“Great cities have long been built by great gamblers, and Dubai’s sheik may well be the second greatest city-builder—after the Chinese government— of our age”: says Prof Glaeser.
Ed Glaeser is a leading urban economist. He studies economics of cities. Urban economics as a sub-field that never really took off in spite of early promise and a lot of interest. But he is said to have revived it.
A side note: Prof Glaeser loves to dress up; he wears a suit to class, every single day.
New York Times tells us of the Davis Cup final that was never played. In 1974, South Africa and India advanced to the final of the Davis Cup. The final was to be played in Ellis Park, Johannesburg where the crowd would have been segregated with just a very small section near the top reserved for nonwhites, including Indians. But the Indian government boycotted the final in protest of South Africa’s system of apartheid.
Economist summarizes World Bank’s new comparative study on poverty reduction in Brazil, China and India. India’s performance is by far the worst. Two snippets from the Economist:
“And government interventions in India are extraordinarily perverse. People in the poorest fifth are the least likely to have any kind of ration card (the key to public handouts), whereas the richest fifth are the most likely to”.
“India had both growth and social policies, yet did worst because its policies in fact did rather little to help the poor. With its caste system, and bad state schools, India may be a more unequal society than the numbers alone suggest”.
And the preamble of our Constitution says we are a socialist democratic republic.
The Chinese government announced today its target to reduce its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels. The number (40-45%) looks quite ambitious, at least to Times of India. It says:
“China has announced that it will cut emissions by a drastic 40-45 per cent compared to 2005 levels by the year 2020. The pledge, which
is far ahead of the promises made by the United States, is also expected to cause jitters in New Delhi and raise questions about the efficacy of the India-China deal on the issue”.
But ToI has got it completely wrong. Here is why:
Carbon intensity (ton/$) is defined as tons of Carbon dioxide emitted per dollar of GDP. Reduction in carbon intensity is driven more by growth in GDP than by efforts to reduce overall carbon emissions. As an economy grows, its carbon intensity declines (except for petro-economies like in the Middle-East). It doesn’t take any special effort. The decline is faster when the GDP growth is faster, as it is in China. So, what matters for climate outcomes is the numerator, while in practice, it is the denominator that drives the carbon intensity values we observe in data of last three decades.
The reality of China’s new climate commitment can be guaged from the fact that Carbon intensity of Chinese economy has already gone down by 45% between 1990 and 2006 even as its per capita emission more than doubled and total emission increased 2.3 times. In comparison, India’s carbon intensity is already 40% less than China’s even when India is poorer. India has not reduced its carbon intensity significantly over last 2-3 decades, but our total emissions are less than a third of China and have grown at a much slower pace over this period in both absolute and per capita terms.
In effect, China is not promising anything and India should not feel pressured to follow in its footsteps. I am sure the world understands it even if Shaibal Dasgupta of ToI does not. Amazing! Our largest newspaper has this level of understanding of the climate issue.
The Economist says it’s working. Rural job guarantees faring well. India’s grand experiment with public works enjoys a moment in the sun.
Tushaar Shah argues in an Op-ed in Times of India that replacing NREGS with a cash transfers program is a bad idea. NREGA is self-selecting while a cash transfer program will be completely hijacked by the rich and the connected. Cash transfers is a flawed alternative to NREGS.
Common people living in resource rich areas often end up paying dearly for the riches. Tribals in mineral rich Chhattisgarh are no exception.
This is from a government report:
….”The report is devastatingly frank about the collusion between government and big business, even accusing the two of funding and fuelling the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. “This open, declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever…. Tata Steel and Essar Steel…wanted seven villages or thereabouts…to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India. (After) initial resistance from the tribals…the state withdrew its plans. A new approach was necessary…. (It) came about with the Salwa Judum…headed by the Murias, some of them erstwhile (Maoist) cadres. Behind them are traders, contractors and miners…. The first financiers of the Salwa Judum were Tata and Essar…640 villages…were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. (Some) 3,50,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district, are displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed and their youth maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and managed by the Salwa Judum…640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder. The latest information being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines.”
An interesting article from Time magazine that captures the West’s view of India’s intransigence in climate negotiations. Factual details of the article are less interesting than its tone. Read it for the tone, not for the facts. While the title suggests that the article will be about why India refuses to co-operate, that is not what it is. It is more about how “we” (the Americans) see India’s attitude and how pissed off we are at it.
“What is clear is that the first step in a successful outcome in Copenhagen will need to come from the U.S., the country responsible for nearly a quarter of the CO2 that is warming our planet. India and other developing nations will have to follow. It’s not exactly fair, but there’s nothing fair about climate change”.
There is some of “we are also responsible and we should act” type self-flagellation here that is typical of liberal America, also seen in its approach to WTO, world peace, and everything else. But it is more deception than sincerity. Like their European ancestors, they “want gold and slaves but at the same time they want statues put up to themselves too” as people who care a lot about the planet earth.
In climate negotiations, it is amazing how the past is being washed away; there is only the present and the future.
Gideon Gono, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, won the Ig Nobel prize for Mathematics in 2009. He was recognized for:
“giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000)”.
In 2008, Zimbabwe’s peak hyperinflation rate reached 79,600,000,000 %(79.6 billion %) per month. At this rate, nominal price of things would double every 24 hours. Hungary, in 1945-46, experienced inflation rate of 41.9 quadrillion percent (41,900,000,000,000,000)per month, a record unsurpassed: na bhuto, na bhavishyati.
Other Ig Nobel Prizes are just as interesting and deserving.
The PEACE prize went to Stephen Bolliger, Stephen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland:
“for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle”.
And the Economics Prize was awarded to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic Banks: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland:
“for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy”.
