Decades ago, our forefathers fought for their and our freedom against the odds of kingdoms, feudalism and the foreign rulers. They fought on the premise of the rights of man as they said, “Self-governance is an individual’s birthright” and expressed the concept of self-governance as the inalienable right of an individual to his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In those days people knew the essence of liberty and self-governance, not only those who expressed them but also those who heard, appreciated, accepted and subscribed to the words of liberty and self-governance knew what those words meant. Continue reading

Imagine if you are a rising Hollywood star. You made your first million. You rose from dire poverty/dire mediocrity, and you get a taste of wealth. You spend a lot of money, do things what you always thought you wanted to do. Maybe at this point you love the Market, or maybe not. Overall you just thank god for giving returns on all the (relative) poverty you faced over the years. Then you make millions more, and then millions more. Soon you are one of the most appreciated actors of Hollywood. You live in the limelight, and you never see anything bad.

You ponder over your life, and realize….. Continue reading

One of the strongest arguments used by the Intellectual Property(IP) supporters is that patents promote innovation, and the strong counterargument by the IP opponents is, that patents stifle innovation, and that once patents are removed we will have more innovation, considering the fees which will not be spent on securing patents and hiring patent attorneys. The reason why I used the term ‘strong’ and ‘strongest’ because both the sides acknowledge that there is some weight on the argument of the other side. The question is, overall do patents promote innovation or will removal of patents promote innovation? To analyze the arguments, we need to perform small though experiments. Continue reading

In the recent illegal liquor death related tragedy in Gujarat about 136 people have been killed and about 150 more are in hospital, getting treatment. Gujarat is one of the states of India where the sale and consumption of liquor is banned. One might expect after such a tragedy that now people understand that prohibition does not benefit anyone, but it harms the same group of people it hopes to benefit, but there is no limitation of number of people coming out and supporting prohibition in Gujarat. Not only people don’t understand that prohibiting consenting adult activities never work. Continue reading

In an investigative report covered by a television channel, Chennai private colleges were shown where Taliban-style rules were enforced on the students. There is so much segregation among guys and girls that to an American citizen it is going to be reminded of the Jim Crow laws era when blacks and whites were made to attend school separately.

This did not come to me as news, I had friends from those universities who told me about these things years ago. I went to a much more liberal private college so all those things came as a big shock to me. I was told that if a guy was found talking to a girl, he was fined(not always through money, but through social service etc etc). Continue reading

While whole world is blindly running for the goal of being green, the latest annual survey of National Geographic Society has announced India as the winner. The Greendex of Indians is 59.5 and India is at the top. The Greendex indicates the consumer behavior of a certain region or country and compares the sustainable power consuming behavior of the consumers.
For some environment crazy folks, this might prove to be an encouragement and they might feel great about the fact that Indians have been declared as the forerunners of the campaign Green Earth, yet, the question that is to be asked is, what keeps India at the topmost position of that green index? How come one of the most populous country is the least power consuming too? Continue reading

Are you a rational being? This is a question, which should be asked to one’s self regularly. All activities a man can perform like listening, sore sacking, wearing, writing, reading has to be kept in close observation to one’s self.
For a rational being, if he does not find any satisfactory answer to his question (why?), then he should not do that.
If one talks about Indian dresses then immediately suits and saris (SS) come into picture (for girls). It gives you a typical Indian look.
Hindus come to know about these dresses after the invasion of Muslims. In ancient India (from early to 12th century), women wore no upper garment to cover their breasts. Whether villagers or queens, housewives, townswomen or milkmaids. All of them remained bare above the waist just like men. Continue reading

Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels say in their famous work ‘The Communist Manifesto’:
“It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.”

A caller in a recent Free Talk Live show claimed that a roommate system which most people follow is a very good example of a Socialist society(and egalitarianism) in work. Although there are huge scalability problems with this example, I would not go into a critique of this system and instead suggest an alternate system, a more Capitalist roommate system. Feel free to absorb, use improve upon it. You won’t find it on any other site. Continue reading

The inflation rate in Indian economy is sharply decreasing since some weeks and now it is around 0.44%. As some economic pundits have predicted, India may face deflation eventually. Obviously, it is an alarming effect of the deep recession India is facing and will have to face.
Is Deflation good or Harmful?
Today’s Economic Times has the screaming article Indian Economy staring at deflation. Is it good news ? in its front page that claims that, deflation is a threat, which must be tackled with.
The most common belief about deflation is that falling prices constitute deflation and thus must be feared and, if possible, prevented. Continue reading