On the road to Liberty

This is the Chinese year of the tiger and people are interested in saving the tiger from extinction more than ever. Several conferences are being held, and a lot of money is being thrown at saving the tiger, but all this can't work if the Government can't mitigate the conflict between locals and wild animals. The lack of agricultural productivity forces farmers to encroach on the habitat of the tigers. This has to be resolved. China and India can save the tigers by cooperating with each other. A shorter version of my article was published in The Wall Street Journal on August 25th. Asia’s economic potential was first demonstrated by the four tiger economies. In recent decade, the focus has shifted to China, India and others. While economies are growing, the real tigers in the wild are living a precarious existence. It is time to reap the environmental dividend from growing prosperity, and save the tiger from extinction. This is the Chinese Year of the Tiger! Undoubtedly, the fo...

Two crouching tigers, some hidden dragons The winds of change between the two giants could impact not only the environment but also politics. In this article published in the special issue (July-August 2010) of the "India China Chronicle", I look at the possible implications of the cooperation between these two countries at the climate conference in Copenhagen, last year. I believe a much bigger opportunity lies in the field of wildlife conservation, particularly in saving the tiger. Following is the text of the article. Over the past half century, relations between the two Asian giants have been on a roller coaster ride. In recent years too the two countries have seen sentiments swing wildly on issues ranging from trade to Tibet, coloured periodically by the border issue. Despite its history of turbulence, the two neighbours together made history at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, for the first time, the world got a glimpse of the possibl...

India is ranked 45 compared to China's 75 on parameters of wealth & well-being. Roger Bate & I look at the new global prosperity index, in the Daily News & Analysis, on27 October 2009. Read the original article here . Together, India and China account for 40% of the world's population and about 16% of the world's economic output. China bests India in both categories. And as home to glittering cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong, it's generally considered more prosperous than the subcontinent. But is that really the case? Just as an individual's well-being is based on more than his bank balance, a country's prosperity depends on more than rote calculations of its gross domestic product (GDP). And on these less-celebrated, but no less important metrics of prosperity, India surpasses China, on all of them. If prosperity is defined as a mix of wealth and well-being, India is streets ahead of China, ranking 45th worldwide, while China lags far behind at ...

Why does the India media blow hot and cold over China, every now and then? I look at this phenomenon in " Breaking news: TV battles China ", published in the Financial Express, on 25 Sept 2009. Apart from any geopolitical factors, there are two plausible explanations for the current focus on the China-India border, particularly on a few TV news channels in India. We are being daily fed with reports of Chinese incursions, China’s aggressive postures, China’s military buildup, China painting rocks red, and then the media is blowing hot and cold over whether the Indian military is capable or ill prepared to deal with any situation that may arise. Indian government has repeated that there is nothing unusual happening on the border. Indian military has said there has been nothing unusual on the border. But of course the media knows better. I know very little about the Chinese response to the war being waged in Indian drawing rooms. One report in Indian papers quoted Chinese offic...

The WHO is trying to fight the huge international trade in counterfeits but faces opposition from India and others, driven by a strange coalition ranging from the far Left to business organisations: this author blows away some of the straw men these people have built up. Barun Mitra says robust trademark protection will give Indian companies a stake in quality and give Indian, and worldwide, patients the guarantees that they need. My article titled India: Urgent steps are needed to ensure quality medicines was published in The Pioneer on March 31, 2009 Indian pharmaceutical companies are supplying sub-standard drugs in Maharashtra. While the home-grown nature of the problem at least means that a solution lies in our own hands, the Government is sending a worrying signal by blocking the World Health Organisation's efforts to improve drug quality around the world. Maharashtra's Medical, Education and Drugs Secretary Bhushan Gagrani said that 547 samples of Indian-produced sub-st...

