After watching the NDTV Expose on the BMW Case I’m officially depressed.

And to think today was the last day of law school. After hearing him and then him; I can’t help but think- Is this the bar I am going to join?

……………..or rather Vat Vomen Vant is the coolest new blog. I heard something like this was in the pipeline, but such joy to read their very first post today. These women absolutely kick ass because their explanation for writing the blog is to act as translators for men. They are on some kind of crusade.

“This blog hopes to serve the purpose of yellow fish, which you can shove into your ear, so you can understand vat ve mean. If you didn’t understand the above reference, the first thing women want (intelligent women) is a well read man, so go figure.”

Link via a hysterical phone call from Y, who also confirmed that these women are in fact not Scandinavian.

This piece written by me got published in the Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required) on May 21st 2007.

UPDATE: Mint (which is in partnership with The Wall Street Journal) is publishing the same piece today (May 24th 2007).

These are strange days in India, especially when it comes to special economic zones. The left-wing government of West Bengal has been teaming up with the same big foreign corporations it previously claimed to hate, even asking peasants to vacate their land to make room for the companies. Then the right-wing opposition started siding with the grass-roots left to oppose the business interests. What is going on here?

Nothing, it turns out, that hasn’t been going on already for 50 years. West Bengal, where the communist parties have perhaps their largest presence in India, is rather famous for its commitment to land reform. This is the state where the maximum amount of land has been redistributed to farmers and peasants since independence to demolish the oppressive Indian feudal system, partly perpetrated by the Colonial government. So while it’s somewhat surprising that the redistribution is now going to foreign developers, the basic behavior is true to form.

To be fair, only so much of the blame can be apportioned to the West Bengal government. It is only doing what the Indian government, both state and federal, does best—taking land from A and giving it to B. Most of the fault lies with India’s socialist founding fathers.

Ironically, Indians had greater protection from private land “takings” under the British. Section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, clearly stated that no person was to be deprived of his property save for public purposes and with compensation. But from that high Madisonian note, the socialist leanings of successive leaders slowly eroded those rights.

After declaring independence in 1947, the members of the Indian Constituent Assembly, influenced by the American Constitution, tried to imitate the U.S. Bill of Rights both in content and intent. The newly-minted Takings Clause, which set out the rules for eminent domain, required that any land seizure should be for a public use (meaning infrastructure) and should be justly compensated. The first draft of this provision, proposed by Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, read almost exactly like America’s Fifth Amendment.

Socialist members like Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Sir Benegal Narsingh Rau and Govind Ballabh Pant worried that such a strict limit on governmental power would prevent “beneficial social legislation.” These leaders of the Indian National Congress Party had promised to reconstruct an egalitarian agrarian economy and abolish the zamindari (feudal) system and transfer land to the tiller. A strict anti-takings clause would have foiled these plans. Unfortunately, the socialists managed to out-shout the Madisonians. “Public use” became “public purpose” and “just compensation” just became “compensation.”

Even then, this wasn’t the happy ending the Congress Party had hoped for because they had to pay vast sums of compensation for acquisitions. This paralyzed their land reform agenda. So they set about amending the constitution to eclipse even this little protection. Within a year the clause was amended and land reform legislation was ousted from the jurisdiction of the courts through its inclusion on the so-called Ninth Schedule, a list of laws immune from any kind of judicial review. These amendments effectively removed takings disputes from the jurisdiction of the courts, giving the government carte blanche to acquire any property it wanted.

The final blow to private property came in 1978 with the 44th amendment to the Constitution. The fundamental right to private property was abolished and was relegated to the position of a legal right. Further, the eminent domain clause was deleted from the Constitution, allowing the government to acquire any land for any purpose without compensation.

As a result, in today’s India there is no real right to private property and no protection against government land acquisitions. The rich feudal lords whose land was stripped in the 1950s and the poor peasants in Nandigram today suffer the same fate—a complete demolition of their private property rights. Talk about egalitarianism.

