 50 lakh per annum to meet the local needs like drinking water roads, drainage, toilets at home and in public places, parks, street lighting. They will have to take care of all these things. It will be only 8% of the total public spending. They will not have to go around begging money for these purposes. 
  
• Take a city like Hyderabad where every ward has a population of 50,000. We will give Rs 5 crore to every such ward which will be spent by a ward committee including a local corporator and a local elected citizen from every polling centre. Thus we will build a local government around the citizen, unlike a centralised, remote, incompetent and corrupt government 
  
• How about corruption? 
  
• We will have zero tolerance for corruption and make Right To Information Act a powerful weapon by implementing it completely and fairly. Once the politics itself is clean, we don't spend Rs 5 crore to get elected. When there will be no vote buying, then you can have clean government. 
  

However, Mr Narayan is silent on how he will get money and where and how much he will tax and so on. Unless he has clarity people will start doubting him and his party. If he wanted to be transparent let us share your plan of tax and how to get resources for funding.

The Great Indian Socialist Darkness Party?

M Govinda Rao has article in BS on “Raja Chelliah: Father of India's tax reforms”. 

As for as I know about Raja Chelliah economics is full of mathematics and econometrics models which the Madras School of Economics produces now. 

He is also one of old socialist group of economists in India. Though in his later life he changed his mind and moved advocating some liberal ideas like tax reform, for instance. 

Where were theses economists when Professor B R Shenoy echoed The Great Indian Socialist Darkness Party?

Fraternity barely heard is the starting point….

Mr Arun Maira has an interesting article in today’s ET which throws interesting questions also. What would be the liberal’s position in election at this point of time? 

However, we must accept what it emerges like “…that they are taking the first steps towards a larger transformation of the country’s political culture and therefore deserve support. Which raises the question: since transformation by this route will be difficult and slow, how else can the Indian professional class influence the course of the country’s politics and development? ” 

Further if we want change lets be “Ideally, those who wish to influence change must participate transparently within the official system — as the ‘professionals’ standing for election in India are. In the 1960s, Minoo Masani appealed to Indian professionals to come forth and join the Swatantra Party. The party fizzled out by the 1980s. Not only because many professionals did not join it, but because its views about economics and society had limited appeal amongst Indian people. 

Two questions about the role of the professionals in politics that were asked to the Swatantra Party’s leaders 50 years ago, remain valid even today. One, are professionals electable? And two, how inclusive is their vision for the country? To get elected, these professionals must convince voters that they understand and represent what the voters want. Very recently Chandrababu Naidu told an industry association that he lost the election in 2004 because he was seen to be too much influenced by professionals — international consultants and CEOs. And that, to get elected this time, he would keep his distance from them and stay much closer to the people.” 

Lastly, I completely hate talking like this “….their voices will be barely heard in Parliament and state assemblies even if they get elected”. After all the change will only happens when the individual change.

Eleemosynarism…….

Liberal scholar Mr Sharad Joshi has a great piece in today’s Business Line against the NREGA titled “Killing the spirit of enterprise”. 

He argues the “blatant ‘eleemosynarism’ – a system of encouraging people to live in expectation of gratuitous assistance rather than by the sweat of the brow and enterprise. And this is much worse than giving cash to a single individual. This is the virtual emasculation of a whole section of society. ”

Conflicts of Indian liberals…with NOTA idea

“Say NO to the “None of the above” idea” says Delhi based liberty institute director. As for as I know many liberals welcome the ‘None of the above’ (NOTA) idea.

Economics, town and untrained economists………

In the morning I read three articles the subject of article vary from financial crisis to urbanization and false theory of economists. 

First, in today’s ET Joseph E. Stiglitz has article in which he says that “Trickle-down economics almost never works” it comes after doing a significant damage which the present academic community fails to understand and give up the theory. 

Second, fight over whether macroeconomics was advanced or not after 1970s. Typically T. C. A. Srinivasa-Raghavan says by quoting Keynes who said in 1931 that “If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists that would be splendid.” 

And “he is also intensely critical of the tendency introduced by engineers-turned-economists to look on the real world as a sort of machine where pressing the right buttons leads to predicable outcomes.”

 In case of India it includes Raghuram Rajan also. 

T. C. A. Srinivasa-Raghavan earlier criticized Raghuram Rajan report on financial sector reform saying “unfortunately, and thanks in a large measure to the data boys, especially those with engineering backgrounds, this has become a generalised problem in macroeconomic analysis and policy wonking. So even though they pour scorn on anecdotal evidence, the data boys have become guilty of the same methodological flaw. They confuse correlation with causality and use induction and deduction inter-changeably.” 

