On the road to Liberty

The present debate over the Indian patent law has done a disservice to the poor patients by shifting the focus away from the more sickness that afflicts the health care system in India. Its not patents but the government hold on the health care sector that is preventing the poor from gaining access to medicines. A version of this article titled "Patients, not Patents, need to be at heart of the health care debate" has appeared in The Indian Express , January 28, 2004 The present debate over the Indian patent law, despite the passion, is underscored by the desire to score political points. Consequently, most of the arguments have been disconnected from reality. India has been a proving ground for those who oppose patents on pharmaceutical products. We scrapped all product patents in 1972. As a result, India is now home to over 20,000 pharmaceutical companies producing copies of drugs developed and patented elsewhere. However, access to medicines remains poor suggesting that p...

My article titled "The Green Peril" was published on 9th December 200. Deepak Lal sees the ecological movement as a new form of imperialism. While the green movement claims to have the future of the planet in mind, economist Deepak Lal warned of the new imperialist threat posed by the ecological movement, particularly for the developing countries. Prof.. Lal, who is the James Coleman Professor of International Development Studies at the University of California, at Los Angeles, USA, was delivering the inaugural Julian L. Simon Memorial Lecture organised by Liberty Institute, in New Delhi, on Saturday. The lecture attracted a wide audience, and was chaired by Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Member, Planning Commission. Dr. Ahluwalia introduced Prof. Lal as some one who never minces words. Prof. Lal lived up to that reputation. Prof. Lal noted the parallels between utopian ideas of Marxism, Christianity and the present day environmental movements. He said, "The ecological mov...

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...

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....

Liberty Institute Briefing Paper on Trade and Development "International Trade and Child Labour: The role of the market" was published in November 1999. Social and labour conditions have become a highly charged subject, particularly after attempts to link trade and social conditions under the auspices of the WTO. On the one hand, lower labour conditions, including the use of child labour is said to give economic advantage to some countries, and therefore there is a demand for protection in some other countries. On the other hand, these poor labour conditions are said to be the fallout of market reforms and free trade, and therefore there is a demand for restricting trade. No doubt child labour provides an emotive shield for a range of other agendas. However, rather than a restrictive linkage between trade and child labour, historical experience clearly shows that an open market and free trade are the best instruments for improving the labour conditions, including elimination ...

Liberty Institute Briefing Paper on Trade and Development "Agricultural Trade Can Change the Poverty Ridden Face of Indian Countryside" was published in November 1999 For fifty years India has followed the most restrictive policy regarding agriculture. The result has been that while in 1947, 85% of Indians depended on agriculture which contributed to over 70% of Indian GDP, today the corresponding figures are 70% and 35% respectively. Not surprisingly the face of Indian agriculture we are most familiar with is one of abject poverty. Ironically, the much promoted India industry under the tutelage of the state while capturing a large chunk of the GDP has remained highly uncompetitive internationally, but Indian agriculture continues to enjoy competitive advantage in many crops despite years of neglect and denial of access to international markets. Opening up trade in agricultural products provides a tremendous opportunity to improve the lot of the farmers in developing countri...