India has, in many respects, been turning away from its socialist past, and the decision to create and expand SEZs is part of that trend. The bitter irony, however, is that SEZs, meant to be at the vanguard of a newly capitalist economy, are being erected by trampling on the most fundamental tenet of capitalism—the right to private property. It is even more ironic that the constitutional amendments passed to protect the farmers through land reforms are being used today to evict farmers through the same principle—government-directed land redistribution.

Luckily India is still a vibrant democracy that protests such infringements. The West Bengal government had no choice but to bring its acquisition efforts to a halt after violent protests in Nandigram, where thousands of villagers and farmers attacked the police trying to enter and occupy land earmarked for an SEZ. Recently the central government announced that “no state can compulsorily acquire land from farmers through the Land Acquisition Act,” and that private parties setting up SEZs shall negotiate the purchase of land.

So it is a victory of sorts, as “takings” of this nature have been restrained by the government due to voter pressure. But can Indians prematurely do the victory dance when no formal constitutional guarantees exist to restrain takings and protect private property?

Ms. Rajagopalan is a Delhi-based law student and writer.

I am a big fan of the Election Commission as an institution and I think it’s one of the reasons we still have hope as a democracy. N Gopalaswami, Chief Election Commissioner, who is the reason for the immense success of the UP Elections, has two very interesting and important recommendations for changing the way we decide as a society.

The first reservation he has is with the criminal record of candidates who contest elections leading to the criminalization of politics. Currently the law is such that anyone can contest as long as he has not been ‘convicted’ of an offence. Anyone who has been accused and even charge-sheeted can contest elections as long as he is otherwise eligible. One of his recommendations is to disallow anyone to contest if he has any serious charges against him. He feels a person shouldn’t be allowed to contest if he has been charge-sheeted (not merely reported in an FIR) for an offence where the punishment is greater than five years. Also, to prevent a number of spurious charges just before elections to prevent someone from contesting, there could be a six month cut off.

Now while this idea sounds great in theory I have serious reservations with such a procedure. Now let’s imagine the worst possible democratic situation and see how this law would operate. Assume an Emergency like situation where the police is a puppet in the hands of the government (it already is, but during an Emergency situation there is greater opportunity for government to make the police charge-sheet opposition leaders) and the judiciary has also aligned with government. In such a situation the only peaceful way of coming back to power is democratically by eventually contesting elections and such a rule by the CEC may completely ruin any chances of opposition leaders coming back to power. With such a rule we may never have a Janata Party like historic win. I know the situation I describe seems extreme. But all laws must be judged by their consequences in the hands of despots and no law must be based on the goodwill of leaders. A simple reading of Animal Farm will tell us that there is no such thing as goodwill of leaders.

The second recommendation that Gopalaswami has is a personal one. He feels that the First-Past-the-Post system which we follow in our elections does not reflect the majority and if we want better leaders, decisions and governance we must change institutional rules to reflect the choice of the majority.

I couldn’t agree more with his second recommendation. A while ago I wrote an article called the Reality of Reality Television for my college magazine okonomos on the way we make decisions as a people during elections and in reality shows. Instead of meandering more in this post I’ll just reproduce the article here to give you a fair idea of the king of institutional rules I am talking about.

The Reality of Reality Television

I have always wondered about the kind of reality that the new genre of reality television in India portrays; whether it is in the laughs, the tears, the controversies, the fights between the contestants or in some cases the judges; or perhaps it is in creating stars rise from the most humble settings. The answer is probably, all of the above. However, as a student of public choice the reality for me in reality television is in the voting patterns and the social decision making process which makes the winners emerge and fade with every season.

Circa 2005, Mumbai. 12 contestants were chosen to sing each week with the hope of attracting our votes to become the next Indian Idol. The rules were simple, phones lines are open to anyone who can call or text; any number of times for the same contestant or more than one. The contestant receiving the least number of votes is eliminated each week. One would believe that since the masses vote for the winner; he or she is automatically a success and sells the most records.

