Across the aisle: The case for creative destruction

 

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 2016

| P.CHIDAMBARAM |

The opportunity has come with the publication of the World Bank Group’s annual report titled ‘Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All’. The verdict on India is disappointing. In the year between the previous report and the latest, India’s overall rank improved one place from 131 to 130 among 190 countries. That means, despite the ambitious goal of getting into the top 50, nothing has changed. It reminds one of the French saying that, in translation, reads, “The more things change the more they remain the same.”

Sure, India did not reach this depressing position in one year. It is the result of the accumulated mistakes and negligence of the years since Independence, especially the 1960s and 1970s, when the State intervened, massively, in the direction and management of the economy. There was deep distrust of certain institutions (private sector) and natural forces (markets) and there was…INDIAN EXPRESS

Like advanced nations, India must delink classroom teaching from student learning

PICTURE FROM INDIAN EXPRESS

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27 2016 | BIBEK DEBROY

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 At every discussion on education and/or innovation, there is a standard refrain. The education system makes students risk-averse and kills innovative thinking…

At every discussion on education and/or innovation, there is a standard refrain. The education system makes students risk-averse and kills innovative thinking. By forcing students to conform to a standardised template, it discourages failure and thereby discourages deviation from the standardised average. Outliers are not encouraged.

The refrain is indeed true. Several ingredients result in the outcome the refrain describes, beginning with entry into the education stream at the pre-school level. Let me focus on only one element of that maze — higher education, and within that, on one small aspect. How many hours per week, on average, does a student spend in attending lectures? The answer will be a function of country, course and level of higher education.

In general, in the US and Western Europe, I suspect the answer is about 15 hours. The catch lies in the expression “attending lectures”, there being a difference between learning hours and classroom hours. The objective is not to teach to the student, which happens through classroom contact, but to make the student learn, which can happen outside classroom contact too. Indeed, the norm in those …INDIAN EXPRESS

Raj McCarthy

SATURDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2016

MADHU TREHAN

A “deal” was brokered in a meeting with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, MNS and the film producers. Company T was most impressed with itself. Thackeray claimed victory and said he would allow the film to be screened if the producers gave Rs 5 crore to the Army Welfare Fund. But the army brass was not impressed and has unofficially refused such a donation. They sniffed that they only accept donations that are voluntary and not coerced or through extortion. Now will Company T call the army unpatriotic? The Indian army, determinedly secular, is…INDIAN EXPRESS

Is this a kingdom or democracy? asks Imran Khan

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SADIA RAFAY AZAM KHAN | OCTOBER 28 2016

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Imran Khan on Friday vowed to not rest until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is held accountable for what the PTI chief called his [PM’s] “corruption” even as Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rasheed dared the government to try and arrest him.

“Is this a kingdom or a democracy?” the PTI supremo asked outside his Bani Gala residence. “What crime have we committed? Why did they stop me from going to Rawalpindi?”

“When IHC directed [authorities] not to block Islamabad then why was Bani Gala sealed?”

Explaining his decision to not resist police in reaching Rawalpindi, Imran said: “We were going to Pindi to prepare for Nov 2, but when they [police] stopped us we established that there is no point in doing this today when our target is Nov 2.”

He said he would show during the Islamabad protest “what the power of people actually is”.

“I will follow you till my last breath,” he warned Nawaz Sharif. “If you put me in jail, I will come after you when I get out.”

Imran further alleged that although Nawaz chants the mantra of democracy, he does that “just to safeguard his corruption”.

“To hide his corruption, he does not respect any law…THE DAWN

Hillary Clinton will win. But what kind of president will she be?

 

MARTIN KETTLE | OCTOBER 27 2016 |

The clearest and most immediate evidence is in the opinion polls, which consistently show Clinton ahead in the popular vote. That process has been strengthened by the televised debates and, in particular by the final debate, which Clinton clearly won, and in which Trump’s hostility to women seems to have had a lasting mobilisation impact.

