Tamil Eelam

Part 1


Part 2

TOP ARTICLE: Indian Rich and poor divide

Market bashers are having a field day in the current atmosphere of economic downturn, barely concealing we-told-you-so smirks on their faces.

For those on the Indian left, the joys of power without responsibility are many. After handcuffing the UPA government to its economic policies through most of the UPA's tenure the CPM, in its recently released election manifesto, is lambasting the UPA for increasing the "rich-poor divide".

In doing so, the CPM has unwittingly revealed an important truth. The Indian left isn't an egalitarian force working to reduce social and economic disparities across Indian society, even if it projects itself as such. In practice policies pushed by it widen the gulf between privileged and less privileged. The converse is also true. Market-friendly reforms can cut down on disparities by growing the middle class and encouraging a shift from agriculture to industry. The next government will need to push forward on sectors such as infrastructure, retail, education, agriculture, labour laws and FDI policies if it hopes to renew the economy. What's needed in the Indian context are more market-oriented reforms, not less.

It speaks volumes about the triumph of left-wing discourse that reforms and market-oriented policies are automatically taken to have pro-rich and anti-poor implications by Indian political parties, no matter which part of the political spectrum they inhabit. For any party to stand up and say that market-oriented capitalism can deliver the goods better than statist socialism would be tantamount to political heresy. That's why most reforms in India have to be undertaken by stealth, as their opponents charge. That's also why they grind to a halt during good times when, arguably, they would deliver the least short-term pain while boosting significantly the long-term prospects of the economy.

But despite the dominance in India of economic principles which much of the rest of the world sees as holdovers from 'old Left' doctrine, the results have hardly been poor-friendly. It doesn't require a movie like Slumdog Millionaire to dramatise the plight of the poor. As the CPM manifesto itself points out, 40 per cent of India's children under three are malnourished, while more than half of India's women are anaemic. These figures are among the worst in the world.

India has been unable to replicate China's success in moving huge numbers of peasants from agriculture into unskilled, labour-intensive industrial employment. While growth has occurred mostly in capital- or skills-intensive sectors, the vast majority of Indian labour is unskilled or semi-skilled. Nearly two-thirds of India's population depends on agriculture for a living, which contributes only 18 per cent of GDP. These are prime drivers of Indian inequality.

To bring about equality of opportunity and access to jobs for India's poor, education is a critical area. Both the private and public sector should be harnessed to this purpose. But Indian education is riddled with anti-market biases, usually taking the form of left-wing as well as extreme right-wing politicians invoking the spectre of the "commercialisation of education". Public education, on the other hand, is bereft of accountability. It seldom produces skills relevant to the job market, leading to the phenomenon of the educated unemployed.

Young Indians may be thirsting for education today, but industry faces a skills shortage because the education system is broken. Or more precisely, manipulated to preserve the interests of the few over the many. Inequality is a direct consequence of this system, whose greatest defenders can be found on the Left as well as the far Right. The few who manage to get a good education benefit from this system. The rest are squeezed out.

More market-friendly labour laws would also be a way of reducing inequality. Indian labour laws are among the most rigid in the world. The laws inhibit job generation by reducing incentives to small businesses (which are excluded from their purview) to grow. For the same reason they also promote the casualisation of labour. As things stand now more than 90 per cent of India's 457.46 million workforce are in informal sector employment, creating a huge underclass of daily wage labourers and most of those in the "self-employed" category who scavenge for a living.

The equalising power of market forces can be seen in SEZs that have come up in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, where social attitudes are changing as Dalits, backward castes and women gain entry into manufacturing and service sector jobs. You don't need netas and babus dispensing quotas and patronage for social progress. All you need is the free market, along with the provision of adequate physical and social infrastructure (in which task, too, market incentives can be of great help). The fear of market forces, however, has confined experimentation with them to limited enclaves such as SEZs. Ideally, we should do away with SEZs as liberal principles are generalised to the rest of the economy.

India confronts a paradox today. The economic downturn may have brought market bashers and control Raj warriors to the fore, yet a return to the command economy such as the CPM manifesto advocates would only mire the country deeper in an economic rut. Free markets can be pro-poor, if backed by adequate social safety measures. And mai-baap sarkar, whether of the colonial or contemporary left-wing variety, only serves to reinforce the power of entrenched elites.

Source: TimesofIndia

Gay Pride parade in Delhi

"Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans-sexuals jubilate during their pride parade in New Delhi."

source

Indian pilots fast asleep in the cockpit

An Air India Jaipur-Mumbai flight flew well past its destination with both its pilots fatigued and fast asleep in the cockpit. When the pilots were finally woken up by anxious Mumbai air traffic controllers, the plane was about half way to Goa.

source

Google's Android

This is no way synonymous to the title of this blog ("Commotion against Prejudice mass")..neither i want to turn this a tech blog...Just thought to share this for now..
Expect this to hit the market by end of this year.

Madagascar Penguins. All time favourite

Apology and Sweden

I donot know if this worths an apology at-all in a first place. But when it comes to employment, it is pure "Business". Not being Political may harm yourself or other who depends on my moves.

Now I live in Finland, working for one of the biggest Mobile vendor.

To tell about my time in Sweden: Past few months in Sweden where electrifying, challenging, fun, awesome, exploratory, and what not? I went thru all kind of things... I was blessed with a Baby boy when I was in Sweden.

Swede’s are very public, friendly, and open for all kind of discussions, they speak good English, and are very helpful.

After all these, I had to leave Sweden with one particular worry in me, those were “the lies” I voiced to my colleagues in Sweden. Later, I realized the politician in me :P.

Till this moment I have kept my Finland plans concealed to Swedish friends.

If any of my ex-colleague from Sweden gets to read this, consider my sincere apology for keeping my Finland plans concealed.