Warrier's blog

Kamadenu: New forever series. #krishnafortoday  : New forever series. #krishnafortoday

Rich must open their wallets more to remove inequalities: Piketty : Thomas Piketty, author of the best-selling book ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century,’ that transformed the understanding of the history of wealth and its distribution , said for India to meet its hug My VIEW: January 22, 2016 Revisit inequality This refers to the interview given to The Hindu by Thomas Piketty with focus on inequality in the Indian context (report by Puja Mehra, The Hindu, January 22). For a couple of decades now, in India, the thinking at the highest level has been in favour of reducing the role of the public sector in core sectors of the economy. We were also not able to make private sector responsible for taking care of spending in social sector commensurate with their share in public resources. This has created an imbalance and now, that is being bluntly told by scholars like Piketty. In addition to defence and internal security, government has t...

‘Bold’ reforms : This refers to “Opening of doors to more reforms” (Business Line, September 21, 2012) The Prime Minister has announced a slew of reforms to give fillip to the sagging economy. Congress’ strategy This refers to the article “Time to reinvent Congress political strategy” ( Business Line , September 21, 2012). The people of India will definitely welcome a reformed Congress rededicating itself to the ideologies for which the Indian National Congress stood when Mahatma Gandhi was alive. But, though Gandhi's wish to disband the Congress was not acceded to in 1947, the successive leaders especially after 1964 have ensured that the Indian National Congress survives only in the memory of some earnest veterans. M. G. Warrier Mumbai (This article was published on September 23, 2012)

WEEKEND LIGHTER: WHY AM I LIKE THIS? (January 23/24, 2016, No. 4/2016) Feel free to mail your views on this edition of WL to mgwarrier@gmail.com I Beautiful explanation by Swami Vivekananda: Explaining the meaning of ‘Association’. He said:   “The rain drop from the sky: if it is caught in hands, it is pure enough for drinking. If it falls in a gutter, its value drops so much that it can’t be used even for washing the feet. If it falls on hot surface, it perishes. If it falls on lotus leaf, it shines like a pearl and finally, if it falls on oyster, it becomes a pearl. The drop is same, but its existence worth depend on with whom it associates.” Always be associated with people who are good at heart. Source: Email from Vathsala Jayaraman, Exrbites Group My VIEW: Slightly extending/stretching the theme or re-interpreting, I remember many whose writings I have read, people who talked to me (one to one, in class rooms, in trains, when they were giving religi...

Important questions : There were people, who were prepared to punish even their own family, if some wrong had been committed by them, said K.Sambandan, in a discourse. Such a person was the legendary King Manuniti Chola. H

The ‘golden mean’ for this Budget : The key is to strike a balance between growth, fiscal consolidation and distributive justice My VIEW: Excerpts: “In this context there is a need for a serious review of distributive justice. It is articulated that if the general exemption for individual income tax is raised from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹5.0 lakh the loss of revenue would be ₹15,000 crore which the government would not be willing to lose. Furthermore, it is argued that such an increase in the general exemption limit would put 90 per cent of the present income tax payers out of the tax net. It is further argued that these tax payers pay only 10 per cent of the total income tax collected. The flip side of this argument is that there would be very large reduction in administrative costs. Distributive justice calls for Aristotle’s Golden Mean. As a minimum, the general income tax exemption limit could be raised from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹3.0 lakh, with a commensurate increase for senior citizen...

Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide: clarity of a suicide note : So the future lies in darkness and the forces of right Are weak. All this was plain to you When you destroyed a torturable body. — Bertolt Brecht, ‘On the Suicide of the Refugee W.B’ These l