Category: Development

Moving Mountains

Golf, not Chess

Economic growth in a sense, and to a much larger extent economic development, is more akin to a game of golf than a game of chess. In golf, the opponent’s moves matter very little; you may as well play by yourself and later compare scores if needed. In chess, your move depends on how your opponent has moved and how he is likely to respond to your move. In other words, chess is a strategic game while golf is not. All this is very broadly speaking, naturally. I don’t mean to imply that there are no dependencies among economies as they grow; what I mean is that, especially for a large economy like India, how much it produces and how determines how materially prosperous it is and is independent of how other economies are growing. For strictly benchmarking purposes, one can glance over at the neighbors. And if one is smart, one can learn from the experiences of those neighbors. Still, when it comes to economic growth, it is largely the case that you are playing against yourself.

Here I want to glance at India’s large northern neighbor and recently a strategic competitor in the fiercely competitive game for control of scarce resources. China has been moving mountains — quite literally as you will soon note — for quite a few years for growing its economy. From an Indian perspective, it is a chilling reminder that there are no shortcuts to economic growth and that it takes something special in terms of will and perseverance to overcome the ill-effects of flawed economic policies and failed leadership. It is also a story of hope and the indomitable human spirit, a story of almost superhuman striving by mere mortals.
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Dr Frankenstein, I presume

The makers of monsters and their fates are inextricably tied, both in fiction and in real life. Dr Frankenstein’s monster. Dr Faustus. Mrs Gandhi, the elder and Sant Bhindranwale. The CIA and Osama bin Laden. The CIA and the Taleban. Add your own favorite examples.

Dr MM Singh. VP Singh. The monsters created for gaining political power by legislating divisions of the country along caste and religious lines are beginning to have a life of their own.

Soon to be released, the sequel to the hit drama, “August 1947: The First Cut.” New updated imported Gandhi. Bigger bombs. In production, “August 2017: The Final Cut.” Totally new cast, with hundreds of specially recognized castes. Supporting mega roles by ISI in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Islamic terrorists and RDX will blow you away. You can’t miss it. You won’t be able to.

Bihar — Part 2

The more I see of the world, the more convinced I become of two generalizations I have constructed. Generalization #1: different parts of the world display different levels of economic prosperity and development, and with time the differences accumulate thus increasing regional disparities. Generalization #2: basically all humans are the same, and at their core they all have the same innate human abilities, desires and drives. The first generalization in light of the second begs the question: what accounts for the varying degrees of success of various peoples? Why are certain aggregations of people successful while others not?
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Bihar — Part 1

Yesterday’s Empires into Dust

The Buddha’s enlightenment was centered around the realization that the universe is characterized by impermanence (called annicha in Pali) and change, that nothing abides eternally. That event occurred when he was intensely meditating under a tree 2,500 years ago in a grove. That place is known today as Bodh Gaya, a small town in the state of Bihar. There is a certain aptness to the Buddha’s realization about impermanence when one considers Bihar.
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The Importance of Agriculture in GDP

[Repost of a July 2003 article.]

A head’s up from Rajesh Jain on an article Asia Times Online titled Why India’s Economy Lags Behind China’s got me thinking once again about popular misconceptions about development matters. Journalists are particularly susceptible to some of these. An example appears in the article. Continue reading “The Importance of Agriculture in GDP”

RISC Presentation at ISB

Here is the slide set I used at ISB on the 9th of March. The background reading material starts off with “Inclusive Economic Growth.”

https://s3.amazonaws.com:443/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=29302&doc=risc-presentation-at-isb-8961

Hitchens on Free Speech and Monotheism

The matter of the freedom of speech and expression is not just at the heart of economic growth but also of development. I make no apologies about my unconditional and eternal support of free inquiry, speech, and expression. If the exercise of free speech offends someone, then that person belongs to a lower order of existence than that of a human. I have written about the absolute necessity of the freedom of speech. Among the many reasons for my distaste for monotheism is that it prohibits free speech, free expression and free inquiry. By its very nature, monotheism is totalitarian and dictatorial and hence it is anathema to me.
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Fanatics and Development

Hopeless ignorant masses need some sort of refuge. In many materially and culturally impoverished parts of that world, religious fanaticism affords that refuge. Monotheistic intolerant faiths such as Christianity and Islam are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for evoking the fanatical response. Combine a dangerous belief in a homicidal cruel monomaniacal god with general cultural and material poverty, and you have the perfect recipe for generalized murderous violence. Although the advanced industrialized countries are nominally Christian, their general prosperity moderates their belief in the monotheistic Christian god. But in many parts of the globe, a combination of Islam and material deprivation invariably results in headline grabbing violence.
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India–the Land of Endless Opportunities

Where there be challenges, there be opportunities. That is a mantra well-known to every entrepreneur. That immediately implies that India is truly the Land of Unlimited Opportunities. The challenges have been created by a persistent attachment to a certain way of thinking and doing. As Einstein astutely noted, the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Translating the challenges into opportunities requires a different way of thinking.
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