SWARAJ  

Ramesh Srivats has a great post on the Telangana issue

Okay, so Telengana will be a separate state. And if that’s what the people of Telengana want, what’s the big deal. Let them have it…a smaller state means that people come a wee bit closer to the government. It means a better chance of improved administration. If we look at our country as a market-place where each state competes for human resources and investment, the market has just become a little bit more competitive.

In fact, we should perhaps have many more small states and a hundred self-governing independent cities. People can choose where they want to live, so each state or city will try its best to be the residence of choice…

Federalism is a concept that a lot of us free-market advocates also forget. Milton Friedman did a great service by arguing against ,say government medical licenses (as opposed to government medical certifications BTW – you can still practice if you want, you just have to be good to get a certificate), but the rest of us need to always add another option between the central government and private market debate – local government!

Related links:

http://www.livemint.com/2009/08/04221641/Dual-differentiated-GST.html

http://athousandnations.com/ (great website introduced to me by Rajeev Mantri)