If you ever wanted a brief on what the proximate origins of the Islamic terrorism you see around the world are, Juan Cole’s Informed Comment has a must read item called Fisking the “War on Terror.” Go read it.
Abusing Children Teresa Style
On Aug 1st British television carried an investigative piece by Donal McIntyre about the treatment of children in an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. He quotes Dr Aroup Chatterjee, a medical doctor in London and the author of Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, as saying that “the Indian government is “terrified” of her reputation but if similar practices were found in any other home, it would have been shut down.”
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Culture Matters
Economists conventionally list land, labor and capital as the three factors of production. If combined appropriately using the right technology, stuff is produced. This produced stuff is then the total income. Productive efficiency is important of course for a society to be economically secure. Then there is the matter of equity. You have to distribute the stuff produced equitably. Productive efficiency and distributive equity must be part of a healthy economy. But then if sufficient factors of production exist and the technology is also available, then how does one account for the failure of some societies in overcoming poverty?
I believe that the choices that society makes depends on the cultural and institutional capital of the society. As much as land, labor, capital, and technology matter, the social capital — that is the cultural norms and values and institutions — matter fundamentally.
This line of thought was prompted by a report in the New York Times. It was the story of Shazia Khalid who was raped and then persecuted by all and sundry for her “sin.” This happened in Pakistan. The culture of that place is such that the victim is blamed. Rape is seen as a insult to the family honor which can only be restored by killing the woman who was violated.
The values of the society matter more than the availability of PCs and the ability to surf the internet and get neat stuff off the world wide web. Third world under-developed societies need a change of values desperately if they are to get out of the cycle of poverty. Unfortunately, values are endogenous and they can only change with great difficulty. They cannot be imposed externally any more than “democracy” be imposed externally as the US is ostensibly attempting to do in Iraq.
The sense of fairness and justice is, in my opinion, the major determinant of how developed a society is. And in some sense, development is the basis for economic development. Until a society has justice and fairness as its core values, it cannot get beyond a Hobbesian existence.
Rain is coming down
Close to the Worli Seaface in Mumbai around 10 am today. The rain has been coming down since midnight last night. The wind is pretty high, as you can see below.
The high tide today was not as high as it was last Tuesday. The Haji Ali mosque seen from my friend’s 13th floor apartment.
Moving around in Mumbai
Well, thank goodness that there are options when it comes to transportation around here. This SUV is not going to be stopped by streets with 6-foot deep water levels. At water levels that would leave cars totally immersed, this fellow will barely notice it.
Now aren’t you glad that we did not go with those compact Japanese models of elephants? Sure they gave more miles to the bale of hay, and were easier to park in the crowded streets, but they were useless when it came to crossing overflowing creeks.
Rain in Pune
It has been raining since morning. My plans of going to Mumbai have been rained upon. The picture above is taken from Shrikant and Ranjani’s home.
India – the Next Big Player
Perception and reality are two different things, of course, but they do influence each other. How India is perceived by the US (and vice versa) matters. A significant shift in that perception is clearly visible, going by the writings of observers of the developing India-US relationship. John Mauldin’s Thoughts from the Frontline carries an analysis by George Friedman titled India the Next Big Player.
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Fixing the holes (Incentives edition)
Never underestimate the power of incentives, is what my economics guru used to say all the time. Economics is at its most generalized form the study of incentives. Positive analysis involves digging below the surface to uncover the incentives of the concerned economic agents (people) with the aim of explaining why things are they way they are. It is not just out of intellectual curiosity that one wishes to figure out why things are way they are. It is only the first step to the ultimate goal of obtaining a more desireable outcome. Of course, determining what is a desireable outcome involves value judgements and therefore dependent again on the concerned economic agents and necessarily subjective. But there is nothing subjective about the incentive schemes that need to be implemented in moving from the present state to the desired future state.
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Searching and Finding
Books influence us profoundly, of course. But for a book to work its magic on you, you have to be ready. The Buddhist have a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Actually, what that means is that when the student is ready, the presence of the teacher becomes known to the student. The teacher has been around all along but the student did not have the faculty to recognize the teacher. The prepared mind is a necessary condition for books to have any impact.
In a sense you cannot learn something that you don’t really already know implicitly, or something that you are not yourself on the verge of discovering. What you read is just the last hint that solves a problem that you have almost solved, or the little nudge that takes you over the edge. You have to be very close to the solution yourself for the hint to work; you have to be at the edge for the nudge to work. If you are too far away, hints or nudges are pointless. Continue reading “Searching and Finding”
Bush Phone Home
I make no representations about the authenticity of the picture above. Any idiot can doctor up a photo these days. Even then, it is funny. Kind of goes with the image that one has of the prime chimp President of the United States of America.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 