Economy
Vision 2020 -- Deviating from Pareto criterion
ACCORDING to the Pareto criterion, a change is a good one if it leaves no one worse off and someone better off than before. Unfortunately, almost all schemes devised by the government are of the rob Peter to pay Paul variety. They try to help one section
of society at the expense of another. Naturally, that evokes resentment and determined opposition. Not surprisingly, few of them succeed as intended.
Economic fallout of Black Tuesday
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 will go down in history as testimony to what a determined terrorist group can do to a vibrant economy, such as the US. The attack on the World Trade Centre was symbolically and effectively an attack on the heart of the US financial sys
tem. The response of the US Government to this attack is still to unravel.
Editorial
Figuring them out
THE STATISTICAL COMMISSION, headed by Dr C. Rangarajan, former RBI Governor and now Governor of Andhra Pradesh, deserves to be complimented for holding a mirror to the state of the countrys statistical system. Indias record of compilation and disseminati
on of statistics on a range of socio-economic parameters may be superior to that of many developing countries, but it clearly lags far behind the advanced economies in the range and accuracy of statistical data and the speed of dissemination. In fact, so
poor is its reliability and so inordinately delayed is the compilation that it runs the risk of becoming irrelevant for decision-making if it is not already so.
Politics
Supreme Court cracks the whip
LUCKILY, following the verdict of the Supreme Court quashing her appointment as the Chief Minister, there have been no violent demonstrations of the kind witnessed when Ms Jayalalithaa was convicted and sentenced by the Special Court in the now famous TA
NSI case. This is attributable only in part to the call for restraint made by her. In any case, Ms Jayalalithaa's appeal for calm was issued late in the day and there was plenty of time till then for the `spontaneous' outbreaks of violence the Dravidian
parties are capable of engineering at short notice.
Eclipse of the UN system?
WHAT happened on September 11 was, without a shadow of doubt, a terrible crime against humanity. Since all such activity needs to be put down with a firm hand -- for the benefit of the world as a whole -- there is, again, hardly any doubt that the firmes
t measures should be taken against the perpetrators of the acts which led to the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York (the official death toll of which has now exceeded 6,300) and the part-demolition of the Pentagon in Washington, not to men
tion the lives lost on all the four aircraft which were commandeered by the criminals.
Terrorism
Misdirected ire
IN THE US, Sikhs and others mistaken for Arabs and Muslims are being targeted for revenge as a backlash of the terrorist attack on America. In a regrettable incident that occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, one Sikh actually lost his life. Similar reports are
emanating from some other industrial countries too, notably the UK and even New Zealand. While not surprising, the menace needs to be nipped in the bud before it assumes serious proportions and becomes widespread.