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Clinton supporters on 26 October in Tampa, Florida. ‘If each demographic group votes the same way in 2016 as in 2012, the Democratic lead will rise by about 1.5%.’ Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images / Picture from THE GUARDIAN

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That generally strong Clinton lead is also buttressed by local polling in the states where victory is essential under America’s electoral college system. With occasional exceptions, these polls show Clinton on course for a large electoral college win. Dismiss the polls if you like. But the fact that Trump and his running mate Mike Pence are spending time campaigning in states such as North Carolina and Utah shows that they are having to defend their own territories rather than attack in Clinton’s.

All this may change, of course. It’s the safest prediction in the book to say that the contest will narrow in the final days. But the general likelihood is surely that it will not narrow much. By this stage in 2012, only 9% of voters had not made up their minds. It seems unlikely that the proportion would be much different in…guardian.co.uk

Fifth column: Meaningless jingoism

OCTOBER 23 2016 | TAVLEEN SINGH

When a Bollywood film becomes a threat to Indian nationalism, it becomes pathetically obvious that there is something wrong with this kind of nationalism. It shamed me to watch Karan Johar appear on national television last week to plead abjectly for his film. While doing this, he promised that he would never use Pakistani actors in future films, if Ae Dil Hai Mushkil was allowed to be screened by the thugs and cowards who have colluded in the campaign to stop it. Without exception, this gang is made up of fools, so they never noticed that their campaign damaged India and the Indian film industry. Not Pakistani actors or Pakistan.

People whose nationalism is so fragile that they need to wear it on their sleeves are of limited intelligence, so they never see the big picture. If they did, they would have seen that Indian soft power is as powerful a weapon against Pakistan as our military power. I have been in Lahore or Karachi in times of tension between India and the Islamic Republic, and observed that even those who demanded most…INDIAN EXPRESS

BRICS create balancing influence in world affairs

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Chu Yin | OCTOBER 23 2016

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First, in the political sphere, the BRICS are helping to change the way in which the global governance model has always been centered around Western developed economies. The bloc has changed the post-Cold War world order, in which the global dominance of the US was enshrined, and has more broadly resisted the global hegemony of Western nations. BRICS nations, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, are of pivotal significance for containing Western influence and neo-colonial control, as well as for rectifying the unfair and unrighteous global governance regime.

The grouping of BRICS nations indicates not only a union of the new powers that have been marginalized by the West, but also an attempt to acknowledge diversity. Especially…People’s Daily

Telescope: Mosquitoes cross the LoC

 

SHAILAJA BAJPAI |

 OCTOBER 20 2016

It was Monday evening. Manju, middle-aged Gujarati, mother of two, grandmother of two (girls), and crazed TV news addict, was exhausted (TV Ke Uss Paar, Zindagi).

She’d been chasing mosquitoes since Breaking News announced that “Over 7,400 people afflicted with chikungunya in the national capital.’’ and TV had given the battle cry: “All out war on mosquitoes”, “#Culprits must be punished”, “First Pak, now mossies: India strikes back”. True patriot, Manju had gone to war, with a battery-operated mosquito bat.

Now, she collapsed before the LCD, armed with dhoklas. It was 9 pm, time for her daily TV fix. DD News showed visuals of overcrowded Delhi hospitals and Narendra Modi: “The prime minister condemned the cowardly…INDIAN EXPRESS

Jokes apart

OCTOBER 20 2016

| AIJAZUDDIN, F.S

I HAD meant it as a joke, but India took it seriously. I had written the other day to some Indian friends to wish them on the festival of Dussehra (Rama’s victory over his demon opponent Ravana), commenting flippantly that there would be no marks for guessing who would be Ravana this year.

Whoever in India monitors circumcised carrier pigeons and wingless emails must have intercepted my message, for sure enough a few days ago, in Amritsar’s main Ranjit Avenue, in addition to the traditional effigy of a multi-headed Ravana, was an even larger figure draped in the Pakistani flag with an image of Nawaz Sharif pasted…DAWN, Pakistan