The Indian Economy Blog

Archive for November, 2005

Highway Robbery by the Government

Friday, November 4th, 2005

Readers might think I am referring to the cases of Natwar Singh’s oil kickbacks, or the Sub-inspector caught accepting bribes on camera. Those cases are foul, and represent how deep corruption has penetrated in the Indian system. But I am talking about an example where the government, officially and legally, is stealing from the people. And in what is a real tragic irony, the victims of this theft are the same farmers whose suicides are used by several parties and “thinkers” to oppose free market policies. Read the following article and you realise that this theft would have been extremely unlikely and difficult under a free market regime. But under this socialist regime, it is literally as easy as signing a piece of paper.

Hunger in India

Friday, November 4th, 2005

According to UN estimates, India has the largest number of hungry people. Over 200 million, or about one-fifth of India’s population, is chronically hungry. This is an apparent paradox in a country which is food-surplus on the aggregate. The Wall Street Journal of June 25th 2004 reported that according to Indian government sources, by [...]

Software - More Than Just An Industry

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005

Richard Celeste and Geoffrey Garrett write:
Skeptics are wont to claim that India’s successes in software are not “scalable,” and cannot be the basis for countrywide development.
But software is not a mere “industry” in the traditional sense of steel or textiles, to focus on two of China’s strong suits. An uber-industry, software is increasingly in everything.
Consider [...]

The Indian Consumer Cometh

Tuesday, November 1st, 2005

Stephen Roach is back from his third trip to India. This time, he’s ga-ga about the Indian consumer and India’s domestic consumption-led growth model. In case you’re wondering why an article by Roach matters, you certainly are underestimating the man’s influence (for better or for worse) among the movers and shakers in finance and industry [...]

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