The Doctor of Deficit Finance should realise the currency is at stake
by Subroto Roy
First published in The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, April 25 2008,
The best thing that may be said of the Manmohan Singh premiership is that when it began in May 2004, it seemed, for a short while, refreshing in comparison to the dysfunctional arrogance and brutality displayed by its predecessor. By the last months of the Vajpayee-Advani Government, there were party appointees who had ended all pretence of purportedly Hindu values and were raking it in shamelessly. The Golden Rule of Democracy is “Throw the rascals out”, which is what Indian democracy upheld as it has done time and again. By 2009, India’s electorate will have the chance to decide whether the incumbent government deserves the same fate.
Lok Sabha
Manmohan Singh was seriously discussed as the Congress’s putative nominee for PM as early as 2001. The idea brewing at the time with the party’s next generation of wannabe leaders (in their 50s and 60s, where Manmohan was near 70) was that they needed to maintain good relations with the Great White Queen and wait out one term of an inevitable Singh premiership before having a shot at the top job themselves.
What is surprising is Dr Singh appeared never to feel it necessary to educate himself privately on how to retool himself for the necessary transformation from being the archetypal bureaucrat he had been in his working career to becoming the national statesman he wished to be after retirement. It is doubtful, for example, if he ever stood in front of a mirror and practised an extempore political speech in Hindi in preparation for the highest executive post in the country, let aside writing a clear-headed, original vision or mission statement of substance as to where he wished to lead it. As Narasimha Rao’s Finance Minister, he could meekly take orders from his PM; it seemed he wished to continue in the same mode even when PM himself.
Jawaharlal Nehru is supposed to have been a hero of Dr Singh’s ~ but Nehru was a thorough parliamentarian, among the finest anywhere, and someone who always respected the Lok Sabha immensely. Dr Singh, after he lost to VK Malhotra for the South Delhi seat in 1999, made not the slightest effort to enter the Lok Sabha again, even when the Akalis indicated they might not oppose him in a Punjab contest. When asked specifically at a large press conference about not entering the Lok Sabha, Dr Singh murmured words to the effect he had better uses of his time ~ a display, if anything, of the misplaced arrogance of many New Delhi academics and intellectuals. Dr Singh may be the first PM in any parliamentary democracy never to have won a seat in the lower house nor felt a need to do so.
Dr Singh’s bureaucratic expertise assisted him well in the first national crisis that came his way, which was the Tsunami of 26 December 2004. There appeared to be an air of efficiency about the Government’s response and he seemed in his element as commander of bureaucratic forces while working with Pranab Mukherjee in enlisting the military. George W. Bush (not a great geographer or historian) was apparently impressed to see on a map that India had naval forces deployed as far as the Andamans.
By 2005 though, Dr Singh’s bureaucratic mindset had its negative impact. Montek Ahluwalia had been his Finance Secretary when he was Finance Minister. Mr Ahluwalia’s spouse had been a main supporter of Dr Singh’s unsuccessful Lok Sabha attempt. During the Vajpayee Government, Mr Ahluwalia remained a Planning Commission Member for several years before moving to Washington. With Dr Singh as PM, Mr Ahluwalia returned from the USA in mid 2004 to become Deputy Chair at the Planning Commission. Simultaneously with his return, the idea that the American nuclear industry would like to sell “six to eight lightwater reactors” to India arose.
That is as much as is presently known in public. Dr Singh and Mr Ahluwalia may in the national interest want to frankly and precisely explain to the Indian people the full story of the sudden origins of this idea. Certainly, none of the lessons of the Dabhol fiasco a decade earlier seemed to have been learnt, and the Maharasthtra Government (and hence the Government of India) ended up paying some $300 million to General Electric and Bechtel Corporation for Dabhol before any nuclear talks with the USA could begin. Nor had any serious cost-benefit analysis been done or discussion taken place comparing nuclear energy with coal, hydro and other sources in the Indian case.
Indian foreign policy became frozen in its focus on nuclear negotiations with the USA, swirling around Dr Singh’s fife-and-drum welcome at the White House and President Bush’s return visit to India. At the same time arose the issue of Paul Volcker’s UN committee mentioning the name of India’s foreign minister. As The Statesman put it, regardless of the latter’s involvement, “the damage to India’s diplomatic reputation in the world” was done and it was inevitable a new foreign minister would be necessary. After dilly-dallying and much 10 Janpath to-and-fro, Dr Singh followed Nehru’s mistake of becoming his own foreign minister. The idea was that this would be temporary but it became almost a year.
Instead of transforming himself towards Indian political statesmanship, Dr Singh advanced other retired bureaucrats’ ambitions on similar career-paths. Foreign policy went out of the MEA’s control and seemingly into the control of the new “National Security Adviser”. Dr Singh, sometimes with MK Narayanan beside him, travelled a large number of countries from Brazil to Finland and Uzbekistan to South Africa and Japan. Dr Singh also found time and willingness to accept honorary degrees from British and Russian universities during these short months.
While Dr Singh seemed thus preoccupied, two of India’s main neighbours underwent massive democratic revolutions (leave aside magnificent Bhutan). Nepal’s people practically stormed their Bastille while Dr Singh and Mr Narayanan visited Germany to discuss BMWs. Pakistan’s democratic forces could hardly believe the cold indifference shown to them by a New Delhi merely following Bush’s support for Pervez Musharraf. While Pakistan and Nepal, and to lesser extent Bangladesh, saw movements towards better governance, Sri Lanka descended towards civil war ~ India’s PM remained obsessed with the magic wand that the nuclear deal was supposed to be.
Inflation
Then suddenly the magic vanished ~ Dr Singh seemed to finally come to a silent private recognition that the economics of the nuclear deal simply did not add up if it meant India importing “six to eight lightwater reactors” on a turnkey basis from the USA or anywhere else. Dr Singh seemed to come out of his self-imposed trance and return a little better to reality. By the time he visited China, although he was as deferential to Hu Jintao in his body language as he had been to Bush and Musharraf and even accepted an indoor guard of honour, he also seemed willing to stand up for India. The Arunachal visit was a reality-check.
Now there is inflation ~ and one year left in the UPA’s term. What the country needs is tough sensible macroeconomics and clean public finance. A pandering profligate budget in February was not a healthy sign. Instructing Mr Ahluwalia to close down the Planning Commission and make it a minor R&D wing of the Finance Ministry would be instead a good step. Instructing the RBI to clean up its bureaucratic wastefulness and prepare itself for institutional independence from the Finance Ministry would be even better. Getting proper financial control over every Union and State government entity spending public money and resources would be most important of all. Such major institutional changes in the policy-making process are what an economist might expect of an economist prime minister who wishes to lead India in the 21st Century. India’s currency is at stake.
(See also: “The Politics of Dr Singh”, May 2006; “Mistaken Macroeconomics”, June 2009, etc.)
Upside Down Economics From The New Delhi Establishment
by
Subroto Roy
First published in two parts in
The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article,
April 15-16, 2008
Suppose there are only three real goods and services in the economy, and their prices per unit expressed in terms of money were Rs 3, Rs 2, Rs 6 respectively. If those money prices per unit doubled to Rs 6, Rs 4, Rs 12 respectively, we would say inflation of 100% occurred during the relevant time-period. If the prices had gone instead to Rs 4.50, Rs 3, Rs 9, we would say inflation was 50%, and so on. Notice the ratios between the three prices have remained the same in these examples; i.e., while the money prices of the items have changed, relative prices between them remained constant. In reality, there are many hundreds of millions of differentiated real goods and services in any economy though the logic stays the same.
Decline of money It is well within living memory that the monthly salary of a Government of India Joint Secretary was Rs 3,000. Middle class parents would wed their daughters respectably to a groom earning such a figure. A Joint Secretary today makes 20 times as much and Rs 3,000 is made by his driver or children’s nanny whose equivalent back then made perhaps Rs 150 per month. The relative distance between the Joint Secretary and his driver has not decreased but the absolute amount of rupees made by each has been multiplied by a factor of 20. That indicates the fall in the value of rupees or rise in prices of goods and services relative to rupees during that period.
One reason this has happened is that the monopoly issuer of rupees, namely the Government of India, has vastly enlarged the stock of rupees present in the economy, both paper-notes and bank-deposits. Inflation, strictly speaking, is uniform decline in the value of money or, what is the same thing, uniform increase in all rupee prices, including wages, with relative prices constant. The time-period could be a year or even a month; “hyperinflation” may start to be defined if the value of money falls at more than 10% per month.
The main problem with inflation is that rupee prices never expand uniformly and hence some classes of people gain unexpectedly while others suffer catastrophe. E.g., all those with debts expressed in rupee terms pay back less in real terms while their creditors go bankrupt. Those with fixed or slow-changing incomes (like old people, unorganised non-unionised workers etc) and those with paper assets (like currency rather than land or jewelry) are all made worse off by inflation. Unionized workers, like Government employees, do very well from inflation relative to others in society as their compensation is inflation-indexed. And the Government of India itself, as the largest debtor in the economy, gains massively from inflation; indeed, printing more paper is a standard way for all governments around the world to reduce their real debts by subterfuge.
The farmers at Singur or the SEZs who hand over their land for paper rupees from the Government will find the value of that paper declining and the value of that land rising over future years ~ which may help explain the recent keenness of city-people to take over rural India.
Rupee prices are one key variable that tend to expand via inflation with expansion of money stock. The other main change occurs in real income through growth. The Joint Secretary and his driver both use colour TVs for entertainment and gas-stoves for cooking these days; their earlier counterparts would have used transistor radios and coal-fired ovens.
To that extent, we have superior standards of living than we did in the past. There has been enormous technological progress, mostly through spontaneous learning and productivity increase, and that leads to vastly greater commerce and transactions between people, hence greater income and wealth through specialization. The vastly increased volume and value of commerce requires more money to expedite its turnover.
India’s money stock in recent decades has been growing at no less than 15% per annum, most recently reaching an all-time high of 22% per annum last year. Even if current Government estimates of growth of real income at some 9% are taken at face-value, that may mean growth in all rupee prices, i.e. inflation, near 22-9=13% per annum. TV economists parrot Government WPI inflation at 5% per annum, and now newspaper headlines are screaming WPI inflation is at 7.4% ~ more realistically, the decline in the value of India’s paper money has likely been in double-digits for years.
