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...

Reviewing the allegations of pesticide in soft drinks in India last year, I outline the fatal flaw in the media based activism that sacrifices science for fifteen minutes of glory. A version of this article appeared in the Indian Express. Looking back at the year of 2006, perhaps you remember the uproar this past summer concerning pesticides in Coca-Cola and Pepsi products in India? In early August, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an Indian NGO, published a report alleging that the pesticide levels in Coca-Cola and Pepsi products were unsafe. Social activists in India and across the world railed against Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and the Economist ran a feature article on how these activists had “dented two of the world’s glossiest brands.” The Indian Parliament and Supreme Court held hearings on the matter, and several Indian states outright banned Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Meanwhile, US-based activists called on colleges and universities to ban Coca-Cola on their campuses. It now ...

There is a fine difference between a resource and waste. A waste becomes a resource when someone is willing to pay the owner to acquire it; it remains a waste if the owner has to pay someone to dispose of it. I look at the debate over ship-breaking in this article, " Breaking the set notion ", published in the Hindustan Times, on 13 January 2006. More than 150 years ago, the French economist and legislator Frederic Bastiat had written “There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.” The present debate over the decommissioned French aircraft carrier, Clemenceau, being sent to Alang in Gujarat for dismantling and recycling highlights the relevance of Bastiat’s idea of “what is seen and what is not seen”. Clemenceau is a 265-m long ship, weighing about 26,000 tons. Recycling it could open ...

THE World Trade Organization dispute between the EU and the US, Canada and Argentina over the EU's longstanding moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops ñ due to be decided this week ñ is not about winners and losers. It is about the so-called precautionary principle, which has theoretically allowed the EU to close its borders to a large portion of the world's agricultural produce. The result of this case could have ramifications throughout the world, particularly for other innovative industry sectors. My article titled Why precautionary principle can damage wealth and health was published in European Voice on June 10 2004 THE World Trade Organization dispute between the EU and the US, Canada and Argentina over the EU's longstanding moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops - due to be decided this week - is not about winners and losers. It is about the so-called precautionary principle, which has theoretically allowed the EU to close its borders to a large portio...

June 5, is World Environment Day. This is a good occasion to look at some of the impacts of environmentalism on the people. This article looks at the widening divide between the environmental crusaders and ordinary citizens. A shorter version of this article titled "Let them eat cake or air!-Green Crusade Against the People" appeared in The Economic Times newspaper on June 5, 2000. This famous statement supposedly made by Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France over two centuries ago, has come to symbolise the divide between the elite and the influential on the one hand and the common man on the other. The current battle in Delhi to clean the city's air has once again brought to light this age-old divide. Let's look at some facts. Over a quarter of this capital city's population about 12 million live in slums. Between a third to almost forty percent of the population do not have access to clean drinking water and sanitation facility. Yet for over two years, the iss...

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 ...

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...