I am at Chicago’s O’Hare International airport, about to board Air India flight 126 to Delhi (via Frankfurt.) I will be off the air since I will be in the air during the next 24 hours or so. Which means that I will not be able to respond to the outrage that I have caused in some quarters. I have stirred a hornet’s nest. The game is afoot. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

The time has come for me to go traveling. Off to Chicago I go today. SFO to Chicago Midway. Then on Monday, to New Delhi. Say bye.

Old age, degeneration and death is pretty much the way of all flesh. Impermanence is a feature of the universe, not a bug. Still it is depressing to witness someone’s mental decline, which is worse than watching them physically decline. Mr B Raman, once a somewhat sharp mind, is evidently losing his grip on reality.
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That question is the topic of an ongoing debate at the Economist.com. Pete Spence of the Adam Smith Institute says no, as one would have expected given his institutional affiliation. Similarly his opponent in the debate, Alan Davey, chief executive of the Arts Council England, quite understandably says yes. Mr Davey has to support the motion — otherwise he’d be arguing for the abolition of the Arts Council. I suppose it is easy for you to guess where I come down in this debate. I stand for freedom, and consequently stand against governments dictating to people.
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Here we go again. The UPA government of India wants to dictate once more what people should know and what information is OK for people to handle. It routinely blocks websites, prohibits or limits the use of mobile text messages, and is now threatening to block twitter altogether. The government’s repression of the people is an old habit and it should not evoke any surprise or comment. Yet the fight for freedom of speech and expression is too important to life and liberty that one should not give up merely because one has been on a losing streak for centuries. We, the people, have to win that battle if we have to win the war for freedom.
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The Sanskrit word “niti” connotes politics, governance, economics and a whole bunch of other things. As in the case of all abstract nouns, it is hard to precisely translate into other languages. Anyway, today we launch a new initiative for transforming India — NitiCentral.com!! My use of the double exclamation marks — I am usually very sparing with the use of even single exclamation marks — should tell you that I am really thrilled about it. Go visit and lend your support to a site that promises to neutralize the leftist insanity with classical liberal right value-based sanity. Hey, I am associated with it. How can it not be insanely sane?

Happy Independence Day, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters. OK, now that we have got the pleasantries out of the way, let’s talk turkey. I really don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade but it seems to me that reports of India’s independence are seriously exaggerated. Why so, you may ask. Because to me it does not appear that India’s much of an independent country. Independence, if the notion has any meaning, must mean freedom. Otherwise, it is a meaningless word bandied about by the ignorant self-deluded for comforting themselves in the face of bitter reality.
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Though not everyone, many people who are genuinely concerned about the state of the world bitch and moan (I use that phrase advisedly) about the deplorable news media. It is said that the Indian media — notable examples being NDTV, the Times of India, The Hindu but not restricted to them — really earn the distinction of being unprofessional, lazy, dishonest, opportunistic, shallow, callous, narrow-minded, myopic and bigoted. Futhermore, they appear to be generally stupid and yet they are quite successful in their evil intentions to misinform and mislead the public which of course is well-meaning, good-natured, broad-minded, generous and wise. What’s wrong with this picture? It just does not make sense.
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This is what happened in a little town in Wisconsin today morning around 10:30 (CDT). A man went to a gurudwara and shot some people there. The police arrived on the scene and killed the man. The media were naturally on top of it, reporting live as as the event was unfolding. The police instructed the TV channels to not show any live helicopter video footage to avoid revealing their tactical moves to the attacker(s). The TV channels complied and that was that. The twitter channels burst into frenzied activity over the incident. Naturally enough, many Indian twitterers noted how restrained the TV channels were and how quickly they followed the police’s request to avoid jeopardizing the law enforcement’s response to the killer(s). NDTV, tweeters said, should learn a lesson.
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Ken Olson, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corp, said in 1977, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Even very smart people sometimes make statements which, in retrospect, are proven to be ridiculously mistaken. Technology is hard to predict, partly because innovation which drives its evolution is by definition unpredictable. Those foolhardy enough to make predictions about technology get generally ridiculed years later when everyone knows what no one knew before. Hindsight is awesomely accurate while foresight often misses the barn, leave alone the target painted on it.
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A 100 years ago on this day, July 31st, Milton Friedman was born. The one passion that motivated his entire life was the quest for freedom for every individual, freedom from coercion and violence from others. He spent his life arguing and persuading people about the value of being free and why they should be free to choose and that they should choose to be free. He cared about India and wanted India to succeed. I believe that India’s success is ultimately tied to India’s freedom — and the fact that India is not a successful economy supports my claim that India is not really a free country. Here are a few selections from Uncle Milton’s voluminous writings.
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An impartial observer, a Vulcan perhaps with some contextual background information on India, would surely note one striking fact about the Indian political scene from what gets generally reported in the main stream media. That fact is the near universal fear and loathing that one man evokes in a particular group of people. Upon closer inspection, the Vulcan will further notice that although the said group is heterogeneous in many respects, they all have one thing in common. Reflecting further on an easily observable set of other facts, the Vulcan will be forced to a conclusion which forms the subject of this brief piece.
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Now for the important matter of the distinction between rights and freedoms. Of late, there has been a proliferation of rights. There’s the right to information, right to employment, right to food, right to education, and so on. Somehow people start thinking that the expansion of rights enhances freedom but in fact it is the opposite: the expansion of rights actually reduces our freedom.
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Recently someone posted a few comments to a post on this blog which were held in moderation. I decide which comments get approved as this my blog and I reserve the right to do so. The person was unhappy that his comments did not get approved and took his quarrel with me to another site which posted his comments. This matter touches on an issue that is broader than the trivial matter of comments on a blog. It’s the distinction between rights and freedoms, a distinction that appears to be lost on too many people, and indeed tragically on some people who make policies that affect millions of people. I address the trivial matter in this post and the important matter in the next post.
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I can never stop marveling at the wonder that the great big classroom in the skies, the WWW, is. Take a bunch of computers, link them up with high speed communications link, create standards and protocols, and let people do what they feel like doing with it — then watch as magic happens. Sure a lot of serious stuff happens on the web — from commerce to scientific research — but I think that the more interesting thing is that it allows people to play. It is the world’s biggest playground.
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The last time I had mentioned the Higgs boson in connection with the naming of the particle. But what is the Higgs boson? Particle physics is hard to comprehend because it deals with the extremely small. We, middle-sized creatures, are not equipped to comprehend the infinitesimally small or the infinitely large. Moreover, them itty-bitty things lie in the domain of quantum mechanics — which according to Feynman, if you believe you understand QM then it means that you actually don’t. QM is useful but incomprehensible. Thus, human comprehension is not a precondition for human utility. Also, although there’s little utility in it, attempting to comprehend advances in high energy physics can be fun. So here’s something just for fun.
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This is a guest post by my friend Keith Hudson. It is not really related to India’s economic development. Below the fold is a simple idea that Apple or any other computer hardware manufacturer may find useful. This post is to help put the idea in the public domain, for the record.
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Frederick Douglass (d. 1895), the renowned American abolitionist wrote, “Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them . . . The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” I used that quote in my book, Transforming India, (click for a free download). Indians will submit to a lot, and have done so for centuries. The current oppressors are “democratically” elected. Allow me to quote from the book:
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This is an excerpt from a debate on the proposition “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. The debate sponsor is The Intelligence² Debate. (For the full version, go to Youtube.) Below the fold is the excerpt which is a must watch.
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The contrast between Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh is stark and blindingly obvious.

Emerging Markets Insights: a blog by Frontier Strategy Group