On the road to Liberty

The population of blackbucks and Tigers in many parts of the US are much more than that of India as a whole where hunting is not permitted.A large part of the illegal trade in forest products is from South East Asia. Permitting the creation of tiger parks to breed tigers will solve the problem of extinction of species. Attempts to stop illegal trade has only driven up prices. My article titled " Getting This Tiger Problem by the Tail " was published in TCS Daily on June 9th 2005. Every time a celebrity is alleged to be involved in hunting in India, the celebrity becomes fair game. Tiger Pataudi, the legendary former captain of Indian Cricket team, is alleged to have been involved in the killing of a blackbuck in Haryana recently. While the celebrity gets all the attention, most ignore the plight of protected species at the hands of the Indian bureaucracy. If we are really concerned about the fate of wildlife, we need to ask why it is that in the US -- where hunting species s...

My article titled "U.S. and Saddam Fighting Two Different Wars" was published in the "Asian Wall Street Journal" on 8th April 2003. The U.S.-led coalition is now at war with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Already, it is becoming clear that the two sides are fighting two very different wars. One side, the coalition, wants to reduce the death toll; the other hopes to thrive on death. Never before in history has any nation sought to win a war by trying to keep its own and as well as its enemy's casualties to the minimum. And perhaps never in history has the other side sought to win the same war by feeding on its own casualties. The U.S. and U.K. are relying on high-tech firepower. The aim of their surgical strikes is to target specific military, command and communication facilities. It is hoped that this will not only reduce civilian casualties, but also avoid as much as possible disruption to basic services like electricity, telephone, radio and TV, even if...

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 ...