Category: Society
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The Black Legend
Published in The Telegraph, Calcutta on November 17, 2014 Manik Bandyopadhyay, in his classic short story “Prehistoric” (pragoitihashik) created an unforgettable heroine, Panchi, a beggar by profession. Her means for attracting public sympathy was a purulent ulcer that stretched from one of her knees down to the foot. And she employed every possible precaution to…
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Train to Promised Land
The latest debate surrounding the government’s decision to hike passenger fares and freight charges for the railways has dragged a skeleton out of the closet making the country turn white with fear. As any undergraduate student of economics should be able to explain, …
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Industrialization in a Land Hungry State – A Lesson from Robert Solow
If surviving the test of time is proof of quality, then MIT Nobel Laureate Robert M. Solow’s model of economic growth has surely distinguished itself with flying colours. The work was published as far back in time as 1956 and survives in the academic world till this day, despite the ruthless attack it had to…
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Expressing Righteous Indignation — Morons and Mournings
This is a vicious circle it might seem. To ensure that people, moved to distraction by the horrors of the world, may express righteous indignation by gnashing their teeth, the eyes of the audience call for intermittent massaging so to speak, by half-dressed, teeth flashing nautch girls, chaperoning people to catch the fastest train to…
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Big and Small in Retail
Will the arrival of Walmart in India wipe out a thousand or more small retail stores that already exist? Or, will it pose a threat for the potential entry of similar small businessmen into the retail sector? The direction of causality carries undeniable significance. Destroying the means of livelihood of existing traders has grievous implications.…
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Professor Joseph Stiglitz Speaks on West Bengal’s Problems
The following links cover a twenty minute interview of Professor Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. Professor Stiglitz expresses his opinions on different issues concerning the current state of West Bengal. The interview was conducted by Dipankar Dasgupta, Former Professor of Economics, Indian Statistical Institute. Stiglitz Interview — Part 1…
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In the Midst of Darkness, Light Survives …
While the problem of rural electrification continues to baffle us, a silent progress has been taking place in different parts of India and, in particular, in West Bengal. Before I reveal to you what the nature of this progress is, here are some district wise details concerning the state of electrification of rural households in…
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The Philosophy of Poverty vs The Poverty of Philosophy: Travails of West Bengal
Neither Karl Marx, who authoured The Poverty of Philosophy, nor M. Proudhon, who wrote The Philosophy of Poverty in 1847 could perceive how relevant the titles of their works would be for the state of West Bengal’s Assembly elections 164 years later. It is not as though the subject matter of the controversy between them…
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Figures in the Limelight
It was a pleasant surprise to watch the celebrated thespian, Mithun Chakraborty, anchor a TV show the other evening in which he restricted his guests from the civil society to answer questions that were sharply posed, instead of out-howling each other. Amongst the many issues he brought up, one in particular stood out. He took…
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Misson Impossible
Barack Obama’s desperate bid to rescue the recession-plagued American economy stands in sharp contrast to events that occurred in the early 1970s when Richard Nixon was in charge of the country. His bête noire at the time was the then president of France, Charles De Gaulle, who demanded that the United States of America pay…
A KALEIDOSCOPE WORLD 