Paper money is a peculiar thing as it has no intrinsic value ~ even a hair pin or shirt-button has more usefulness as such. Paper money derives whatever value it has only because each of us in the economy believes everyone else will accept it in transactions in payment of wages or to purchase food and other items with.
Gold standard
The currency note in your pocket may carry the signature of the RBI Governor and his “promise to pay the bearer” the face-value ~ as if he is going to pay you its equivalent in gold held by the Government. But this is open humbug, a childish fiction. In 1931 the British pound, and the Indian rupee which linked to it at the time, went off the “gold standard” and there has been no backing of the Indian currency with gold ever since then.
In a pure gold standard, gold is money ~ interchangeable in the sense the central bank guarantees it will exchange gold for the paper it issues at an announced price. If that price changes up or down, there is devaluation or revaluation of the currency with respect to gold (depending on how you count it).
A gold exchange standard is similar except gold is not used as money and central banks of nations guarantee the announced prices of their paper moneys with respect to gold in transactions with one another. In the dollar exchange standard (or Bretton Woods system from 1944 to 1971), the US Government alone and uniquely undertook to guarantee the price of the dollar at $35 a troy oz of gold in transactions with all other central banks. That was the underpinning of the international financial system until Richard Nixon “closed the gold window” on 15 August 1971 because the US had largely financed the Vietnam War through money-creation, and other countries’ central banks (like France) had accumulated large dollar-balances.
The “gold standard”, “gold exchange standard”, and “dollar exchange standard” are all examples of “fixed” exchange rate systems which came to end in 1971-1972. The price of gold at $35 an oz was obviously unrealistically low, and it shot up at once, and has even reached $1000 an oz recently. Since 1972, the Western world has been on “floating exchange rates” where currencies find their own values and gold is merely one asset among many. Fixed exchange rate systems can lead to speculation, runs against currencies and the irresponsible international export of inflation which floating exchange rate systems tend to avoid because there will tend to be market-determined movement in the exchange-rate instead.
Elite capital flight
India today has neither a proper fixed nor a proper floating exchange-rate system but instead continues a system of highly discriminatory exchange controls. Twenty or thirty million people in our major cities know how to use the present system well enough to exchange their Indian rupees for as much as US $200,000 per annum to send their children and relatives settled abroad as foreign nationals. Plus Indian corporations have been allowed to convert rupees to buy sinking foreign companies. Foreign-currency reserves have vastly climbed too as domestic Indian companies have been allowed to incur foreign-currency denominated debt. Hence the thirty million special people are rather cleverly able to borrow foreign currency with one hand and then transmit it abroad with the other.
The net result is a clear policy of government-induced elite capital flight, unprecedented in its irresponsibility anywhere in world economic history ~ signed, sealed and delivered by the Montek-Manmohan-Chidambaram trio now just as Yashwant-Jaswant-KC Pant and friends had done a little earlier. The Communists would only be worse, as their JNU economists renounce all standard textbook microeconomics and macroeconomics in favour of street-shouting instead.
Outside the thirty million Indians with NRI connections, the average Indian today is disallowed from holding foreign exchange accounts at his/ her local bank or holding or trading in gold or other precious metals freely as he/she may please ~ the physical arrest of Mohun Bagan’s hapless Brazilian footballer by our inimitable Customs officers the other day reveals the ugliness of the situation most poignantly.
Every TV economist in Delhi, Bombay and Kolkata now seems to have a solution about India’s inflation and all sorts of fallacious reasoning is in the air. Some recommend the rupee appreciating or depreciating ~ as if anyone in the country has the faintest idea how elastic imports, exports and capital flows may be in fact to changes in the (controlled) exchange-rate. The Finance Minister and PM keep saying inflation is being “imported” because international commodity prices are high ~ someone should explain to them inflation is “imported” when fixed exchange rates allow transmission through the price-specie flow mechanism, and that is far from being India’s main problem. The extra-constitutional “Planning Commission” has, we may be thankful, remained silent about inflation, and seems to have abandoned earlier misconceptions about using forex reserves for “infrastructure”. The UPA Chair, we may be thankful, also has been silent and admits innocence of all economics, implicitly trusting her PM’s wisdom in all such matters instead.
What no one wants to talk about is the hippopotamus that is present in the room, namely, the chronically diseased state of accounts and public finances of the issuer of India’s paper-rupees, the Union Government, as well as the diseased accounts and finances of more than two dozen State Governments that are subservient to it. The macroeconomic and fiscal policy process that the Congress, BJP, Communists and everyone else in the political class in New Delhi and the State capitals have been presiding over for decades is one that turns normal economics upside down.
What happens in the West is that an estimate of technological progress and population growth is made by policy-makers, then an “acceptable” or “unavoidable” or “natural” rate of inflation is added (the figure of monetary change needed for efficiency in the real economy so relative prices adjust to equilibrium in response to demand and supply changes), then a monetary growth target is set, to which the fiscal authority ~ i.e. the legislature handling the Government’s budget ~ must adjust taxation and spending plans accordingly.
What has been happening in India every year for decades is that each of some two dozen state legislatures runs up a large deficit, which are all added up and passed on to the “Centre”; the “Centre” and its “Yojana Bhavan”, at the behest of every conceivable organised interest-group with access in Delhi especially government unions and the military, runs up its own vastly larger fiscal deficit, and then this grand total of fiscal-deficits is offered to the Reserve Bank at the end of a loaded pistol ~ to pay for one way or another via new public debt creation and money printing. Subtract the WPI rate from the Money Supply Growth rate and government spokesmen and their businessmen friends then exclaim that the economy must try to reach the difference as its “warranted” growth rate! It is all economics upside down from people who have either learnt nothing significant in the subject or forgotten whatever little they once did.
Fragile financial state
The net result has been a banking system (mostly nationalized) in which the asset side of banks’ balance-sheets is made up almost entirely of rather dubious government debt, interest payments on which are received every year from fresh money-printing. The liability side of those balance-sheets consists of course of customer-deposits. In this fragile monetary and financial state, a government-induced capital flight has been allowed to continue under pretence of liberalization ~ with Indian companies being allowed to borrow from foreign markets many times their domestic rupee-denominated net worth by which to acquire ailing foreign companies and brands. Furthermore, there has been a massive fiscal effect as vast new Government spending programs ~ like buying foreign aircraft carriers, fighter-jets or passenger aircraft or writing off farm loans ~ come to be announced and absorbed into expectations of future inflation. A monetary meltdown is what the present author cautioned against in 1990-1995 and again, publicly, in 2000-2005. Economics, candidly treated, tells us not only that there is no such thing as a free lunch but also that chickens come home to roost.
A century has passed since British rulers in India like Curzon and Minto became self-styled interlocutors between Muslims and Hindus of the subcontinent. Up through the 19th century there had been no significant national political conversation between India’s main communities. The “Chief Translator” of the High Court in Calcutta was highly prized for his knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian and English because at least three different sets of laws governed different people in the country. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad wrote of his experience in the Bankim-inspired revolutionary societies of Bengal who treated him with extreme suspicion because they could hardly believe a Muslim wanted to join them as an anti-British rebel.
Jinnah vs Azad
Then came MA Jinnah, Iqbal, Rahmat Ali and others, initial creators of Pakistan whether through greater or lesser motives. Azad, Zakir Hussain, Sheikh Abdullah and other Muslims were equally firm the Pakistan idea was not only bad for India in the world it was bad for Muslims in particular. The Azads condemned the Jinnahs as greedy megalomaniacs, the Jinnahs condemned the Azads as minions of the Hindus. Larke lenge Pakistan, marke lenge Pakistan, khoon se lenge Pakistan, dena hoga Pakistan was the mob-cry during the bloody Partition, while the British, weakened by war and economics and bereft of their imperial pretensions, made haste to leave “this beastly country” to its fate ~ rather hoping the bloodshed would be such someone might hire them to stay on.
Certainly, having used the Indian Army for imperial purposes in the War, Britain (represented locally by a series of smartly dressed blundering fools) behaved irresponsibly in not properly demobilizing that Army during a period of intense communal tension. There were no senior Indian officers ~ KM Cariappa became a Brigadier only in 1946, Ayub Khan was a Colonel under him. Then there were the fatuous “princes” the British had propped up in “Indian India”, few being more than cardboard creatures. Among them was J&K’s ruler who was a member of Churchill’s War Cabinet and had come to harbour illusions of international grandeur. Once J&K’s Muslim soldiers returned to their Mirpuri homes, Jammu and Punjab were in communal conflict, months before the decision that Pakistan would indeed be created out of designated areas of British India just before British India extinguished itself. Army-issued Bren guns came to be used by former soldiers in communal massacres of the convoys of refugees going in each direction.
Part of the problem over J&K since then has been that it seems a dialogue of the deaf. Pakistanis since Zafrullah Khan claimed it was communal violence against Muslims in Jammu and Punjab that prompted the Pashtun invasion of Srinagar Valley beginning 22 October 1947; Indians have always claimed the new (and partly British-officered) Pakistan Army organized and instigated the invasion, coinciding with the planned takeover of Gilgit.
As in all complex moral problems, there was truth on all sides though no one doubts the invasion was savage and that the Pashtuns carried off Kashmiri women, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. J&K descended into civil war, Abdullah’s secularists backed by the new India, Ibrahim’s communalists by the new Pakistan. Field Marshall Auchinlek, who commanded both Indian and Pakistani armies, had the decency to resign when he realized his forces were at war with one another. That J&K could not be independent in international law was sealed when the 15 October 1947 telegram sent by Hari Singh’s regime went unanswered by Attlee. The tribal invasion from Pakistan caused the old State of J&K to become an ownerless entity in international law, whose territories were then carved up by force by the two new British Dominions (later republics) and the result has been the “LOC”.
ZA Bhutto was perhaps Pakistan’s only politician after that time. The years between the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan and the rise of Bhutto saw Pakistan’s military begin its liaison with the Americans ~ from the US Ambassador’s daughter marrying the Pakistan President’s son to the leasing of Peshawar’s airfields for U-2 flights over the USSR. Yet Bhutto’s deep flaws also contributed to the loss of Bangladesh and to brutality, supported by the Shah of Iran’s American helicopters, against the Baloch.
