HOT TOPICS

SPOTLIGHT AGENCIES

Posts : liberalisation

FDI in retail for Karnataka - I say NO! Can wait.

silkboard - 28-NOV-2011

Retail, FDI - don't stop reading here please, its not as geeky a topic as it sounds. Lets talk our state for a moment. Refer TimesofIndia Bangalore, page 15, "Karnataka industry mostly supports FDI in retail". Refer this, a quote by Mr J Casta:

Illiberal India

murali772 - 14-NOV-2011

Elite journals like Economic and Political Weekly are full of articles describing Indian economic policy as neo-liberal. This might lead readers to think that India has become a haven of economic freedom, a business paradise. Anybody who has actually tried to start and run a business will tell you this is a pack of lies, but the fiction continues unabated.  

Agricultural liberalization need of the hour

murali772 - 1-NOV-2010

The following are the excerpts (for a quick reading) from an excellent essay by Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, on the subject. The full essay can be accessed from the attached document.

Where is India headed ?

Naveen - 2-AUG-2010

China has now surpassed Japan as the No.2 economy in the world - India, whose economy was 80% of China's in 1990, is now a mere 25% of China's.

Right to response in English

murali772 - 17-MAY-2010

From over a year now, the responses from GoK officials to queries under RTI, are being made out only in Kannada, even when raised in English, and even when specifically requested to respond in English.

Now, though I can speak Kannada fairly fluently; I can't read or write the language (Questions as to why people like me haven't bothered to learn to read and write the language can be the subject of another blog; but, please do not bring it up here). However, even true-blue Kannadiga's, to whom I have been referring these official responses, have been having difficulty figuring out the specific nuances pertaining to the issues involved.

As such, I feel this is a strategy being adopted by the babu's largely to obfuscate and prevaricate on issues. And, it is certainly having its effects - like from over a year, I have not filed a single query, though I used to be quite a regular before.

In the light of all these, on the 1st of this year, I filed a query as under:

Way out of the mining imbroglio

murali772 - 1-DEC-2009

Mining, like defence contracts, is prone to corruption. Extracting resources from the ground does not lend itself to the usual rules of competition. A mine is a natural monopoly and the state, which gives the right to mining, is also a monopoly. The two come together in the backroom and you get crony capitalism. What is the answer?

Learn from past mistakes and move on

murali772 - 19-OCT-2008

The recent convulsions in the international financial markets have provoked an unseemly amount of gloating on the part of many in the developing world. What worries me, though, is the number of people in India who are saying similar things. "See, we were right in opposing all this liberalisation," one told me.