Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Goldman Sachs’ 10-point Reform Package for India

Papers by the Scores

A recent report by Goldman Sachs, Ten Things for India to Achieve its 2050 Potential, makes for interesting reading. Part of a long series of papers, this is Global Economics Paper number 169, and their fourth paper dealing with India and its growth potential.

I found it hard to avoid reading it because more than a dozen people forwarded it to me, some with obvious approval of the content. Here I will briefly review the content of the paper and add some of my own thoughts on what reforms India needs. But first, a general word on these sorts of papers.
Continue reading “Goldman Sachs’ 10-point Reform Package for India”

Commenting Policy Change

Commenting on this blog requires a registration on this site. It is a simple half a minute process, and one gets to choose one’s handle and one’s password. But it was being abused by spammers and I decided to disallow users to register themselves. That means, if one wishes to comment, one has to write to me (atanudey at gmail) and I register you with your chosen username/handle and you can reset the password. Just to make it easier, I also decided that I would have a generic handle, “lurker”, and hoped that when people use that login, they would include at the end of the comment a real name or a persistent handle.

Some have used the “lurker” login and thoughtfully identified themselves. But most are not doing so and this is leading to confusion that I would rather avoid. So I am reluctantly removing the lurker login.

If you wish to comment, please email me and I will send you a login ASAP. Sorry for the trouble.

Failing Government Schools in AP

Government schools in rural AP are losing strength because students are deserting them for private schools, according to this news item. (Hat tip: Ramesh Jagannathan)

People who have the ability to move, vote with their feet. So if they are moving away from free government schools to private schools where they have to pay, it speaks rather loudly to the fact that the government schools are not performing. The tragedy is that these failing government schools continue to be a drain on the public funds.
Continue reading “Failing Government Schools in AP”

Hindi Version of this Blog

Who woulda thunk that! This blog is now being mirrored in Hindi. It’s author is Alok Kumar and is called “Bharat ka Vikas — Atanu Dey“.

My Hindi is nothing to write home about. But even I can tell that Alok’s translations of the posts are excellent. I realize that my writing style is not the simplest as I favor the convoluted sentence too frequently. Yet Alok gets the ideas across. Thank you very much, Alok Kumar. Your work is much appreciated.

I asked him why he is taking the trouble. He said that he was doing his bit to add to the Hindi content on the web. The more Hindi content on the web –> more Hindi readers on the web –> more Hindi content on the web –> . . . and so on.

So dear readers, please spread the word about Alok’s translation of this blog.

Israel signals to Iran

BBC reports that Israel conducted an exercise that amounts to a rehearsal for an attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. It is a strong signal — to all including the US, Europe, and Iran — that it is serious about halting Iran’s nuclear bomb-making ambitions. Good for Israel and good for the world.

All this goes to show that entertaining the idea of building a gas pipeline from Iran to India — via Pakistan, of all places — at the cost of a few billion dollars was silly beyond belief. The Iran-India Pipe Bomb is guaranteed to blow up in India’s face if India makes the mistake of making deals with nations led by lunatics like Ahmedinejad.

Money quote from Thug-in-chief Ahmedinejad:

“We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations. It’s a universal ideology that leads the world to justice. We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world. We must prepare ourselves to rule the world.” [January, 2006]

Dream on, Mr Ahmedinejad, dream on. The Israelis will wake you up soon.

Isn’t it good Norwegians would

An electric car is what we chiefly need. So someone has to do the hard work and develop it. Glad that the Norwegians would. [1].

A story in Business Week talks about an innovative Norwegian company, Think Global, that is producing electric cars that make sense: Continue reading “Isn’t it good Norwegians would”

Tata Indicom Sucks

It’s about half past midnight and I am writing this offline. I just got off the phone with Tata Indicom customer service. I was on the phone for half an hour. At midnight, Tata Indicom terminated my internet connection. I had renewed my subscription three days ago and yet the connection was terminated at midnight. I spent the last half hour on the phone arguing with their customer service people. The facts are clear and agreed to by Tata Indicom. They did receive payment for the renewal of the service three days ago. Yet they terminated my connection.
Continue reading “Tata Indicom Sucks”

Warning: Don’t install Firefox 3

I downloaded and installed Firefox 3 and instantly regretted it. I have been struggling for the last couple of hours to access my Google toolbar bookmarks and it is not working. I even attempted to roll back to Firefox 2 but now even FF 2 does not work.

Consider yourself warned. FF 3 sucks.

Out of Town

I am in Hyderabad for the next three days visiting exciting places and meeting new people. Which means that I will not be writing on this blog for a few days, which is a good thing, wouldn’t you say? I will catch up with you all in a few days.

Mukeshbhai is good

I am a fan of Mukesh Ambani. He is good. I hope he makes a lot of money. Here’s a NY Times write-up about him: Meet Mukesh Ambani — India’s richest man.

. . . (Hat tip: Tarang_72)

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