Bhutto’s daughter now may have succeeded in death where she could not in life. Like Indira Gandhi, there seemed a shrill almost self-sacrificial air about Benazir in her last days, and, like Indira, her assassination caused all her countrymen including her enemies to undergo an existential experience. Perhaps the public death of a woman in public life touches some chivalrous chord in everyone.
Benazir’s husband was transformed from seeming a rather dubious self-seeker to becoming a national leader of some sobriety. Her old adversary Nawaz Sharif, brought to power by one Army Chief and removed by another, is now a constitutional democrat – seemingly adamant that there be the Rule of Law and not of generals. Most of all, Benazir’s death seemed to completely shut up that most loquacious of Pakistanis: Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf seemed stunned and promised free, fair and transparent elections; though no one believed he would deliver, he somehow did. He would like now to be a senior statesman though it seems as likely his countrymen will not forgive his misdeeds and instead exile him to America.
Afghanistan
Pakistan’s main international problem is not and has never been J&K. It has been and remains its unsettled western border and identity vis-à-vis Afghanistan (as India’s problem has been the eastern border with China). Dr Khan Sahib and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan knew this but they were not allowed to speak by Pakistan’s Kashmir-obsessed elite. Zaheer Shah’s Afghanistan was the only country that voted against Pakistan joining the UN sixty years ago.
The present author has said before that Osama bin Laden may well be safely and comfortably in the deserts of North Africa while NATO and the Americans raise hell in Afghanistan and Waziristan pretending to look for him. It is not in India’s interest as it is not in Pakistan’s interest that Western militaries, who seem to have nothing better to do, brutalize Afghans of all descriptions in the name of nation-building or fighting “terrorism”. Afghan nation-building can only ultimately come from the Afghans themselves, no matter how many loya jirgas it takes. What Pakistan dislikes emerging from New Delhi is the sometimes rather supercilious and ignorant condescension that our officialdom is infamous for. Instead, with a new, seemingly clear-headed and well-intentioned Government in Pakistan elected for the first time ever, it may be time for all good people in the subcontinent to raise a glass of fruit juice and say “Two cheers for Pakistan!”
This is an incomplete bibliography of my writings, public lectures etc 1973-2020 including citations, reviews, comments. I have been mostly an academic economist who by choice or circumstance over 47 years has had to venture also into science, philosophy, public policy, law, jurisprudence, practical politics, history, international relations, military strategy, financial theory, accounting, management, journalism, literary criticism, psychology, psychoanalysis, theology, aesthetics, biography, children’s fables, etc. If anything unites the seemingly diverse work recorded below it is that I have tried to acquire a grasp of the nature of human reason and then apply this comprehension in practical contexts as simply and clearly as possible. Hence I have ended up following the path of Aristotle, as described in modern times (via Wittgenstein and John Wisdom) by Renford Bambrough. The 2004 public lecture in England, “Science, Religion, Art & the Necessity of Freedom”, also my 2017 “Is ‘Cambridge Philosophy’ dead, in Cambridge? Can it be resurrected, there? Case Study: Renford Bambrough (& Subroto Roy) preceded by decades Cheryl Misak’s thesis on Wittgenstein being linked with Peirce via Ramsey…”
may explain and illustrate all this best. A friend has been kind enough to call me an Academician, which I probably am, though one who really needs his own Academy because the incompetence, greed and mendacity encountered too often in the modern professoriat is dispiriting.
Besides writings and publications printed on paper, there are writings or items not printed on paper — as new media break space, cost and other constraints of traditional publishing. A little repetition and overlap has occurred too. Also in a few cases, e.g., Aldous Huxley’s essay on DH Lawrence, nothing has been done except discover and republish. Several databases have been created and released in the public interest, as have been some rare maps. There is also some biographical and autobiographical material. Several inconsequential errors remain in the text, which shall take time to be rectified as documents come to be rediscovered and collated.
1973
1. “Behavioural study of mus musculus”, Haileybury College, Supervised by J de C Ford-Robertson MA (Oxon). (Due to be published here 2010).
2. “Chemistry at Advanced & Special Level: Student Notes 1972-73” (Due to be published here 2010).
3. “Biology at Advanced & Special Level: Student Notes 1972-73”, (Due to be published here 2010).
4. “Physics at Advanced Level: Student Notes 1972-73”, (Due to be published here 2010).
5. “Revolution: theoria and praxis”, London, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
6. “Gandhi vs Marx”, London, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
1974
7. “Relevance of downward money-wage rigidity to the problem of maintaining full-employment in the classical and Keynesian models of income determination”, London School of Economics, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
8. “Testing aircraft fuels at Shell Finland”.
1975
9. “Oxford Street experiences: down and out in London town”.
10. “SE Region Bulk Distribution Survey”, Unilever, Basingstoke.
11. “Four London poems”, in JCM Paton (ed) New Writing (London, Great Portland Street: International Students House). (Due to be republished here 2010)
12. “On economic growth models and modellers”, London School of Economics, mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).
1976
13. “World money: system or anarchy?”, lecture to Professor ACL Day’s seminar, London School of Economics, Economics Department, April. (Due to be published here 2010).
14. “A beginner’s guide to some recent developments in monetary theory”, lecture to Professor FH Hahn’s seminar, Cambridge University Economics Department, November 17 (Due to be published here 2010). See also “Announcement of My “Hahn Seminar”, published here June 14 2008.
1977
15. “Inflation and unemployment: a survey”, mimeo, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. (Due to be published here 2010).
16. “On short run theories of dual economies”, Cambridge University Economics Department “substantial piece of work” required of first year Research Students. Examiner: DMG Newbery, FBA. (Due to be published here 2010).
1978
17. “Pure theory of developing economies 1 and 2”, Delhi School of Economics mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
18. “Introduction to some market outcomes under uncertainty”, Delhi School of Economics mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
19. “On money and development”, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, mimeo, September. (Due to be published here 2010)
20. “Notes on the Newbery-Stiglitz model of sharecropping”, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, mimeo November. (Due to be published here 2010).
1979
21. “A theory of rights and economic justice”, Corpus Christi College Cambridge mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).
22. “Monetary theory and economic development”, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
23. “Foundations of the case against ‘development planning’”, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, mimeo, November. (Due to be published here 2010).
1979-1989
24. Correspondence with Renford Bambrough (1926-1999), philosopher of St John’s College, Cambridge (Due to be published here 2010).
1980
25. “Models before the monetarist storm”, New Statesman letters
26. “Disciplining rulers and experts”, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).
1981
27. “On liberty & economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”, Cambridge University doctoral thesis, supervisor FH Hahn, FBA; examiners CJ Bliss, FBA; TW Hutchison, FBA (Due to be published here 2010). 27a Response of FA Hayek on a partial draft February 18 1981. 27b Response of Peter Bauer, 1982. 27c Response of Theodore W Schultz, 1983. 27d. Response of Frank Hahn 1985.
1982
28. “Knowledge and freedom in economic theory Parts 1 and 2”, Centre for Study of Public Choice, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Working Papers.
29. “Economic Theory and Development Economics”. Lecture to American Economic Association, New York, Dec 1982. Panel: RM Solow, HB Chenery, T Weisskopf, P Streeten, G Rosen, S Roy. Published in 29a.
1983
29a “Economic Theory and Development Economics: A Comment”. World Development, 1983. [Citation: Stavros Thefanides “Metamorphosis of Development Economics”, World Development 1988.]
30. “The Political Economy of Trade Policy (Comment on J. Michael Finger)”, Washington DC: Cato Journal, Winter 1983/84. See also000 “Risk-aversion explains resistance to freer trade”, 2008.
1984
31. “Considerations on Utility, Benevolence and Taxation”, History of Political Economy, 1984. 31a Response of Professor Sir John Hicks May 1 1984.
[Citations: P. Hennipman, “A Tale of Two Schools”, De Economist 1987, “A New Look at the Ordinalist Revolution”, J. Econ. Lit. Mar 1988; P. Rappoport, “Reply to Professor Hennipman”, J. Econ. Lit. Mar 1988; Eugene Smolensky et al “An Application of A Dynamic Cost-of-Living Index to the Evaluation of Changes in Social Welfare”, J. Post-Keynesian Econ.IX.3. 1987.]
32. Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India, London: Institute of Economic Affairs, London 1984.
[Citations: Lead editorial of The Times of London May 29 1984, “India’s economy”, Times letters June 16 1984. John Toye “Political Economy & Analysis of Indian Development”, Modern Asian Studies, 22, 1, 1988; John Toye, Dilemmas of Development; D. Wilson, “Privatization of Asia”, The Banker Sep. 1984 etc]. See also 370 “Silver Jubilee of ‘Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India’” 2009.
33. Review of Utilitarianism and Beyond, Amartya Sen & Bernard Williams (eds) Public Choice.
34. Review of Limits of Utilitarianism, HB Miller & WH Williams (eds.), Public Choice.
35. Deendayal Upadhyaya lecture “On Government and the Individual in India” (one of four invited lecturers), Washington DC, October 1984.
1987
36. (with one other) “Does the Theory of Logical Types Inform the Theory of Communication?”, Journal of Genetic Psychology., 148 (4), Dec. 1987 [Citation:
37. “Irrelevance of Foreign Aid”, India International Centre Quarterly, Winter 1987.
38. Review of Development Planning by Sukhamoy Chakravarty for Economic Affairs, London 1987.
1988
39. (with Seiji Naya and Pearl Imada) “Introduction” to Lessons in Development: A Comparative Study of Asia and Latin America. San Francisco: Inst. of Economic Growth.
40. “A note on the welfare economics of regional cooperation”, lecture to Asia-Latin America conference, East West Center Honolulu, published 2009.
1989
41.Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry, London & New York: Routledge (International Library of Philosophy) 1989, paperback 1991. Internet edition 2007. [Reviews & Citations: Research in Economics, 1992; De Economist 1991 & 1992; Manch.Sch. Econ.Studs. 59, 1991; Ethics 101.88 Jul. 1991; Kyklos 43.4 1990; Soc. Science Q. 71.880. Dec.1990; Can. Phil. Rev. 1990; J. Econ. Hist. Sep. 1990; Econ. & Phil. Fall 1990; Econ. Affairs June-July 1990; TLS May 1990; Choice March 1990; J. App.Phil. 1994, M. Blaug: Methodology of Economics, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1992; Hist. Methods. 27.3, 1994; J. of Inst. & Theoretical Econ.,1994; Jahrbucker fur Nationaleconomie 1994, 573:574. Mark A Lutz in Economics for the Common Good, London: Routledge, 1999, et al]. See also 339 “Apropos Philosophy of Economics”, Comments of Sidney Hook, KJ Arrow, Milton Friedman, TW Schultz, SS Alexander, Max Black, Renford Bambrough, John Gray et al.
