On the road to Liberty

The sense of urgency Prime Minister Manmohan Singh displays in taking stock of the court verdict on the 1984 Bhopal gas leak is to appease anti-capitalists of various persuasions. Few people care about the real victims of the Bhopal tragedy. There is much outrage over the fact that Warren Anderson, the then chairman of the parent company has not been charged. My article titled Does Anyone Care About Bhopal's Real Victims? was published in The Wall Street Journal on June 14th 2010. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked senior ministers Monday to take stock of last week's court verdict on the 1984 Bhopal gas leak and report back within 10 days. This belated sense of urgency is meant to placate everyone from anti-American groups to anti-industrialists, antitrade advocates and antitechnology believers who are up in arms over the court's light sentencing of executives implicated in the accident. Lost in the public outpouring are the long-suffering victims of the tragedy—and the is...

Here is my latest article where I discuss the relationship between education and employability, and the challenge that we in India face. I am doubtful of the effectiveness of the "education reforms" initiatives of the present UPA government, in meeting the challenges. And I suggest an independent system to assess the employability of youngsters. I will appreciate any comment or criticism that anyone might have. The original article was published in the Wall Street Journal Asia, on 2 June 2010. The title was " Indian Students and the Strangulating State ", New Delhi is trying to regulate innovation out of the educational system. Indian students waited eagerly last week for the results of entrance exams to the most sought-after engineering schools, among them the famed Indian Institutes of Technology. More than 450,000 students competed for some 9,500 seats in what is perhaps the most competitive exam in the world. This year's success stories included a home-sc...