That most excellent of libertarian/econ blogs, Marginal Revolution, reports on a situation in India –

India receives 90% of its rain during monsoon season so forecasting monsoons is critical for productive farming. Fortunately, according to an article in Nature (subs. req.), the Indian Meteorological Department has found a way to make its forecast better than any other available – they have suppresed publication of the other forecasts. The Indian government says this is necessary to prevent “confusion.”

…[a competitive] Institute, for example, forecast that rainfall would be 34% below average in June and 12% below average in July while the government forecast “normal or above normal rains.” The rainfall in June? 35% below average.

Sigh. Good thing Indian farmers have entrenched bureaucrats with guaranteed paychecks scraped off taxpayer backs watching out for them. Continue reading →

I’m so fascinated by the whole sidestory about US troops doin’ some GWOT Biz inside of Pakistan. As an IR geek, there’s just so much drama when you mix up semi-failed states, egg shell diplomacy, tenuously legitimate state leadership, semi-autonomous regions, nukes, and age-old rivalries…. Stir and you get something like this –

MIRAMSHAH (North Waziristan), July 16: Thousands of emotionally charged tribesmen, raising anti-US slogans, buried on Saturday 24 suspected militants killed inside Pakistan by US forces operating from across the border in Afghanistan.

And, of course, the standard retort / backlash –

…“These 24 people are martyrs and our entire Waziristan region is ready for jihad (holy war),” Maulana Abdur Rehman, a local prayer leader, said at the funeral of two suspects.

Open, combat ops within a non-combatant state. What a world. Stratpage gives us an idea of what this this looks like from the front line –

July 18, 2005: Heavy losses have caused most Taliban fighters to flee into Pakistan, where Pakistani troops are becoming more active in going after them. But the Taliban refuges in Pakistan are still largely intact. Once the Taliban reach their camps, which are usually under the protection of local tribes, they are still safe. But if the Pakistani troops catch the Taliban in transit, it’s another story.

Continue reading →

If it weren’t for the rash of “punishing the victim” stories of late, this story would seem just plain medieval. But with that thoroughly depressing context, I suppose it’s just sadly bittersweet – Primitive justice: Father killed for raping daughter –

Manju was raped by her father, Rajvir repeatedly for the last 6 months and even though her mother and brothers knew about it, they were helpless. …Fed up with this daily abuse, one evening when Rajvir dragged Manju into a room, her mother called her uncles for help. The mother however, could not have anticipated what happened next. In a bid to protect Manju’s honour, the uncles beat Rajvir to death. …The police have arrested both men on charges of murder and booked them under IPC section 302…In a country where it takes years to solve a rape case and where the rapist often goes scot free, this was an instance where the victim’s family took the law into their own hands and meted out what they called justice.

Sigh. Continue reading →

That’s the estimate for how much Indians paid en toto to various bureaucrats up and down this most murderous of food chains.

Amit Varma quotes a piece from the Hindustan Times –

For those who believe that corruption in India is almost an industry, hereÂ’s proof. A survey conducted by Transparency International India (TII) says Indians paid bribes amounting to Rs 21,068 crore [US$ 4843 million appr] in the past year. And no one would have guessed it, but the biggest chunk of this money goes to schools till the Class XII level. …This is not to say that schools are the most corrupt. That honour goes to the police who have been ranked the most corrupt according to a ‘corruption indexÂ’ prepared by the CMS. The reason schools receive the biggest chunk of bribe money is that “(the) proportion of citizens interacting with schools is much more than the police or municipalities,” said Sarangpani.

Varma’s analysis for “why” –

…the biggest reason is discretion. Too many public servants have too much discretion over our activities, which is, in many areas, an unwarranted intrusion into our personal freedom. The more power the state has over its citizens, the more inevitable corruption is. Other factors do matter, but this is the grandma of them all.

I heartily agree with Varma – an interventionalist government, its intentions cloaked by social cause de jure creates its own license for corruption. For all its objections, freedom & growth maximization have the advantage of being relatively objective vs. the far more abstract goals of “equity”, “preventing labor displacement” or “preserving identity”.

But even while being pared down via privitization and deregulation, Indian governance will still suffer from a famously lacking public service ethic. Some things will always require a government license (like setting up a corporation) or some level of government operation (infrastructure, transportation, etc.). In the US and many western countries, we take it for granted that folks joining the public sphere are never going to get rich. Unfortunately, in India and many other dysfunctional countries, a public appointment is, more often than not, the path to getting rich.

As India globalizes, there are signs of progress but, it ain’t fast enough for many. Continue reading →