42. Foreword to Essays on the Political Economy by James M. Buchanan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1989.
43. “Modern Political Economy of India”, edited by Subroto Roy & William E James, Hawaii mimeo May 21 1989. This published for the first time a November 1955 memorandum to the Government of India by Milton Friedman. See also 43a, 53.
43a. Preface to “Milton Friedman’s extempore comments at the 1989 Hawaii conference: on India, Israel, Palestine, the USA, Debt and its uses, Erhardt abolishing exchange controls, Etc”, May 22 1989, published here for the first time October 31 2008.
44. Milton Friedman’s defence of my work in 1989.
45. Theodore W. Schultz’s defence of Philosophy of Economics
1990
46. “Letter to Judge Evelyn Lance: On A Case Study in Private International Law” (Due to be published here in 2010).
47-49. Selections from advisory work on economic policy etc for Rajiv Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of India, published in 47a-49a.
1991
41b Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry, Paperback edition.
50. “Conversations and correspondence with Rajiv Gandhi during the Gulf war, January 1991” (Due to be published here 2010).
47a. A Memo to Rajiv I: Stronger Secular Middle”, The Statesman, Jul 31 1991.
48a “A Memo to Rajiv II: Saving India’s Prestige”, The Statesman, Aug 1 1991.
49a “A Memo to Rajiv III: Salvation in Penny Capitalism”, The Statesman, Aug 2 1991 47b-49b “Three Memoranda to Rajiv Gandhi 1990-91”, 2007 republication here.
51. “Constitution for a Second Indian Republic”, The Saturday Statesman, April 20 1991. Republished here 2009.
52. “On the Art of Government: Experts, Party, Cabinet and Bureaucracy”, New Delhi mimeo March 25 1991, published here July 00 2009.
1992
53.Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s Edited and with an Introduction by Subroto Roy & William E. James New Delhi, London, Newbury Park: Sage: 1992. Citation: Milton and Rose Friedman Two Lucky People (Chicago 1998), pp. 268-269.
54.Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s Edited and with an Introduction by William E. James & Subroto Roy, Hawaii MS 1989, Sage: 1992, Karachi: Oxford 1993.
Reviews of 53 &54 include: Bus. Today, Mar-Apr 1992; Political Studies March 1995; Econ Times 21 March 1993; Pakistan Development Review 1992. Hindustan Times 11 July 1992. Pacific Affairs 1993; Hindu 21 March 1993, 15 June 1993; Pakistan News International 12 June 1993. Book Reviews March 1993; Deccan Herald 2 May 1993; Pol.Econ.J. Ind. 1992. Fin Express 13 September 1992; Statesman 16 Jan. 1993. J. Royal Soc Asian Aff. 1994, J. Contemporary Asia, 1994 etc.
55. “Fundamental Problems of the Economies of India and Pakistan”, World Bank, Washington, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).
56.“The Road to Stagflation: The Coming Dirigisme in America, or, America, beware thy economists!, or Zen and Clintonomics,” Washington DC, Broad Branch Terrace, mimeo, November 17.
1993
57. “Exchange-rates and manufactured exports of South Asia”, IMF Washington DC mimeo. Published in part in 2007-2008 as 58-62:
58. “Path of the Indian Rupee 1947-1993”, 2008.
59. “Path of the Pakistan Rupee 1947-1993”, 2008.
60. “Path of the Sri Lankan Rupee 1948-1993”, 2008.
61. “Path of the Bangladesh Taka 1972-1993”, 2008.
62. “India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh Manufactured Exports, IMF Washington DC mimeo”, published 2007.
63. “Economic Assessment of US-India Merchandise Trade”, Arlington, Virginia, mimeo, published in slight part in Indo-US Trade & Economic Cooperation, ICRIER New Delhi, 1995, and in whole 2007.
64. “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir”, mimeo, Arlington, Virginia, circulated in Washington DC 1993-1995, cf82, 111infra. Comment of Selig Harrison.
1994
65. “Comment on Indonesia”, in The Political Economy of Policy Reform edited by John Williamson, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
66a “Gold reserves & the gold price in anticipation of Central Bank behaviour”, Greenwich, Connecticut, mimeo. 67b. “Portfolio optimization and foreign currency exposure hedging” Greenwich, Connecticut mimeo.
1995
68. “On the logic and commonsense of debt and payments crises: How to avoid another Mexico in India and Pakistan”, Scarsdale, NY, mimeo, May 1.
69. “Policies for Young India”, Scarsdale, NY, pp. 350, manuscript.
1996
70. US Supreme Court documents, published in part in 2008 as “Become a US Supreme Court Justice!” 70a, 70b (Due to be published in full here in 2010 as Roy vs University of Hawaii, 1989- including the expert testimonies of Milton Friedman and Theodore W Schultz.).
71. “Key problems of macroeconomic management facing the new Indian Government”, May 17. Scarsdale, New York, mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).
72. “Preventing a collapse of the rupee”, IIT Kharagpur lecture July 16 1996.
73. “The Economist’s Representation of Technological Knowledge”, Vishvesvaraya lecture to the Institution of Engineers, September 15 1996, IIT Kharagpur.
1997
74. “Union and State Budgets in India”, lecture at the World Bank, Washington DC, May 00.
75. “State Budgets in India”, IIT Kharagpur mimeo, June 6.
1998
76. “Transparency and Economic Policy-Making: An address to the Asia-Pacific Public Relations Conference” (panel on Transparency chaired by CR Irani) Jan 30 1998, published here 2008.
77. Theodore W. Schultz 1902-1998, Feb 25.
78. “The Economic View of Human Resources”, address to a regional conference on human resources, IIT Kharagpur.
79. “Management accounting”, lecture at Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussourie,
80a “The Original Reformer”, Outlook letters, Jan 23 1998
81. “Recent Developments in Modern Finance”, IIM Bangalore Review, 10, 1 & 2, Jan.-Jun 1998. Reprinted as “From the Management Guru’s Classroom”: 81a “An introduction to derivatives”, Business Standard/Financial Times, Bombay 18 Apr 1999; 81b “Options in the future, Apr 25 1999; 81c “What is hedging?”, May 2 1999; 81d “Teaching computers to think”, May 9 1999.
82. “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir”, Jun 22 1998, lecture at Heritage Foundation, Washington DC. Cf 111 Dec 2005.
83. “Sixteen Currencies for India: A Reverse Euro Model for Monetary & Fiscal Efficacy”, Lecture at the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, June 29 1998. Due to be published here 2010.
84. “Fable of the Fox, the Farmer, and the Would-Be Tailors”, October (Published here July 27 2009).
85. “A Common Man’s Guide to Pricing Financial Derivatives”, Lecture to “National Seminar on Derivatives”, Xavier Labour Research Institute, Jamshedpur, Dec. 16 1998. See 98.
1999
86. “An Analysis of Pakistan’s War-Winning Strategy: Are We Ready for This?”, IIT Kharagpur mimeo, published in part as 86a.“Was a Pakistani Grand Strategy Discerned in Time by India?” New Delhi: Security & Political Risk Analysis Bulletin, July 1999, Kargil issue. See also 000
80b. “The Original Reformer”, Outlook letters, Sep 13 1999.
2000
87. “On Freedom & the Scientific Point of View”, SN Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Feb 17 2000. Cf 100 below.
88. “Liberalism and Indian economic policy”, lecture at IIM Calcutta, Indian Liberal Group Meetings Devlali, Hyderabad; also Keynote address to UGC Seminar Guntur, March 30 2002. (Due to be published here 2010).
89. “Towards a Highly Transparent Fiscal & Monetary Framework for India’s Union & State Governments”, Invited address to Conference of State Finance Secretaries, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay, April 29, 2000. Published 2008.
90. “On the Economics of Information Technology”, two lectures at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, Nov 10-11, 2000.
91. Review of A New World by Amit Chaudhuri in Literary Criterion, Mysore.
2001
92. Review of AD Shroff: Titan of Finance and Free Enterprise by Sucheta Dalal, Freedom First., January.
93. “Encounter with Rajiv Gandhi: On the Origins of the 1991 Economic Reform”, Freedom First, October. See also93a in 2005 and 93b in 2007.
94. “A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11”, a keynote address to the Council for Asian Liberals & Democrats, Manila, Philippines, 16 Nov. 2001. Published as 91a.
95. “The Case for and against The Satanic Verses: Diatribe and Dialectic as Art”, Dec 22 republished in print 95aThe Statesman Festival Volume, 2006.
2002
94a “A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11”, in September 11 & Political Freedom in Asia, eds. Johannen, Smith & Gomez, Singapore 2002.
2002-2010
96. “Recording vivid dreams: Freud’s advice in exploring the Unconscious Mind” (Due to be published here in 2010).
2003
97. “Key principles of government accounting and audit”, IIT Kharagpur mimeo.
98. “Derivative pricing & other topics in financial theory: a student’s complete lecture notes” (Due to be published here in 2010).
2004
99. TV Interview by BBC, Oxford, after May 2004 General Election in India.
100. “Collapse of the Global Conversation”, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, Netherlands, Jul 2004.
101. “Science, Religion, Art & the Necessity of Freedom”, a public lecture, University of Buckingham, UK, August 24 2004. Published here 2007.
2005
93a Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform (this was the full story; it appeared in print for the first time in The Statesman Festival Volume 2007).
102. “Can India become an economic superpower (or will there be a monetary meltdown)?” Cardiff University Institute of Applied Macroeconomics Monetary Economics Seminar, April 13, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, April 27, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay, Chief Economist’s Seminar on Monetary Economics, May 5.
103. Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant, Edited and with an Introduction by Subroto Roy & John Clarke, London & New York: Continuum, 2005; paperback 2006; French translation by Florian Bay, 2007.
