End of 2007 reading

• Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar on the rupee appreciation.
• I completely agree with his focus on creative destruction. While on that subject, look at this piece on letter writers by Anand Giridharadas and this older piece by Ila Patnaik on the STD PCO.
• I'm not too sympathetic on the difficulties of economic reforms. Leadership is all about pulling off fundamental reforms even when holding a weak hand of cards. Arvind Panagariya's article on the telecom reforms that have made all the difference is a reminder of how far-reaching transformative change - the "first-best reforms" that are generally dismissed by the wise and cynical - gets done by a good leadership even when the odds are against it.
• In 1998, I had written an article about two great investment strategies. Here's another great investment strategy (irony alert) - an article by Dean P. Foster and H. Peyton Young. While on this subject, you might like to read this old speech by Raghuram Rajan.
• Ila Patnaik reminds us that if you insist on pegging the exchange rate, the best strategy is to give up monetary policy autonomy.
• The operating system that stole Christmas by Aaron Edlin of U C Berkeley.
• Ashok Desai tries to understand Narendra Modi.
• Ruchir Joshi's Manifesto of Freedom.
• The Washington Post has a story by Glenn Kessler saying that India has stopped selling arms to Burma. The difficulty lies in the extent to which the Burmese army would then deepen their embrace of China.
• Joschka Fischer has an article saying that NATO should take the Afghanistan problem head-on. Fischer was foreign minister and vice chancellor of Germany 1998-2005, and led the Green Party for 20 years.
• Imagine no boundaries. In these gloomy days, let us all dream that South Asia can become like Europe in the withering away of boundaries.