Now from the celluloid to reality. The twelve contestants took over Indian television for a few months. The painter from Punjab, Ravinder Ravi, managed to win hearts not just through his voice (which was just average) but his humility; apparently his vote bank was almost completely in Punjab. The wining horse, or so they predicted, would be the savvy college student from Mumbai, Rahul Vaidya. The others invited comments, good and bad, with each passing episode. In the end remained two contestants Amit Sana and Abhijeet Sawant, both dark horses in this race. Abhijeet Sawant won, partly due to his smile, partly due to his popular appeal and cut an album. The album sales were good but not commensurate with the number of votes he received. The popularity, largely generated by excellent PR firms, faded unexpectedly. One would believe someone who received a few lakh votes would continue to remain a star. History repeated itself in 2006 when Sandeep Acharya, who was called Udit Narayan’s clone, won over Karunya who has been crowned the better singer by the judges. I remember watching how Sandeep Acharya and Karunya went to Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh respectively to campaign because that was their vote bank. Karunya lost because he was from the south where Indian Idol is not as popular as in Rajasthan resulting in lesser votes.

Similarly in a contest by Channel [V] Ravinder Upadhay who won is nowhere to be seen today whereas Naresh Iyer, one of the other contestants, has made it big in the playback world singing for stalwarts like Rehman. I have observed over the past that the ultimate validation for a singer in India is to sing as a playback singer in films. Even the popular artists like Alisha Chinai achieve success with the masses only after singing for Bollywood. Stars created by other reality television not involving voting have reached great heights such as Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan. So one wonders why this pattern exists and the winners, despite receiving the largest number of votes, fail to remain successful for over fifteen minutes. Simply out the winners are not able to sell enough records and not enter movies, which is the ultimate validation in Indian music industry. If they had mass popularity they would have at least got a contract with Pepsi or Coke who always select popular idols and icons for their products before anyone else. One would imagine that these pop artists who already have universal popularity, or so it seems, would enter mainstream film music meant for the masses. But why have they been rejected?

Circa 2004, Mohanlalganj. In the Parliamentary Elections Uttar Pradesh had the voter turn out of only 48% one of the lowest in the country. Of the 80 seats in UP 65 seats had over 10 candidates per constituency with some constituencies having up to 32 candidates. In the Mohanlalganj constituency where there were 10 contestants the winner won by a margin of 0.004%. The winner won only 25.8% of the votes implying three quarters of the electorate was not in favour of the winning candidate and his policies will reflect the choices of only a fourth of the electorate. All you need to unseat the incumbent is 25% in this case and even lesser in other cases where fractionism is even greater in the constituency.

This got me thinking that perhaps these voting patterns reflect a different reality from what is shown on television, be it entertainment shows or political news. These rules are institutionally designed to select, not the one who is most acceptable, but perhaps one who appeals to a small group of people and wins on the margin. The numbers we have for Mohanlalganj and Indian Idol are reflecting the same reality; one where the rule of First-Past-the-Post in elections is failing society.

So now the real question is what kind of institution will create a situation where the social decision reflects the choice of more voters than less.

While the voting in reality shows no doubt reflects regional and caste realities it is one that is perhaps because entertainment is a lot about regional culture. Indian idol also proves to be tricky because one who votes may not buy records and vice versa. More importantly in this case luckily the television or radio can be turned off if ones candidate loses or the winner doesn’t suit ones preferences, unlike parliamentary elections where their policies take away your college seat, land or even freedom.

For parliamentary elections one plausible solution is to have a second run off after the first election where as many candidates contest. In this system, after the first round of election if no candidate receives 50% plus one vote or more there would be a second election with only the top two candidates where one would get a clear majority. The advantage of this system is no policy of any contestant can be polarised benefiting 20-30% of the population. All contestants would be forced to accommodate preferences of all voters or they would lose the second run off. Policies only benefiting the farmers lobby or lower castes or a certain religion would be difficult.

Finally the truth of politics is simple. One cannot please all the people all the time and only please some of the time. The trick is to create institutions where one must please most of the people most of the time!

I don’t quite understand India and Indians sometimes. We obsess over freedom and don’t quite value or cherish it. We thank authority when they infringe on our freedoms for “public good” or to “protect us” and so on.