104. “Iqbal & Jinnah vs Rahmat Ali in Pakistan’s Creation”, Dawn, Karachi, Sep 3.
105. “The Mitrokhin Archives II from an Indian Perspective: A Review Article”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Oct 11 .
106. “After the Verdict”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 20.
107. “US Espionage Failures”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Oct 26
108. “Waffle But No Models of Monetary Policy”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Oct 30.
109. “On Hindus and Muslims”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Nov 6.
110. “Assessing Vajpayee: Hindutva True and False”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Nov 13-14″.
111. “Fiction from the India Economic Summit”, The Statesman, Front Page, Nov 29.
112. “Solving Kashmir: On an Application of Reason”, The Statesman Editorial Page
I. “Give the Hurriyat et al Indian Green Cards”, Dec 1
II. “Choice of Nationality under Full Information”, Dec 2
III. “Of Flags and Consulates in Gilgit etc”, Dec 3.
2006
113. “The Dream Team: A Critique”, The Statesman Editorial Page
I : New Delhi’s Consensus (Manmohantekidambaromics), Jan 6
II: Money, Convertibility, Inflationary Deficit Financing, Jan 7
III: Rule of Law, Transparency, Government Accounting, Jan 8.
114. “Unaccountable Delhi: India’s Separation of Powers’ Doctrine”, The Statesman, Jan 13.
115. “Communists and Constitutions”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Jan 22.
116. “Diplomatic Wisdom”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Jan 31.
117. “Mendacity & the Government Budget Constraint”, The Statesman, Front Page Feb 3.
118. “Of Graven Images”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb5.
119. “Separation of Powers, Parts 1-2”, The Statesman, Editorial Pages Feb 12-13.
120. “Public Debt, Government Fantasy”, The Statesman, Front Page Editorial Comment, Feb 22.
121. “War or Peace Parts 1-2”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 23-24.
122. “Can You Handle This Brief, Mr Chidambaram?” The Statesman, Front Page Feb 26.
123. “A Downpayment On the Taj Mahal Anyone?”, The Statesman, Front Page Comment on the Budget 2006-2007, Mar 1.
124. “Atoms for Peace (or War)”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page Mar 5.
125. “Imperialism Redux: Business, Energy, Weapons & Foreign Policy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Mar 14.
126. “Logic of Democracy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Mar 30.
127. “Towards an Energy Policy”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 2.
128. “Iran’s Nationalism”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 6.
129. “A Modern Military”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 16.
131. “Lessons for India from Nepal’s Revolution”, The Statesman, Front Page Apr 26.
132. “Revisionist Flattery (Inder Malhotra’s Indira Gandhi: A Review Article)”, The Sunday Statesman, May 7.
133. “Modern World History”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, May 7.
134. “Argumentative Indians: A Conversation with Professor Amartya Sen on Philosophy, Identity and Islam,” The Sunday Statesman, May 14 2006. “A Philosophical Conversation between Professor Sen and Dr Roy”, 2008. Translated into Bengali by AA and published in 00.
135. “The Politics of Dr Singh”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, May 21.
136. “Corporate Governance & the Principal-Agent Problem”, lecture at a conference on corporate governance, Kolkata May 31. Published here 2008.
137. “Pakistan’s Allies Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jun 4-5.
138. “Law, Justice and J&K Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jul 2, The Statesman Editorial Page Jul 3.
139. “The Greatest Pashtun (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan)”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jul 16.
140. “Understanding Pakistan Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jul 30, The Statesman Editorial Page Jul 31.
141. “Indian Money and Credit”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 6.
142. “India’s Moon Mission”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 13.
143. “Jaswant’s Journeyings: A Review Article”, The Sunday Statesman Magazine, Aug 27.
144. “Our Energy Interests, Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 27, The Statesman Editorial Page Aug 28.
146. “Racism New and Old”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Sep 8 2006
147. “Political Economy of India’s Energy Policy”, address to KAF-TERI conference, Goa Oct 7, published in 147a.
148. “New Foreign Policy? Seven phases of Indian foreign policy may be identifiable since Nehru”, Parts 1-2, The Sunday Statesman, Oct 8, The Statesman Oct 9.
149. “Justice & Afzal: There is a difference between law and equity (or natural justice). The power of pardon is an equitable power. Commuting a death-sentence is a partial pardon”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Oct 14
150. “Non-existent liberals (On a Liberal Party for India)”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Oct 22.
151. “History of Jammu & Kashmir Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Oct 29, The Statesman Oct 30, Editorial Page.
152. “American Democracy: Does America need a Prime Minister and a longer-lived Legislature?”, The Sunday Statesman Nov 5.
153. “Milton Friedman A Man of Reason 1912-2006”, The Statesman Perspective Page, Nov 22.
154. “Postscript to Milton Friedman Mahalanobis’s Plan (The Mahalanobis-Nehru “Second Plan”) The Statesman Front Page Nov 22.
155. “Mob Violence and Psychology”, Dec 10, The Statesman, Editorial Page.
156. “What To Tell Musharraf: Peace Is Impossible Without Non-Aggressive Pakistani Intentions”, The Statesman Editorial Page Dec 15.
157. “Land, Liberty and Value: Government must act in good faith treating all citizens equally – not favouring organised business lobbies and organised labour over an unorganised peasantry”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Dec 31.
2007
158. “Hypocrisy of the CPI-M: Political Collapse In Bengal: A Mid-Term Election/Referendum Is Necessary”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Jan 9.
159. “On Land-Grabbing: Dr Singh’s India, Buddhadeb’s Bengal, Modi’s Gujarat have notorious US, Soviet and Chinese examples to follow ~ distracting from the country’s real economic problems,” The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page Jan 14.
160. “India’s Macroeconomics: Real growth has steadily occurred because India has shared the world’s technological progress. But bad fiscal, monetary policies over decades have led to monetary weakness and capital flight” The Statesman Editorial Page Jan 20.
161. “Fiscal Instability: Interest payments quickly suck dry every year’s Budget. And rolling over old public debt means that Government Borrowing in fact much exceeds the Fiscal Deficit”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 4.
162. “Our trade and payments Parts 1-2” (“India in World Trade and Payments”),The Sunday Statesman, Feb 11 2007, The Statesman, Feb 12 2007.
163. “Our Policy Process: Self-Styled “Planners” Have Controlled India’s Paper Money For Decades,” The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 20.
164. “Bengal’s Finances”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, Feb 25.
165. “Fallacious Finance: Congress, BJP, CPI-M may be leading India to Hyperinflation” The Statesman Editorial Page Mar 5.
166. “Uttar Pradesh Polity and Finance: A Responsible New Govt May Want To Declare A Financial Emergency” The Statesman Editorial Page, Mar 24
167. “A scam in the making” in The Sunday Statesman Front Page Apr 1 2007, published here in full as “Swindling India”.
168. “Maharashtra’s Money: Those Who Are Part Of The Problem Are Unlikely To Be A Part Of Its Solution”, The Statesman Editorial Page Apr 24.
147a. “Political Economy of Energy Policy” in India and Energy Security edited by Anant Sudarshan and Ligia Noronha, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, New Delhi 2007.
169. “Presidential Qualities: Simplicity, Genuine Achievement Are Desirable; Political Ambition Is Not”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, May 8.
170. “We & Our Neighbours: Pakistanis And Bangladeshis Would Do Well To Learn From Sheikh Abdullah”, The Statesman, Editorial Page May 15.
171. “On Indian Nationhood: From Tamils To Kashmiris And Assamese And Mizos To Sikhs And Goans”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, May 25.
172. A Current Example of the Working of the Unconscious Mind, May 26.
173. Where I would have gone if I was Osama Bin Laden, May 31.
174. “US election ’08:America’s Presidential Campaign Seems Destined To Be Focussed On Iraq”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, June 1.
175. “Home Team Advantage: On US-Iran talks and Sunni-Shia subtleties: Tehran must transcend its revolution and endorse the principle that the House of Islam has many mansions”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, June 3
176. “Unhealthy Delhi: When will normal political philosophy replace personality cults?”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, June 11.
177. “American Turmoil: A Vice-Presidential Coup – And Now a Grassroots Counterrevolution?”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, June 18
178. “Political Paralysis: India has yet to develop normal conservative, liberal and socialist parties. The Nice-Housing-Effect and a little game-theory may explain the current stagnation”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, June 24.
179. “Has America Lost? War Doctrines Of Kutusov vs Clausewitz May Help Explain Iraq War”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, July 3.
180. “Lal Masjid ≠ Golden Temple: Wide differences are revealed between contemporary Pakistan and India by these two superficially similar military assaults on armed religious civilians”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page July 15
181. “Political Stonewalling: Only Transparency Can Improve Institutions”, The Statesman, Editorial Page July 20.
182. “Gold standard etc: Fixed versus flexible exchange rates”, July 21.
183. “US Pakistan-India Policy: Delhi & Islamabad Still Look West In Defining Their Relationship”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, July 27.
184. “Works of DH Lawrence” July 30
185. “An Open Letter to Professor Amartya Sen about Singur etc”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, July 31.
186. “Martin Buber on Palestine and Israel (with Postscript)”, Aug 4.
187. “Auguste Rodin on Nature, Art, Beauty, Women and Love”, Aug 7.
188. “Saving Pakistan: A Physicist/Political Philosopher May Represent Iqbal’s “Spirit of Modern Times”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 13.
189. Letter to Forbes.com 16 Aug.
190. “Need for Clarity: A poorly drafted treaty driven by business motives is a recipe for international misunderstanding”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 19.
191. “No Marxist MBAs? An amicus curiae brief for the Hon’ble High Court”, The Statesman, FrontPage, Aug 29.
192. On Lawrence, Sep 4.
193. Dalai Lama’s Return: In the tradition of Gandhi, King, Mandela, Sep 11.
194. Of JC Bose, Patrick Geddes & the Leaf-World, Sep 12.
195. “Against Quackery: Manmohan and Sonia have violated Rajiv Gandhi’s intended reforms; the Communists have been appeased or bought; the BJP is incompetent Parts 1-2”, in The Sunday Statesman and The Statesman, Editorial Pages of Sep 23-24.
196. Karl Georg Zinn’s 1994 Review of Philosophy of Economics, Sep 26.
197. DH Lawrence’s Phoenix, Oct 3.
93b. “Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform”, Statesman Festival Volume.
