Weekend Links: February 15 2014

Arvind Kejriwal resigned as Delhi CM yesterday, and finally changed my mind on the AAP, and turned me from someone who was hopeful that his party would bring about change to someone who now feels it was nothing more than some more tamasha added to the political theater in India. I have read and understand the arguments in favor of his resignation, but I find it hard to accept any of them given the current circumstances.

A lot of what’s written about this topic is mere fluff or very biased reporting, so I was glad to read Vidya Subrahmaniam’s editorial in The Hindu which beautifully pens down the topic of a third alternative in Indian politics.

The Pakistan Taliban has been growing in power, and has caused a lot of attacks in Pakistan in the past few years. A good article about this in the WSJ.

Dr. Bibek Debroy, on the Seventh Pay Commission.

Mark Zuckerberg’s 2014 personal challenge seems a lot tamer than his earlier challenges until you try to do it yourself.

The NYT magazine has an interesting article: Does a more equal marriage means less sex?

The Economist, on the global economy in 2014.

Almost all of these strange sounding facts were new to me.

Enjoy  your weekend!

6 thoughts on “Weekend Links: February 15 2014”

  1. It is not like nobody is thinking of India. It is more like the voters have little or no clear understanding of issues, and therefore can be easily influenced. Thanks to AAP and their shrewd marketing strategy (or tamasha in short), the course of discussion has now changed from economic growth to corruption. The common understanding among the voters is that it is because of corruption that economic growth suffers. The reality is corruption may have little or some effect on the economic growth. But not all economic growth is lost due to corruption. Lets take Delhi electricity subsidy case. The price of electricity was subsidized so many people can have access to electricity. Now the prices are set to double on April 1st. So when AAP talked about halving electricity bills, nobody questioned them how will they achieve it? So my point is subsidy is a bad economic policy and this has nothing to do with corruption. Economic policy plays a larger role than corruption does!

    If anything, as this article (http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/16/the_surprising_relationship_between_corruption_and_economic_growth) points out that economic growth can in fact bring down the levels of corruption. Something that is happening in China. So if the voters clamor for economic vs clean government, and if the government delivers on the growth, then most likely the corruption will come down. Something that happened in late 90s and all of 2000s, when economic growth lifted 300 million out of poverty and corruption hardly mattered.

    Credit to Modi for sticking to economic development story versus drumming about populous message like AAP! The great leader is the one who makes decision based on what is good for country and not what is popular!

  2. I’ll still support Kejriwal’s AAP in the Delhi elections and probably support Modi’s BJP at the centre. When he decided to accept Congress’ support in forming his government in Delhi, it was not a good decision. But, his resignation without fight is a bad decision. He got the power, he should have done those things which were falling under his government’s purview.

    I think its all politics and dirty politics. Nobody is thinking about India. Congress is forcefully forming Telangana even when its own partymen are against it and we have already seen how it got the food bill & land acquisition bill passed. I don’t understand why Kejriwal needs Centre’s approval to table Jan Lokpal Bill in Delhi’s Assembly ?? This bill is for Kejriwal’s personal benefits ?? No party wants India to become cleaner, better. Shame on all these political parties which are playing dirty politics !!

  3. So who will you vote for now ? Modi – because of his speeches on development ( though reports give a different picture) and Chai pe Charcha or Congress because despite of looting so much , they gave India a stable govt .

    Do not get influenced by media, apna dimag lagao

  4. Manshu,

    Better late than never! You just saved India from the communist AAP party, and you should be proud of it! I congratulate you, and I hope more and more people like you, the ones who wanted to give AAP a chance, come to their senses.

    As for the third alternative that is a scariest proposition as well. Imagine India governed by leaders like Mulayam Singh, Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Mayawati, Karat, Nitish Kumar, etc.

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