The elections in UP are an excellent example of this. While I applaud the Chief Election Commission for carrying out fair and peaceful elections in a state as difficult as UP with its factionalism; I wonder if they have gone too far.

There are no hoardings, billboards, banners, flags, buntings or mega-size cutouts because of the CEC’s insistence on strict adherence to the Model Code of Conduct.

Are they serious about not allowing posters and banners and free campaigning? What is left of political free speech? Newspaper advertisements in a state where half the people are illiterate?

The rationale is two fold. Posters and banners etc tend to encroach on public and private property and vandalise many spaces that do not belong to the political party or candidate. Secondly, they want to keep the campaign expenditure at a bare minimum because campaign expenditure is apparently “non-productive”.

I disagree on both counts. While unruly election campaigns and vandalism may be a problem, the solution is better law and order and enforcement of election rules, not disallowing posters.

Secondly, limits on campaign expenditure is perhaps the biggest infringement of political free speech. To limit a persons ability to campaign in any way he wants (lawfully) especially financially is limiting his political rights. Also, the campaign finance and expenditure laws are biased against independents and encourage party politics.

I don’t see the logical sense in the argument that we can choose the better candidate if he is frugal with his campaign. Isn’t that what matters at the end of the day?

Events such as the UP Elections present an immense opportunity for a wannabe public choice theorist. So I am hoping I’ll have something to say once the real numbers (and all the drama that follows) come in.

For now about the election process itself. These seven phases of polling in UP have been considered the most successful in UP history. Vandalism, violence and vote buying/snatching have been kept at a minimum and almost all regulations were followed thanks to “Gopal Babu”. There are some free speech issues I have here, but that’s for another post.

There is one thing that struck me in particular about these elections. The Dalit voting. The fact that some actually voted. Perhaps for the first time since independence.

“I have voted for the first time in my life with my wife and son,” said Dwarika Lal of Shishupur in Sarsaul. “Previously we were not allowed to move out of our house and the upper cast people used to cast out votes. This time too our voter identity cards and ration cards were submitted by the pradhan and his brother but due to the intervention of Election Commission officials, we got them back and exercised our right to vote,” said Dwarika.

Now the reason this was made possible. Heavy deployment of central paramilitary forces in the area by the Chief Election Commission. Full story here.

While the entire debate about Dalit rights and opportunities took forefront in the UP election and will invariably play a huge role in the caste politics that is yet to follow; I wonder-is enforcement of law and order all they need?

Dalits have rights, constitutionally protected rights as citizens, as minorities and as backward and underprivileged classes. However the reason why we still have Dalit oppression is simply because of the abysmal law and order situation.

So do we need reservations for Dalits? Or do we just need an independent police which will ensure that Dalit children get to attend school without getting stoned by upper caste children? I have a suspicion it may be the latter. Their opportunities in every sphere, including their participation in the informal economy, is being thwarted by state supported violence and oppression. Once we give them what we always promised, a safe and secure community, I see no reason why Dalits would ever need reservations. They may need school vouchers, perhaps even free primary health care and the like, but little support beyond that.

Instead we do not what is right, but what is easiest. Oppress them with state machinery, and then buy them out (if we allow them to vote) in return for IIM seats.

There is nothing radical being said here. I am just advocating equality. The politicians and the armchair economists and political theorists on the other hand are always lobbying for equalisation. Next they will want unicorns.

I had previously disabled comments on Kalachakra. But as pointed out by kind friends, when I ask specific questions (which I often do), especially song recommendations, it’s easier to leave a comment than write an email. Also, everyone gets to judge other readers on their taste in music (BTW Kalachakra readers have some kick ass and rather eclectic taste in music).

So comments have been enabled. Try not to say something stupid. I (and the rest of the world) will judge you.

Today I deflowered my jogging/walking shoes. I bought them a few weeks ago and they have just been sitting in closet for decoration and guilt inducing purposes. I did take them out once, because they were comfortable for driving also, but that’s about it. So due to an interesting turn of events I decided to go for a jog. And hence deflowered my shoes. Don’t worry I was gentle.

