Inconsistencies and Contradictions

The farm laws have been repealed. Government's decision to repeal hints that accusations of agitators about farm laws are intended to end the MSP regime and hurt the big farmers might have been true. And there is no surprise. The farm laws were about easing the fiscal burden government faced due to procurement based on MSP. If government is not planning to ditch this route, then why it was not ready to make a law for using it? - The repeal seems to vindicate the doubt. Government failed to communicate the potential trajectory of changes the laws could have generated. One reason why government would have chosen not to reveal it is because it might have revealed some unpleasant possibilities, like some big businesses benefiting or section of farmers losing out and large section of farmers having no gain – no loss from it. But there is another reason why government chose to not communicate. It did not because it is extremely paternalistic towards Indians. The approach of Modi govern...

 I read today about arrest of Maoist/Naxalite (I will use the terms interchangeably) Prashant Bose. Few days back, Milind Teltumbade died in encounter with police in Gadchiroli.  I admire Naxalites. It takes courage to take up on mighty state, especially when your life on such path is not going to be a cozy one. Whether we agree with path of Naxalites or not, whether we subscribe to ideology on left or right, we must ask - why would one participate in the armed struggle against the national state as mighty as India? The lifelong participation in armed struggle cannot be without a driving force. Influence in youth can drive one towards such path, but then disillusion can set in quickly.  It is easy to criticize or even condemn 'violence'. The kind of life I am living and I am likely to live, I am unlikely to experience a systematic violence due to religion, class, or caste/tribe. I am also unlikely to get exploited or uprooted due to these factors. But is the life of a tri...

 I was listening to this podcast  about 'Model Tenancy Act'. The guests are an academic and a bureaucrat with career in housing policy. The premise is there is something wrong with rental market in India and Model tenancy act is there to fix it, at least part of it. Few thoughts crossed my mind while listening to this podcast. I am just listing them down.  Mumbai had a fairly successful model of rental housing during pre-independence period. Multi-story building, called 'chawl' with several small or medium sized tenements which shared toilet (and water-tap till individual taps were provided) facilities where each tenement was a rental unit. Though there is no evidence proving the causal link, the accepted wisdom is, rent control act, brought during the WWII and later continued in post-independence period killed this rental market.  It is this mass rental housing model with assured tenancy till one keeps on paying the rent and upward rental revisions are well-spaced o...