198. “Iran, America, Iraq: Bush’s post-Saddam Saddamism — one flip-flop too many?”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 16.
199. “Understanding China: The World Needs to Ask China to Find Her True Higher Self”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 22.
200. “India-USA interests: Elements of a serious Indian foreign policy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 30.
201. “China’s India Aggression : German Historians Discover Logic Behind Communist Military Strategy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, Nov 5.
202. Sonia’s Lying Courtier (with Postscript), Nov 25. See also 2014
203. “Surrender or Fight? War is not a cricket match or Bollywood movie. Can India fight China if it must?” The Statesman, Dec 4, Editorial Page.
204. Hutton and Desai: United in Error Dec 14
205. “China’s Commonwealth: Freedom is the Road to Resolving Taiwan, Tibet, Sinkiang”, The Statesman, Dec 17.
2008
206. “Nixon & Mao vs India: How American foreign policy did a U-turn about Communist China’s India aggression. The Government of India should publish its official history of the 1962 war.” The Sunday Statesman, Jan 6, The Statesman Jan 7 Editorial Page.
207. “Lessons from the 1962 War: Beginnings of a solution to the long-standing border problem: there are distinct Tibetan, Chinese and Indian points of view that need to be mutually comprehended”, The Sunday Statesman, January 13 2008.
208. “Our Dismal Politics: Will Independent India Survive Until 2047?”, The Statesman Editorial Page, Feb 1.
209. Median Voter Model of India’s Electorate Feb 7.
210. “Anarchy in Bengal: Intra-Left bandh marks the final unravelling of “Brand Buddha””, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 10.
211. Fifty years since my third birthday: on life and death.
212. “Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession: Sheikh Abdullah Relied In Politics On The French Constitution, Not Islam”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 16.
213. A Note on the Indian Policy Process Feb 21.
214. “Growth & Government Delusion: Progress Comes From Learning, Enterprise, Exchange, Not The Parasitic State”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 22.
215. “How to Budget: Thrift, Not Theft, Needs to Guide Our Public Finances”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 26.
216. “India’s Budget Process (in Theory)”, The Statesman, Front Page Feb 29.
217. “Irresponsible Governance: Congress, BJP, Communists, BSP, Sena Etc Reveal Equally Bad Traits”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, March 4.
218. “American Politics: Contest Between Obama And Clinton Affects The World”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, March 11.
219. “China’s India Example: Tibet, Xinjiang May Not Be Assimilated Like Inner Mongolia And Manchuria”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, March 25.
220. “Taxation of India’s Professional Cricket: A Proposal”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, April 1.
221. “Two cheers for Pakistan!”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, April 7.
222. “Indian Inflation: Upside Down Economics From The New Delhi Establishment Parts 1-2”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, April 15-16.
223. “Assessing Manmohan: The Doctor of Deficit Finance should realise the currency is at stake”, The Statesman, Editorial Page Apr 25.
224. John Wisdom, Renford Bambrough: Main Philosophical Works, May 8.
225. “All India wept”: On the death of Rajiv Gandhi, May 21.
226. “China’s force and diplomacy: The need for realism in India” The Statesman, Editorial Page May 31.
227. Serendipity and the China-Tibet-India border problem June 6
228. “Leadership vacuum: Time & Tide Wait For No One In Politics: India Trails Pakistan & Nepal!”, The Statesman Editorial Page June 7.
229. My meeting Jawaharlal Nehru Oct13 1962
230. Manindranath Roy 1891-1958
231. Surendranath Roy 1860-1929
232. The Roys of Behala 1928.
233. Sarat Chandra visits Surendranath Roy 1927
234. Nuksaan-Faida Analysis = Cost-Benefit Analysis in Hindi/Urdu Jun 30
235. One of many reasons John R Hicks was a great economist July 3
236. My father, Indian diplomat, in the Shah’s Tehran 1954-57 July 8
237 Distribution of Govt of India Expenditure (Net of Operational Income) 1995 July 27
238. Growth of Real Income, Money & Prices in India 1869-2008, July 28.
239. Communism from Social Democracy? But not in India or China! July 29
240. Death of Solzhenitsyn, Aug. 3
240a. Tolstoy on Science and Art, Aug 4.
241. “Reddy’s reckoning: Where should India’s real interest rate be relative to the world?” Business Standard Aug 10
242. “Rangarajan Effect”, Business Standard Aug 24
243. My grandfather’s death in Ottawa 50 years ago today Sep 3
244. My books in the Library of Congress and British Library Sep 12
245. On Jimmy Carter & the “India-US Nuclear Deal”, Sep 12
246. My father after presenting his credentials to President Kekkonen of Finland Sep 14 1973.
247. “October 1929? Not!”, Business Standard, Sep 18.
248. “MK Gandhi, SN Roy, MA Jinnah in March 1919: Primary education legislation in a time of protest”
249. 122 sensible American economists Sept 26
250. Govt of India: Please call in the BBC and ask them a question Sep 27
251. “Monetary Integrity and the Rupee: Three British Raj relics have dominated our macroeconomic policy-making” Business Standard Sep 28.
252a. Rabindranath’s daughter writes to her friend my grandmother Oct 5
252b. A Literary Find: Modern Poetry in Bengal, Oct 6.
253. Sarat writes to Manindranath 1931, Oct 12
254. Origins of India’s Constitutional Politics 1913
255. Indira Gandhi in Paris, 1971
256. How the Liabilities/Assets Ratio of Indian Banks Changed from 84% in 1970 to 108% in 1998, October 20
257a. My Subjective Probabilities on India’s Moon Mission Oct 21
258. Complete History of Mankind’s Moon Missions: An Indian Citizen’s Letter to ISRO’s Chairman, Oct 22.
259. Would not a few million new immigrants solve America’s mortgage crisis? Oct 26
260. “America’s divided economists”, Business Standard Oct 26
261. One tiny prediction about the Obama Administration, Nov 5
262. Rai Bahadur Umbika Churn Rai, 1827-1902, Nov 7 2008
263. Jawaharlal Nehru invites my father to the Mountbatten Farewell Nov 7 2008
70a. “Become a US Supreme Court Justice! (Explorations in the Rule of Law in America) Preface” Nov 9
70b. “Become a US Supreme Court Justice! (Explorations in the Rule of Law in America)” Nov 9.
257b. Neglecting technological progress was the basis of my pessimism about Chandrayaan, Nov 9.
264. Of a new New Delhi myth and the success of the University of Hawaii 1986-1992 Pakistan project Nov 15
265. Pre-Partition Indian Secularism Case-Study: Fuzlul Huq and Manindranath Roy Nov 16
266. Do President-elect Obama’s Pakistan specialists suppose Maulana Azad, Dr Zakir Hussain, Sheikh Abdullah were Pakistanis (or that Sheikh Mujib wanted to remain one)? Nov 18
267. Jews have never been killed in India for being Jews until this sad day, Nov 28.
268. In international law, Pakistan has been the perpetrator, India the victim of aggression in Mumbai, Nov 30.
269. The Indian Revolution, Dec 1.
270. Habeas Corpus: a captured terrorist mass-murderer tells a magistrate he has not been mistreated by Mumbai’s police Dec 3
271. India’s Muslim Voices (Or, Let us be clear the Pakistan-India or Kashmir conflicts have not been Muslim-Hindu conflicts so much as intra-Muslim conflicts about Muslim identity and self-knowledge on the Indian subcontinent), Dec 4
272. “Anger Management” needed? An Oxford DPhil recommends Pakistan launch a nuclear first strike against India within minutes of war, Dec 5.
273. A Quick Comparison Between the September 11 2001 NYC-Washington attacks and the November 26-28 2008 Mumbai Massacres (An Application of the Case-by-Case Philosophical Technique of Wittgenstein, Wisdom and Bambrough), Dec 6
274. Dr Rice finally gets it right (and maybe Mrs Clinton will too) Dec 7
275. Will the Government of India’s new macroeconomic policy dampen or worsen the business-cycle (if such a cycle exists at all)? No one knows! “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.” Dec 7
276. Pump-priming for car-dealers: Keynes groans in his grave (If evidence was needed of the intellectual dishonesty of New Delhi’s new macroeconomic policy, here it is) Dec 9.
277. Congratulations to Mumbai’s Police: capturing a terrorist, affording him his Habeas Corpus rights, getting him to confess within the Rule of Law, sets a new world standard Dec 10
278. Two cheers — wait, let’s make that one cheer — for America’s Justice Department, Dec 10
279. Will Pakistan accept the bodies of nine dead terrorists who came from Pakistan to Mumbai? If so, let there be a hand-over at the Wagah border, Dec 11.
280. Kasab was a stupid, ignorant, misguided youth, manufactured by Pakistan’s terrorist masterminds into becoming a mass-murdering robot: Mahatma Gandhi’s India should punish him, get him to repent if he wishes, then perhaps rehabilitate him as a potent weapon against Pakistani terrorism Dec 12.
281. Pakistan’s New Delhi Embassy should ask for “Consular Access” to nine dead terrorists in a Mumbai morgue before asking to meet Kasab, Dec 13
282. An Indian Reply to President Zardari: Rewarding Pakistan for bad behaviour leads to schizophrenic relationships Dec 19
283. Is my prediction about Caroline Kennedy becoming US Ambassador to Britain going to be correct? Dec 27
284. Chandrayaan adds a little good cheer! Well done, ISRO!, Dec 28
285. How sad that “Slumdog millionaire” is SO disappointing! Dec 31
289. (with Claude Arpi) “Transparency & history: India’s archives must be opened to world standards” Business Standard New Delhi Dec 31, 2008, published here Jan 1 .
2009
290. A basis of India-Pakistan cooperation on the Mumbai massacres: the ten Pakistani terrorists started off as pirates and the Al-Huseini is a pirate ship Jan 1.
