On the road to Liberty

May 31 is the World No-Tobacco Day. In recent months World Bank and the World health Organisation have led an orchestrated attack on tobacco in the name of public health concerns. The following article seeks to estimate the costs of this onslaught, and finds that what is at stake is individual liberty, personal preference and responsibility. A version of this paper titled War on "Tobacco: At the Cost of Liberty" was published in The Telegraph newspaper of Calcutta, on May 28, 2000. Earlier in the month, Liberty Institute released a book, War on Tobacco: At what Cost? It has two contributions, one by Prof. Deepak Lal, and the other is by Roger Scruton. The greatest political achievement of the 20th Century has been the empowerment of the citizen. It has been generally accepted that despite its many flaws, there is no better political instrument than democracy to enable the people to participate and decide how they should be governed. However, in parallel to this development ...

At noon on 11 May 2000, Aastha, a baby girl born in Delhi. She was officially declared as the billionth Indian. My article titled "India's One-Billionth Asset-The path to prosperity is economic freedom, not population policy" was published in May, 2000. India's population officially surpasses the one billion mark today. While government officials search for the suitable baby to herald the occasion, there are no plans for any grand birthday party. Instead people are being somberly reminded of the burden of the billion plus population. It is ironic that India has reached a situation where the birth of a child is considered to have a negative impact on GDP and other economic measures, but the birth of a calf, or production of an additional ton of rice or iron is considered to be positive. Is India's growing population to blame for its relatively poor economic performance in the past 50 years? Or did the policies pursued by successive governments lead to a massive was...

My press release titled "War Against Tobacco threatens Liberty and Economic Development, warn International Experts" was published on 6th May 2000. In a new book, War on Tobacco: At What Cost? international experts point out that the cost of the new war against tobacco is unacceptably high, both economically, and politically. Deepak Lal, Coleman Professor of International Development at University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the two contributors to this volume, reviews the recent World Bank report on tobacco and finds that contrary to the Bank’s claim, there are significant positive effects of growing and using tobacco. Mr. Gurcharan Das released the book at a function on 6 May, 2000, in New Delhi. Prof. Lal summarised his paper. Dr. Shreekant Gupta of Delhi School of Economics, commented on the paper, and the meeting was chaired by Dr. Bibek Debroy of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies. There was a livey question and answer session at the end. The prog...

The press release titled "Population: The Ultimate Resource" was published in May 2000. Twentieth Century has witnessed unprecedented demographic changes. For the first time in history, the world population almost quadrupled from about one and a half billion in 1900 to six billion in the span of just hundred years. Likewise, Indian population too crossed the one billion level in May 2000, from about 238 million at the beginning of the Twentieth century. This is particularly significant, since as late as the 1920s, India had experienced a slight decline in population due to poverty and deprivation. At long last it seems that man is successfully defying death and deprivation that were constant companion of his ancestors. Infant mortality rates have fallen, life expectancy at birth have doubled or tripled, and the result is that there are more of us to enjoy life on earth as never before. Yet, there is hardly any sign of celebrations. It is amazing that such an achievement is ...

My article titled "Is Free Trade Fair Trade?" was published in March 2000. Free trade is fair trade, or so one thought until the recent protests in Seattle during the WTO meeting. The Seattle protesters contended that unrestricted trade harms developing countries. In contrast, India's experience provides clear evidence of the high costs of a restrictive trade policy. For almost fifty years, India, the world's largest democracy, lived under the premise that trade is a zero-sum game. Successive governments believed that free trade would only weaken the Indian economy further and open it up for even greater economic exploitation. The result of this economic experiment has been tragic but clear. In 1947, at the time of Independence from British colonial rule, India's share of global trade was estimated to be about 1.8%. Today it is less than half that. Per capita income has stagnated at less than $500, and an estimated 20-30% of the population lives in abject poverty....

My article titled "Poverty, Wealth and Waste" is Reproduced from the March 2000 issue of PERC Reports. The original pdf version of the journal is available here . PERC, a think tank based in Bozeman, Montana, USA, is dedicated to Providing Market Solutions to Environmental Problems. In 1986, a waste-to-energy plant opened in Delhi, India, financed by the Danish International Development Agency at a cost of over $10 million. The plant was expected to generate 3.8 mw of electricity from garbage, and its success was to be copied in other Indian cities. However, the plant was a failure. Two years later, the government was spending about $100,000 a year to burn garbage without producing energy. Surprisingly, the principal reason was the fact that there wasn’t enough urban waste in Delhi. It turns out that the waste—paper, rags, plastic, etc.—in Delhi produces only about half the caloric value of a Western city. This contrast tells us a lot about the treatment of waste in rich and...

When political freedom is secured and the market is unrestrained, more people increases demand, and therefore also the supply, and at the end there is more available for consumption than ever before. People are the ultimate resource, they just don't come with a mouth alone, but also a mind and a pair hands. It is time to party and cut the cake on the arrival of the 6 billionth person on this planet. A shorter version of this article titled "6 Billion and Growing" appeared in The Economics Times on 12 October 1999. Birth of baby is usually a source of great joy. Therefore, on October 12, the date symbolically designated to mark the arrival of the 6 billionth person on this planet there should have been a grand party to celebrate the momentous event. This is the first time in history that the human population reached this figure. In the last quarter of a century, the population has increased by 50% from 4 billion. A four fold increase in just this century! Before that it h...