You can be deist, atheist, agnostic, theist, pantheist, monotheist, polytheist – anything while being a true-blue Hindu. This openness to multiple views – and hence an acceptance of change – has what made Hinduism the most enduring religion in the world.
That is why it greatly pains me, when I see our right-wing politicians trying to [...]
- Clean energy cess of Rs.50 per tonne on coal
- Concessional duty of 4 percent for solar power rickshaw developed by CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research)
- Taxes on large cars/SUVs increased from 2 percent to 22 percent
This has environmental excuses written all over it.
Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute made a very good point [...]
How can any government create jobs on a sustainable basis is a question that is rarely asked.
If the government spends Rs. X to create jobs in one sector, it must be asked from where does it get that amount?
Only three options are possible – taxing money, printing money, borrowing money. (Technically there could be [...]
Parked on a rocky cliff 400 feet above Jodhpur’s skyline is the magnificent 15th century Meherangarh Fort, the city’s crowning glory and the biggest tourist attraction. Perhaps because it is managed by a private museum trust in the hands of professionals, Meherangarh is a model of cleanliness, efficiency and judicious restoration. There is plenty of [...]
Rajeev Mantri and I make the case that the STT prevents the Indian market from becoming deeper and more efficient:
STT doesn’t really reduce market speculation. It merely hinders arbitrage and high-frequency quantitative trading, neutering the profitability of those strategies. Arbitrage is the risk-free capture of pricing differentials for the same underlying asset, and high-frequency quantitative [...]
US gas price per gallon – 2.6 USD (approx, as of today)
1 gallon = 4.55 litres (Correction 3.78 litres – thanks Atanu Dey)
1 USD = 46 INR (approx, as of today)
Unleaded Petrol: (approx Kolkata price, as of today)
46.80 Rs/L
American gas price in Indian terms is therefore (2.6*46/3.78) =
31.64 Rs/L
That is, the Indian price is almost double [...]
It is easy, at least for me, to get lost in wonky economic debates about taxes, regulations and vouchers. I write some pro-free-market articles, send them to my friends, but most of them are not interested in policy debates. They are interested in real life-and-blood people. Maybe, one needs to be less technical and write [...]
Arvind Singhal writes in WSJ that Indian retail companies face significant regulatory challenges:
Yet once such a company, Indian or foreign, manages to set up shop, the regulatory challenges are just beginning. Whereas back home Tesco or Carrefour might build relationships directly with farmers or middlemen of the retailers’ choice, in India farmers are allowed to [...]
The politically astute Retributions has argued that primaries to elect the BJP leader – in which BJP workers, members and long time sympathizers vote – might lead to the election of ideological pure but politically infeasible candidate. I agree, but I think there are two separate things to consider here – primaries for BJP MP [...]
One of the proposed solutions for funding green technology, including in developing countries, has been to (further) tax international airfares.
The logic goes like this, and on the face of it is reasonable – planes cause a lot of pollution, but the companies do not pay for that pollution. Make sure that their private costs are [...]
MINT ARTICLES
A case for scrapping STT
Harsh Gupta and Rajeev Mantri 10:35 PM | February 17,2010
Frequent trading can result in so much taxation that all trading profits are swallowed up by the transaction tax
The liberalism in BJP’s agenda
Rohit Pradhan and Harsh Gupta 08:03 PM | January 13,2010
Prominent issues such as the Uniform Civil Code and Article 370 [...]
Anne Jolis of the WSJ documents how the IPCC conveniently forgets to properly document the possible benefits of any future global warming.
According to a 2004 paper by British geographer and climatologist Nigel Arnell, global warming would likely reduce the world’s total number of people living in “water-stressed watersheds”—that is, areas with less than 1,000 cubic meters [...]
Since October 2009, I have been working on a NREGA-Panchayati Raj project of MIT Poverty Action Lab. I have been fortunate to see rural Rajasthan first hand, and observe on-the-ground reality about many government run programs and schemes.
In the kasba of Chhonkarwara (Bharatpur), as well as in most Rajasthani revenue villages/smaller villages and even some [...]
The World Bank proposes zero rupee notes to be given to corrupt officials asking for bribes
As an angry young libertarian, I get pissed at many stupid public policy positions, but this one takes the cake. The idea is of course that of an Indian physics professor (who I am sure, like Nehru’s central planner Mahalanobis believes that being a genius at [...]
This is how it looks like
Barack Obama, a Democratic president with a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic supermajority in the Senate, cannot get socialization of healthcare passed! At least not easily.
Because the American people do not like it, or at least some Democrat congressmen think so.
Now there must be more debate. [...]