291. India’s “pork-barrel politics” needs a nice (vegetarian) Hindi name! “Teli/oily politics” perhaps? (And are we next going to see a Bill of Rights for Lobbyists?) Jan 3
292. My (armchair) experience of the 1999 Kargil war (Or, “Actionable Intelligence” in the Internet age: How the Kargil effort got a little help from a desktop) Jan 5
293. How Jammu & Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah can become a worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize: An Open Letter, Jan 7
294. Could the Satyam/PwC fraud be the visible part of an iceberg? Where are India’s “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”? Isn’t governance rather poor all over corporate India? Bad public finance may be a root cause Jan 8
295. Satyam does not exist: it is bankrupt, broke, kaput. Which part of this does the new “management team” not get? The assets belong to Satyam’s creditors. Jan 8
296. Jews are massacred in Mumbai and now Jews commit a massacre in Gaza! Jan 9
297. And now for the Great Satyam Whitewash/Cover-Up/Public Subsidy! The wrong Minister appoints the wrong new Board who, probably, will choose the wrong policy Jan 12
298. Letter to Wei Jingsheng Jan 14
299. Memo to the Hon’ble Attorneys General of Pakistan & India: How to jointly prosecute the Mumbai massacre perpetrators most expeditiously Jan 16
300. Satyam and IT-firms in general may be good candidates to become “Labour-Managed” firms Jan 18
301. “Yes we might be able to do that. Perhaps we ought to. But again, perhaps we ought not to, let me think about it…. Most important is Cromwell’s advice: Think it possible we may be mistaken!” Jan 20.
302. RAND’s study of the Mumbai attacks Jan 25
303. Didn’t Dr Obama (the new American President’s late father) once publish an article in Harvard’s Quarterly Journal of Economics? (Or did he?) Jan 25.
304. “A Dialogue in Macroeconomics” 1989 etc: sundry thoughts on US economic policy discourse Jan 30
305. American Voices: A Brief Popular History of the United States in 20 You-Tube Music Videos Feb 5
306. Jaladhar Sen writes to Manindranath at Surendranath’s death, Feb 23
307. Pakistani expansionism: India and the world need to beware of “Non-Resident Pakistanis” ruled by Rahmat Ali’s ghost, Feb 9
308. My American years Part One 1980-90: battles for academic integrity & freedom Feb 11.
309. Thanks and well done Minister Rehman Malik and the Govt of Pakistan Feb 12
310. Can President Obama resist the financial zombies (let alone slay them)? His economists need to consult Dr Anna J Schwartz Feb 14
311. A Brief History of Gilgit, Feb 18
312. Memo to UCLA Geographers: Commonsense suggests Mr Bin Laden is far away from the subcontinent Feb 20
313. The BBC gets its history and geography deliberately wrong again Feb 21
314. Bengal Legislative Council 1921, Feb 28
315. Carmichael visits Surendranath, 1916, Mar 1
316. Memo to GoI CLB: India discovered the Zero, and 51% of Zero is still Zero Mar 10
317. An Academic Database of Doctoral & Other Postgraduate Research Done at UK Universities on India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Other Asian Countries Over 100 Years, Mar 13
318. Pakistan’s progress, Mar 18
319. Risk-aversion explains resistance to free trade, Mar 19
320. India’s incredibly volatile inflation rate! Mar 20
321. Is “Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona” referring to an emasculation of (elite) American society?, Mar 21
322. Just how much intellectual fraud can Delhi produce? Mar 26
323. India is not a monarchy! We urgently need to universalize the French concept of “citoyen”! Mar 28
324. Could this be the real state of some of our higher education institutions? Mar 29
325. Progress! The BBC retracts its prevarication! Mar 30
326. Aldous Huxley’s Essay “DH Lawrence” Mar 31
327. Waffle not institutional reform is what (I predict) the “G-20 summit” will produce, April 1
328. Did a full cricket team of Indian bureaucrats follow our PM into 10 Downing Street? Count for yourself! April 3
329. Will someone please teach the BJP’s gerontocracy some Economics 101 on an emergency basis? April 5
330. The BBC needs to determine exactly where it thinks Pakistan is!, April 5
331. Alfred Lyall on Christians, Muslims, India, China, Etc, 1908, April 6
332. An eminent economist of India passes away April 9
333. Democracy Database for the Largest Electorate Ever Seen in World History, April 12
334. Memo to the Election Commission of India April 14 2009, 9 AM, April 14
335.Caveat emptor! Satyam is taken over, April 14
336. India’s 2009 General Elections: Candidates, Parties, Symbols for Polls on 16-30 April Phases 1,2,3, April 15
337. On the general theory of expertise in democracy: reflections on what emerges from the American “torture memos” today, April 18
338. India’s 2009 General Elections: 467 constituencies (out of 543) for which candidates have been announced as of 1700hrs April 21, April 21
339. Apropos Philosophy of Economics, Comments of Sidney Hook, KJ Arrow, Milton Friedman, TW Schultz, SS Alexander, Max Black, Renford Bambrough, John Gray et al., April 22.
340. India’s 2009 General Elections: Names of all 543 Constituencies of the 15th Lok Sabha, April 22.
341. India’s 2009 General Elections: How 4125 State Assembly Constituencies comprise the 543 new Lok Sabha Constituencies, April 23.
342. Why has America’s “torture debate” yet to mention the obvious? Viz., sadism and racism, April 24
343. India’s 2009 General Elections: the advice of the late “George Eliot” (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880) to India’s voting public, April 24.
344. India’s 2009 General Elections: Delimitation and the Different Lists of 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies in 2009 and 2004, April 25
345. Is “Slumdog Millionaire” the single worst Best Picture ever?
346. India’s 2009 General Elections: Result of Delimitation — Old (2004) and New (2009) Lok Sabha and Assembly Constituencies, April 26
347. India’s 2009 General Elections: 7019 Candidates in 485 (out of 543) Constituencies announced as of April 26 noon April 26
348. What is Christine Fair referring to? Would the MEA kindly seek to address what she has claimed asap? April 27
349. Politics can be so entertaining Manmohan versus Sonia on the poor old CPI(M)!, April 28
350. A Dozen Grown-Up Questions for Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, LK Advani, Sharad Pawar, Km Mayawati and Anyone Else Dreaming of Becoming/Deciding India’s PM After the 2009 General Elections, April 28
351. India’s 2009 General Elections: How drastically will the vote-share of political parties change from 2004? May 2
352. India’s 2009 General Elections: And now finally, all 8,070 Candidates across all 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies, May 5
353. India’s 2009 General Elections: The Mapping of Votes into Assembly Segments Won into Parliamentary Seats Won in the 2004 Election, May 7
354. Will Messrs Advani, Rajnath Singh & Modi ride into the sunset if the BJP comes to be trounced? (Corrected), May 10
355. India’s 2009 General Elections: 543 Matrices to Help Ordinary Citizens Audit the Election Commission’s Vote-Tallies May 12
356. Well done Sonia-Rahul! Two hours before polls close today, I am willing to predict a big victory for you (but, please, try to get your economics right, and also, you must get Dr Singh a Lok Sabha seat if he is to be PM) May 13
357. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee must dissolve the West Bengal Assembly if he is an honest democrat: Please try to follow Gerard Schröder’s example even slightly! May 16
358. India’s 2009 General Elections: Provisional Results from the EC as of 1400 hours Indian Standard Time May 16
359. Memo to the Hon’ble President of India: It is Sonia Gandhi, not Manmohan Singh, who should be invited to our equivalent of the “Kissing Hands” Ceremony May 16
360. Time for heads to roll in the BJP/RSS and CPI(M)!, May 17.
361. Inviting a new Prime Minister of India to form a Government: Procedure Right and Wrong May 18
362. Starting with Procedural Error: Why has the “Cabinet” of the 14th Lok Sabha been meeting today AFTER the results of the Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha have been declared?! May 18
363. Why has the Sonia Congress done something that the Congress under Nehru-Indira-Rajiv would not have done, namely, exaggerate the power of the Rajya Sabha and diminish the power of the Lok Sabha? May 21
364. Shouldn’t Dr Singh’s Cabinet begin with a small apology to the President of India for discourtesy? May we have reviews and reforms of protocols and practices to be followed at Rashtrapati Bhavan and elsewhere? May 23
365. Parliament’s sovereignty has been diminished by the Executive: A record for future generations to know May 25
366. How tightly will organised Big Business be able to control economic policies this time? May 26
367. Why does India not have a Parliament ten days after the 15th Lok Sabha was elected? Nehru and Rajiv would both have been appalled May 27
368. Eleven days and counting after the 15th Lok Sabha was elected and still no Parliament of India! (But we do have 79 Ministers — might that be a world record?) May 28
369. Note to Posterity: 79 Ministers in office but no 15th Lok Sabha until June 1 2009! May 29
370. Silver Jubilee of Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India May 29
371. How to Design a Better Cabinet for the Government of India May 29
372. Parliament is supposed to control the Government, not be bullied or intimidated by it: Will Rahul Gandhi be able to lead the Backbenches in the 15th Lok Sabha? June 1
373. Mistaken Macroeconomics: An Open Letter to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, June 12
374. Why did Manmohan Singh and LK Advani apologise to one another? Is Indian politics essentially collusive, not competitive, aiming only to preserve and promote the post-1947 Dilli Raj at the expense of the whole of India? We seem to have no Churchillian repartee (except perhaps from Bihar occasionally) June 18
375. Are Iran’s Revolutionaries now Reactionaries? George Orwell would have understood. A fresh poll may be the only answer Are Iran’s Revolutionaries now Reactionaries? George Orwell would have understood. A fresh poll may be the only answer June 22
376. My March 25 1991 memo to Rajiv (which never reached him) is something the present Government seems to have followed: all for the best of course! July 12
377. Disquietude about France’s behaviour towards India on July 14 2009 July 14
378. Does the Govt. of India assume “foreign investors and analysts” are a key constituency for Indian economic policy-making? If so, why so? Have Govt. economists “learnt nothing, forgotten everything”? Some Bastille Day thoughts July 14
379. Letter to the GoI’s seniormost technical economist, May 21.July 19
380. Excuse me but young Kasab in fact confessed many months ago, immediately after he was captured – he deserves 20 or 30 years in an Indian prison, and a chance to become a model prisoner who will stand against the very terrorists who sent him on his vile mission July 20
381. Finally, three months late, the GoI responds to American and Pakistani allegations about Balochistan July 24
382. Thoughts, words, deeds: My work 1973-2010
2012
383. Life of my father 1915-2012
384. India’s Money” in the Cayman Financial Review, July 2012
386. 5 December 2012 interview by Mr Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, on Lok Sabha TV, the channel of India’s Lower House of Parliament, broadcast for the first time on 9 December 2012 on Lok Sabha TV, ishere and here in two parts.