My IPN Press release titled IPN to Participate In Montreal COP-11 Climate Meeting: 'Global Climate Control Not Cost Effective– Will Undermine Sustainable Development' was published on International Policy Network on December 1 2006 London, 1 December: Environment ministers from around the world will gather in Montreal, Quebec, next week at the COP-11 climate change meeting. International Policy Network will send four individuals to Montreal to participate in COP-11 from 5 to 9 December: • Kendra Okonski, Environment Programme director of IPN • Oliver Hartwich, Research Fellow, IPN • Barun Mitra, director of the Liberty Institute in New Delhi, India • Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Costa Rican- based policy analyst and IPN Research Fellow. These individuals share the view that attempting to control the climate through mandatory restrictions on carbon emissions, through the Kyoto Protocol or similar measures, would be harmful and counterproductive for both wealthy and poor co...

WHICH country is thinking about applying free-market principles to wildlife preservation and, in the process, improving the survival chances of a long-endangered species while giving its economy a boost? Communist China, of course. In this article, " Sell the tiger to save it ", published in the New York Times, on 15 August 2010, I propose that we harness the power of commerce for the cause of conservation of tigers. China joined the international effort to protect the tiger in 1993. But today there is a growing recognition among many Chinese officials that a policy of prohibition and trade restrictions has not benefited the tiger as much as it has helped poachers and smugglers of tigers and tiger parts. Conservationists say the worldwide illegal trade in forest products and wildlife is between $10 billion and $12 billion, with more than half of that coming from Asia. Of the planet’s estimated 5,000 wild tigers, about 75 percent are in India, which, like most nations, belie...

The "Project Tiger" was launched thirty years back. But, there are only a few thousand tigers in the wild, and half of them are in India. The policy of prohibition of trade has hurt tiger conservation in India. The situation is similar in China. The officials of China are are considering harnessing a limited form of commerce for the cause of tiger conservation. At the same time, in India, the tiger crisis has expanded India’s bureaucracy.It is necessary to have a successful wildlife economy to build awareness of the value of environmental resources.This will result in the thriving of legal trade. My article titled China and India Move in Radically Different Directions was published in Perc in Fall 2006. NEW DELHI, INDIA—More than thirty years after the launch of "Project Tiger," the most high-profile conservation program in the world, barely 5,000 to 6,000 tigers are left in the wild, over half of them estimated to be in India. Since the 1970s, India has enacted to...

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....

A version of this paper "Free Trade Protects Environment" appeared in The Asian Wall Street Journal on 23 November 1999 and The Wall Street Journal Europe on 26 November 1999. Are economic and environmental goals really in conflict with each other? Or can the market, which has proved its ability to meet economic interests of the consumers most efficiently, now meet the environmental preferences of the people as successfully? These are some of the basic issues that the participants at the WTO Ministerial Meeting at Seattle will have to try and answer. The battle lines are being drawn up. While developing countries like India are strongly opposed to any linkage between trade and environment, many of the developed countries are pressing for a working group to look into the relationship between these two areas. However, trade and environment need not be mutually exclusive. Nor need the interests of one be balanced against those of the other. Free trade and an open market, with d...

Liberty Institute Briefing Paper on Trade and Development titled Costs of Protectionism:How Indian Consumers & Workers Lost Out was published in November 1999 In 1947, India's share of the world trade was 1.5%. In 1998, it was estimated to be 0.8%. Per capita income in 1998 was approximately $400 ($900 under PPP) Indian Economic Philosophy for the Past 50 years • National self-sufficiency • Import substitution • Trade is a zero-sum game Basic rationale for restricting trade: • Protecting domestic manufacturers • Encouraging domestic manufacturing and employment • Ensuring quality and safety for the benefit of consumers • Promoting indigenous growth of knowledge and technology Consequences of protectionism: • High price, low quality • Low levels of competition • Technological stagnation • Knowhow dependent on policy of subsidies • Smaller market, lower volumes • Perpetual Scarcity Loss to consumers - Choice, Price, Quality, Access Characteristics of the Protected Domestic Market...