On the road to Liberty

The IPCC's climate-change fearmongering is only the latest excuse to expand the public sector. My article titled " Environmental 'crisis' and government power ", was published in the Wall Street Journal Asia , on 24 March 2010. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted for the first time last month that it is facing a crisis of confidence. But the IPCC's failings go far beyond the recent spate of errors identified in its reports. The problem began with the global political climate that led to the formation of the IPCC two decades ago. Contrary to popular perception, the IPCC is not a scientific organization. It does no research of its own. Composed of scientists nominated by different governments, its key function is to collate evidence of human-induced climate change, not just changes in climate. It is hardly surprising that with such an inherently biased objective the scientists lost their objectivity. Many of them went on a...

The constitutional amendment to reserve seats for women, in a rotational basis, in national and state legislature was introduced as a historic step. While Rajya Sabha passed it after a tumultuous two days, it exposed the deep political fractures. If adopted, this legislation will seriously undermine the roots of democracy in India. I assess the political cost of reserving seats for women, in the article titled " Debasing India's Democracy ", in the Wall Street Journal Asia , on 9 March 2010. It was advertised as a historic day. On March 8, the centenary of International Women’s Day, India’s governing coalition planned to present the country with a constitutional amendment reserving 33% of the seats for women in national and state legislatures. However, it was not to be. The failure of the amendment to pass was dubbed by the law minister a national day of shame, as a few unruly MPs, particularly in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, created such a ruckus that the house had ...