The Anna Hazare silliness is depressing. Writing in the Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta has an interesting angle on why there is so much interest in this snake oil.
India's $2 trillion economy means we have to reform faster by R. Jagannathan on FirstPost.
Meera Subramanian has a beautiful story about how Diclofenac, fed to cows, is killing off India's vultures. We're down from 50M vultures to 60k. The consequences are bigger than we think.
Former Sebi member Abraham?s claims under CVC lens by Appu Esthose Suresh in Mint.
China's port in Pakistan?, by Robert D. Kaplan, in Foreign Policy.
The 10 most corrupt Indian politicians.
A promising band: Menwhopause. Listen.
The decline of Asian marriage, in the Economist.
Vinayak Chatterjee on ten projects that matter in India today.
The new draft Microfinance Bill. Back story.
Nirvikar Singh in the Financial Express on the CCI order about NSE.
Think again: War by Joshua S. Goldstein in Foreign Policy.
Hegemony with Chinese characteristics by Aaron L. Friedberg, in the National Interest. Arab Spring, Chinese Winter by James Fallows, in the Atlantic. The South China Sea is the future of conflict by Robert D. Kaplan, in Foreign Policy.
Snake oil, right! How on earth did institutional reform become snake oil? You may not agree with the JLP but snake oil? Really?
ReplyDeleteDeja Vu... how experts fail to see warning signs and miss a crisis.
I agree with Anonymous and more.
ReplyDeleteOn the same page you recommend the Mint story on Abraham's letter to PM; a story that could come out with authentic details only because of teh RTI Act. I hope you have not forgotten Anna's fasts / efforts for passing of and preserving teh RTI Act.
rather than being cynic about the movement (which a lot of learned people seem to be doing)...i wish people view the movement in the same light as they justify or view sharp and volatile movements in stocks, commodities, derivatives, et al.
ReplyDeletethose are merely messengers of demand/supply in future, and maybe so is this movement.
how much and for how long can you struggle to get basic things like a passport, birth certificate, admissions to school/colleges, property registrations, etc.
the protests are only making people talk & discuss & argue about corruption, lokpal bill, etc at the highest level - a level that has been ineffective in offering a good day to day and frictionless life to its ordinary citizens.
now atleast there is a good chance that we will get a reasonably strong lokpal bill...it need not be the same as the Jan Lokpal Bill, but atleast it will be far better than the current draft by GOI.
Yes, Anna Hazare is silly. But, here's what intellectuals like you are missing:
ReplyDeleteDon’t mess with the middle class
You have lost another one of your comrade-in-arms against Anna's "silliness". Pratap Bhanu Mehta's latest article starts like this:
ReplyDelete"The Anna Hazare movement’s singular achievement is to reveal the crisis of parliamentary democracy."
Silly, indeed!