387. Interview by GDI Impuls banking quarterly of Zürich published on 6 Dec 2012 is here.
388. My interview by Ragini Bhuyan of Delhi’s Sunday Guardian published on 16 Dec 2012 is here.
391. Critical assessment dated 19 August 2013 of Raghuram Rajan is here (Live Mint 19 Aug) and here
392. “Did Jagdish Bhagwati “originate”, “pioneer”, “intellectually father” India’s 1991 economic reform? Did Manmohan Singh? Or did I, through my encounter with Rajiv Gandhi, just as Siddhartha Shankar Ray told Manmohan & his aides in Sep 1993 in Washington? Judge the evidence for yourself. And why has Amartya Sen misdescribed his work? India’s right path forward today remains what I said in my 3 Dec 2012 Delhi lecture! 23 August 2013 here
393. My Recent Works, Interviews etc on India’s Money, Public Finance, Banking, Trade, BoP, Land, etc (an incomplete list) Nov 23, 2013
2014
394. 1) My 13 Sep 2019 Advice to PM Modi’s Adviser: Let PM address each State Legislature, get all India Govt Accounting & Public Decision Making to have integrity (2) 16 May 2014 Advice from Rajiv Gandhi’s Adviser to Narendra Modi: Do not populate the “Planning Commission” with worthies, scrap it, integrate its assets with the Treasury. And get the nationalised banks & RBI out of the Treasury. Tell them to read my 3 Dec 2012 Delhi lecture with care. Clean Government Accounting & Audit is the Key to Clean Public Finances & a Proper Indian Currency for the First Time Ever May 16, 2014.
396. Much as I might love Russia, England, France, America, I despise their spies & local agents affecting poor India’s policies: Memo to PM Modi, Mr Jaitley, Mr Doval & the new Govt. of India: Beware of Delhi’s sleeper agents, lobbyists & other dalals
397. “Haksar, Manmohan and Sonia” August 7, 2014 New Indian Express http://t.co/bRnQI1hrwy
399. Delhi can never be improved — until the rest of India improves! February 13, 2015
400. Pakistan’s & India’s Illusions of Power (Psychosis vs Vanity) March 3, 2015
401. How the India-Bangladesh Enclaves Problem Was Jump-Started in 2007 Towards its 2015 Solution: A Case Study of Academic Impact on Policy June 8, 2015
402. On being reunited with Arrow Hahn after a dozen years July 3, 2015
403. Fixing Washington: On Improving Institutional Design in the United States November 24, 2016
404. Modi & Monetary Theory: Economic Consequences of the Prime Minister of India December 9, 2016.
405. Physics & Reasoning (An Ongoing Tract) by Subroto Roy DRAFT 01.12.2017 September 26, 2017
406. Is “Cambridge Philosophy” dead, in Cambridge? Can it be resurrected, there? Case Study: Renford Bambrough (& Subroto Roy) preceded by decades Cheryl Misak’s thesis on Wittgenstein being linked with Peirce via Ramsey… October 27, 2017
407. S N Roy hears from Lytton: A 1922 case of British imperial racism in Indian governance (with lessons for today) [Draft text 12 August 2018] February 8, 2018
408. Solving a Problem of State Tyranny: Director General Siddhanta Das: Have Forest Service Officers been threatening ordinary citizens, seizing their property, then threatening them with arrest if they complain? If so, how many cases of wrongful seizure and wrongful imprisonment have WCCB caused among India’s villagers and forest dwellers since 1994? There is immediate need for an Ombudsman to independently review all cases in each of your Five Zones! May 4,
409. Critique of Monetary Ideas of Manmohan & Modi: the Roy Model explaining to Bimal Jalan, Nirmala Sitharaman, RBI etc what it is they are doing (Drafts 4 August, 7 August 2019; 27 August, 28 August, 30 August, 31 August, 1 September 2019) August 4, 2019
410. 1 May 2020 Statement of Dr. Subroto Roy, Economist & Citizen, Proposing PM Narendra Modi & Home Minister Amit Shah Apologize to India’s People, Create Remedy, and Resign to Do Prayaschit/Atonement; 9 May: A New Cabinet for President Kovind May 1,
Tax professional cricket: Hockey’s debacle shows the distortions in India’s sports markets
by
Subroto Roy
First published in The Statesman, April 1 2008, Editorial Page Special Article
All cricket involving professional international-level players, whether Indian or foreign, that comes to be broadcast to Indian audiences or played before Indian spectators, deserves to be subjected to a new, severe, discriminatingly specific excise-tax. Cricket below professional international level would be unaffected. Revenues received by the Union or State Governments from a new “International Cricket Tax” should be specifically “earmarked” to subsidize other sports as heavily as possible. Individual Indian athletes, gymnasts, swimmers, archers etc. as well as Indian teams in soccer, hockey, rugby, volleyball and other sports would be encouraged and enabled to train or compete at sporting events around the world using revenues raised from taxation of professional international cricket involving India. Had our Ministry of Finance or any other New Delhi ministry any serious sense of the economics of public finance, they would have proposed such a simple device of national policy years ago, certainly after the Hansie Cronje gambling scandal broke.
National policy
The distortions of our sports markets have come to be highlighted today by the collapse of Indian men’s hockey coinciding with Indian men’s cricket ballooning from a little international success and a lot of greedy consumer-fed wealth. The public is hardly aware of it but Indians have in fact done very well recently in several international sports ~ especially women’s and men’s boxing, women’s weight-lifting, athletics, archery, table-tennis, swimming, women’s hockey and men’s soccer. Yet youngsters around the country face extremely distorted decisions between investing their time and energy in any sport other than cricket ~ on the outside chance they might hit gold like a Sachin Tendulkar or MS Dhoni or Irfan Pathan and improve their families’ material well-being for ever more, rather like buying a winning lottery ticket. As a general rule, the structure of economic incentives should be such that a physically talented 10 or 11 year old male or female child should be indifferent between choosing among different sports in which to specialize, cricket being one possibility. Physical fitness through sport along with proper nutrition for all children in the country needs to be the general national goal.
Notwithstanding its virtues, joys, pleasantries and sportsmanship, cricket cannot be considered a nation-building sport for India’s masses. Cricket in England and the West Indies has long declined in face of more vigorous mass sports like soccer and basketball (“West Indian” athletes emigrating to North America). Australia and New Zealand love cricket but they tend to love and excel in many sports and cricket to them is just another ~ if cricket suddenly vanished they would merely move more towards rugby, swimming, tennis etc.
In India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well as South Africa and Zimbabwe, cricket does have some political nation-building role via the secular symbolism involved in choosing a representative national team on merit ~ but that still does not make cricket the single most suitable sport for mass physical or moral upliftment among scores of millions of poor children.
Cricket is similar to baseball and American football in requiring quite a lot of equipment per player; in requiring relatively high technical specialized training (opening batsman, spin-bowler, pitcher, quarter-back); and in not providing all who play it a “total body workout” within a short length of time. One may need to be fit to play cricket but playing cricket in and of itself is not the best route to physical fitness.
Professional international cricketers thus need to be provided with a lot of support ~ gyms, massages, fitness sessions, physiotherapy etc. Field games like rugby, soccer, hockey or basketball do provide “total body workouts”, do not require nearly as much equipment per player and call for much less technical specialized training.
For sake of national policy-making, relevant comparisons should not be made at first class or professional levels but rather on the level of school playing fields, village playgrounds or urban parks and open spaces on any bright day where a bunch of lads have nothing better to do than create a game for themselves. In India as around the world, all that a dozen or more lads need to make a game of it is a ball that can be kicked between them. America’s inner cities have a single basketball hoop around which a game comes to be played.
The high life-time earnings of professional international Indian cricketers arises ultimately from television advertising of mass consumer goods and services ~ aerated sweet drinks, mobile telephone services, chocolates, potato-chips, soaps, shampoos, detergents etc. There is in general nothing wrong with such outcomes of a free process of contracts. The late libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia gave a classic case of the great basketball player Wilt Chamberlin earning a vast income and wealth because very large numbers of people were freely choosing to part with their money to watch his genius at play.
America, however, has had a long history of sports during which sporting markets have become very competitive in the economic sense. Indian cricket reveals monopolistic trends. Selection at national level, hence to an international professional career of about a decade or so, contains a strong random or arbitrary element to it. At the same time, since the early 1990s professional cricketers in India (unlike those in other countries) have refused to gracefully retire even after poor performance and have had to be chucked out after titanic political struggles that sometimes find mention in Parliament. There is hardly any of the “free entry” or “free exit” that define competitive conditions in an industry.
India’s international cricketers play under India’s Flag and sing the Indian National Anthem; the economic externalities involved are so obvious and the monopolistic or cartel power of Bombay’s cricket and TV businesses so severe that even nationalization of the sport at professional international level might have been considered ~ except for the sheer incompetence our government displays at handling any nationalized industry properly. Thus taxation of cricket and earmarked transfer of those revenues to other sports in India may be the most effective way to move towards a proper structure of incentives.
Sin taxes
Though our Finance Ministry seems quite unaware of it, excise taxes are supposed to be “sin taxes” only ~ e.g. on tobacco and alcohol to try to reduce their consumption and, if demand is inelastic, to extract as much revenue as possible out of them to put to healthier purposes. One reason consumption of professional international-level cricket in India has become unhealthy has undoubtedly to do with the gambling that takes place behind the scenes on innumerable aspects of the game. Placing a severe “sin tax” on professional international cricket will reduce its consumption and hence reduce the gambling deriving from it too. Even the masses who do not gamble but merely watch it on TV for vicarious pleasure and entertainment may need a jolt to prevent addiction. The way to implement a severe discriminatory tax on professional international level cricket in India may be by government control or nationalization of the public arenas in which it comes to be played as well as of course control of the television-broadcast rights. One of our many problems has become that our politicians and senior bureaucrats long to mingle freely with big business and cricket and Bollywood icons themselves; amidst all the glamour and fun that they would much rather be part of, they are unable to think about the public interest less obscurely than they might have done.
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Manmohan versus Sonia on the poor old CPI(M)!, April 28
Independent Indian: Work & Life of Professor Subroto Roy 