Now that’s a big deal. For those of you that don’t know me/haven’t seen me; I am the laziest person I know. I can give Garfield some serious competition (though Garfield has the unfair advantage of having nine lives and I have only one to devote completely to sloth….…but this post isn’t about fair competition, we shall discuss that another day) in being lazy. My usual cardio is trotting down a flight of stairs from my library to the parking and hopping into my car and driving.

Anyway, now I shall stun you all with the fascinating insights that struck me today while I jogged for perhaps the first time.

Jogging isn’t the same as walking. Now before you say Duhh, let me qualify that.

I like to walk occasionally because it helps me think. It seems more purposeful than just standing or sitting and you can actually think through a lot of serious stuff. I was expecting something similar while jogging and have been studying Jurisprudence, so I thought the actual disagreement between positivists will become clear when I jog and I shall come back a better jurist. Wrong. There is a reason why people say jogging clears your mind. Your muscles are crying so loudly for help that they drown out every other sane voice in your head. Hence it seems like your mind is clear of all other thoughts. But in fact all I was trying was to continue running without listening to my muscles.

The far more serious difference between walking and jogging is the music. I usually listen to some nice jazz when I walk. Because I am simultaneously working out positivism in my mind, it helps if the music is instrumental. So usually Coltrane, Davis, Montgomery, Parker, Brubeck and Ellington have fought for my time during that occasional walk. But jazz is not at all conducive for running. A lot of it a too slow and the rest is unstructured, in the sense of not having a constant rhythm, which I desperately need while jogging. Now that’s saying something because Coltrane was known for his very strong Rhythm Section in his quartets and I can only manage to jog to Mr PC, the rest is really slow and all over the place. (Please note these things are being said only with reference to jogging and not about the music itself. I would NEVER say Jazz is unstructured, lacks rhythm or is too slow.) The other thing is when your muscles are screaming for help, you need lyrics to sing along with for distraction, which is another reason why most jazz doesn’t work.

Now that finally brings me to the reason why I am writing this post. I have about 2500 songs on my iPod and I was really struggling today to find suitable music for jogging. (It was also my way of taking breaks under the pretext of changing music.) Some Zeppelin really works, if it has a strong base line. My Sherona worked even better because the drums are really the heart of the song. But otherwise I was stumped.

So I was wondering what you marathon runners listen to while jogging. And your reasons for the choice of music. I think I need something fast, with a strong base line, and something with lyrics that I can naturally sing along in my head. So please write in and help.

One more thing. I feel better when I walk. But I feel better about myself when I jog. I’m trying to pick which one is better. Help on this will also be appreciated.

UPDATE: I knew I had given up too soon and Coltrane would eventually come to my rescue. My favouritest (if such a word in fact existed I would use it only here) piece of music ever, by any artist, in any genre, is Coltrane’s version of My Favourite Things (not just any version but the 21 minute live take in Afro Blues Impressions-I). And I completely forgot about it yesterday because I do not associate that music with exercise (no surprise there!). But I just realised, after my morning jog, that it is the best jogging music. It has fantastic rhythm. It has one solid base line and a long kick ass piano solo by McCoy Tyner and of course Coltrane is at his spectacular best. It’s one of those few tracks for which I don’t need lyrics to grasp the music, I know it note for note. And it has more than one climax, making it perfect to punctuate your running which one normally does with trees or something in the park. So for all you runners, this is my strong recommendation for when you jog. Keep your recommendations coming, I would like to believe that eventually I can run more than the 21 minutes that this song lasts. Right now I can barely keep up with Coltrane.

A man has sued his dry cleaners for $67 Million for losing a pair of pants.

Plaintiff Roy Pearson — himself a local judge in Washington D.C — says in court papers that he’s been through the ringer over a lost pair of prized pants he wanted to wear on his first day on the bench. He says in court papers that he has endured “mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort.” He says he was unable to wear that favorite suit of his first day of work. He’s suing for ten years of weekend car rentals so he can transport his dry cleaning to another store. Full Story here.

Now who would star if this is made into a film? Julia Roberts is clearly out……….hmmmm.

(Via email from a kind friend.)