Third, in India many think Bibek Debroy is a liberal economist but some time seem to be a terribly Keynesian economist. He writes in today’s Financial Express “In the long run we are all dead.” Most people know this Keynes quote and most non-economists probably think it is from General Theory (1936). It is actually from A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923), written well before those troubled times. Given these troubled times, the subsequent sentence has relevance for the tribe of economists. “In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”

The liberty triumph!

There is a great event on “Opportunities for Liberalism in India”. Given the present crisis it would be right time to muse about the words like liberty, individual freedom, economic freedom etc because without which human being hardly believe there is life.

Please do attend. I am posting the whole programme below.

 Symposium 

Opportunities for Liberalism in India 

Organised by the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit 

At the occasion of

50 Years Friedrich Naumann – Stiftung für die Freiheit

and

40 Years of Project Work in India

New Delhi, 27 September 2008

 Venue:

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)

Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi 110001

 The cornerstones of a vibrant democracy need a constant screening, because democracy is always in danger of slowly declining unnoticed. Central to democracy is the trust in individual freedom and responsibility. There is no freedom without rule of law, economic freedom, peaceful resolution of conflicts and equality of opportunities. These are also the core liberal values.

 How much freedom of speech and thought is ensured to the citizens of India, considering the current threats to religious minorities in many place of the country? How does the Indian state try to resolve its many violent conflicts, for instance the most serious one with the Naxalites? How does the state tackle the threat of terrorism? What is left of the licence and inspector raj in India, which affects growth rates and millions of people’s jobs?

 We invite you to have a closer look at “Opportunities for Liberalism in India” and be part of the discussions with distinguished speakers such as Soli J. Sorabjee, B. G. Verghese, the German Ambassador H. E. Bernd Mützelburg, Prof. Bibek Debroy, Arun Jaitley, MP, Sharad Joshi, MP, and John Lord Alderdice, MP (Britain), and President of Liberal International.

 Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF) is the German foundation for liberal politics and the only liberal organisation if its kind world-wide. We lend our expertise for endeavours to strengthen freedom, democracy, market economy and the rule of law. The symposium commemorates 40 years of our partnership with Indian civil society actors.

 Programme: 27 September 2008 

 09.00 Registration

 09.45 Inaugural Session

 Chair: Ajoy BAGCHI, Indian Liberal Group, Delhi; Executive Director, Peoples’ Commission on Environment and Development of India (PCEDI)

Welcome Address: Dr. René KLAFF, Regional Director South Asia, FNF

• Lord John ALDERDICE, President, Liberal International
• Soli SORABJEE, Former Attorney General of India
• H. E. Bernd MÜTZELBURG, Ambassador, Federal Republic of Germany

11.00 Tea Break

11.30 Liberal Values: Dissent and Democracy

 Chair: George VERGHESE, Senior Journalist

 Speakers:

• Soli SORABJEE, Former Attorney General of India
• Father Cedric PRAKASH, SJ, Director of Prashant (Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace), Ahmedabad
• Dr. Jayaprakash NARAYAN, President Lok Satta Party, Hyderabad
• Tempa TSERIN G, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi

13.00 Lunch

 14.00 Economic Liberalisation: Ethics and Markets

 Chair: D.N .PATODIA, Industrialist 

Speakers:

• Sharad JOSHI, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, President Swatantra Bharat Paksh
• Gurcharan DAS, Author and former CEO
• Bibek DEBROY, Professor, Centre for Policy Research

15.30 Break

 16.00 Liberalism and Conflict Resolution: Political Confrontations inIndia

 Chair: Lord John ALDERDICE, President, Liberal International Speakers:

• Barun MITRA, President, Liberty Institute, New Delhi
• Sundeep WASLEKAR, President, Strategic Foresight Group, Mumbai
• Arun JAITLEY, Member of Parliament, General Secretary, BJP
• Sudeep CHAKRAVARTI, Author

17.30 Closing Remarks

• Dr. René KLAFF, Regional Director South Asia, FN St
• S.V.RAJU, National Co-ordinator, Indian Liberal Group, Mumbai

18.00 Reception 

FNF Contact person:

Dr. Mohan Panda

Mohan.Panda@fnst.org

Telephone: 0091 9818499296

http://www.indefenceofliberty.org/story.aspx?id=1975&pubid=1766

 

 

 

Indian Liberals Let’s Come by Chandra

Here is article which call for Indian liberals to UNIT to fight for free society. But it has its own anomaly! I mean the below line.

"Yet, despite the presence of a liberal party on the political landscape, it's still too early to sound the death knell for big government in India".

Read it full article here