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Nitin Pai Profile picture
Nitin Pai
@acorn
“Eppur Si Mouve!” Director of The Takshashila Institution @TakshashilaInst https://t.co/bWbaasEgoq Fediverse: @nitin@mastodon.social
Dec 19 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The debate over the renaming of MGNREGA misses one important point:

Is it the appropriate form of social security for people in rural India?

Everyone, in all parties, presumes it is the best thing and self-evident. No one questions it.

This is what should worry us. What is the opportunity cost of NREGA?
Lack of urgency to implement agriculture reforms.
With NREGA we're merely treating a serious underlying malaise with steroids.
Jul 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Let's not forget who repeatedly elected the Rajapaksas.
2010 vote share 60%
2020 vote share 60% Around 60% of the Sri Lankan electorate liked the Rajapaksas enough to elect them again and again.
Jun 18, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Unemployment is like diabetes. It is a problem in itself and complicates the treatment of other problems.

The unrest over Agnipath is a case in point.

We’ve long been saying India needs to create 2 crore jobs per year (while the best current run rate is 20 lakhs per year). How do we create 2 crore (20 million) jobs per year?

Not by business as usual.

We need build new cities; attract large scale manufacturing; promote big rather than small industry.

Twiddling at the margins won’t raise our run rate from lakhs to crores of jobs per year.
Oct 29, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
When the world's richest countries have done very little to make Covid-19 vaccines to the poorest ones,
why do they expect anyone to accept their proposals for addressing climate change? A coordinated global response to Covid-19, led by the leading powers, would have demonstrated good faith in solving common global prpblems.

"But when you won't even share life-saving vaccines in a pandemic, why would I trust you to fulfil bigger long term commitments?"
Aug 11, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Mao nationalised all private schools in China in 1956. Xi is doing it again for the new era. ft.com/content/56a183… FT:
The only solution, said the govt adviser, was for private schools to relinquish their operations to the state.

…(a private school executive) said he had no problem donating the institution to the government because it was “in the public interest”.
Aug 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
More about the book outlookindia.com/newsscroll/amp… In a style reminiscent of classic moral fables like the "Panchatantra", the "Hitopadesha", and the "Jataka" tales, the book addresses "a lacuna in traditional and contemporary literature: the absence of stories on what it is to be a good citizen in a liberal democratic society".
Aug 9, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This chart from @TheEconomist is about Olympics performance, but points to a more general point. economist.com/graphic-detail…

It show’s India’s performance has long been below the trend line.

Reflecting on “why” India underperforms holds the answer to many public policy problems. My hypothesis is that it is to do with the fundamental mindsets that determine how we organise our society.

I have learned that whenever there is a difference between potential and achievement, look at organisation.

Resistors in series add up, in parallel they divide out.
Aug 6, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Back in 2018 I pointed out that Xi’s actions mark “the beginning of the end of China’s rise”. His wilful wrecking of China’s private enterprise (and destruction of Hong Kong) is makes this abundantly clear.

Moral: Great civilisations destroy themselves from within. What should you do when Xi is ruining his country like the Great Helmsman did two generations ago?

Ans. Get out of the way.
Jun 2, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The lamp of reason, according to Kautilya What Kautilya says here is that use pratyaksha (perception), anumana (inference) and sabda (authoritative testimony) to critically inquire what is good & bad policy, strong & weak knowledge system…and that constitutes the basis of all dharma.

And this around 2300 years ago.
May 31, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It’s amazing how scientists, *scientists*, in the journal Nature, *Nature*, are effectively saying “let’s avoid searching for the truth, because you know, politics.’ 🤦🏻‍♂️ I’m referring to this article
nature.com/articles/d4158…
May 11, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
All the debate about the price of the vaccine ignores the all-important point that it is the government’s first duty to protect people’s lives and health;
and that it is ethical and profitable for the government to pay whatever is necessary to vaccinate everyone. The government must spend whatever is necessary to ensure we get to 20 million vaccinations per day. This is an imperative. It is paisa wise, rupee foolish to get caught up in the pricing arrangements.

This is not like buying paperclips for govt offices!
May 10, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
In today’s @livemint I draw attention to “why” the Indian state’s response to the pandemic crisis has been inadequate.

livemint.com/opinion/online… After every crisis - 26/11, Nirbhaya, Covid - we are shocked & surprised at the inadequacy of the government’s response.

After every crisis we take a short-cut and pretend that the underlying issues are solved. We look for miracle weight-loss pills. We forget and we move on.
Jun 24, 2020 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
In the first of three essays for ⁦@Mint_Opinion⁩, I offer a realist reading of China, and argue that power is the only currency that will work in dealing with it. livemint.com/opinion/column… Periodic attempts to create a cooperative framework—“Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai", “Chindia", Wuhan Spirit—are doomed to fail because the Chinese believe that “one mountain cannot contain two tigers" and Indians refuse to accept a less-than-tiger status. livemint.com/opinion/column…
Jun 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
India is on the verge of letting the guard down on the pandemic.

Why @MoHFW_INDIA must set benchmarks for testing rates and aim to achieve a test positivity rate (TPR) below 1%; it should also set benchmarks to double hospital bed capacity.

Today's column: The Union government should set an initial benchmark of 2500 tests per million population per week across states, districts and municipalities, until a minimum of 2 per cent (20,000/million) of their respective populations has been tested. 2/4
Jun 22, 2020 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Do you really have “strategic autonomy” when you cannot pursue many policy options for fear of provoking China? If not, then what exactly do you mean by “preserving our strategic autonomy” by not allying with the United States?
Jun 21, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This map is from the CIA's 1963 study of the Sino-Indian border dispute.

Clearly shows China DID NOT claim Galwan Valley in 1962. Xi Jinping's regime is making new claims and passing it off as old ones.

Source: cia.gov/library/readin… (PDF) On the contrary, note that up to 1958 Indian troops were patrolling all the way across to the eastern edge of Aksai Chin, far into territory that China has since occupied.
May 24, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I have long argued that the key to the Himalayas lies in the oceans. The response to China’s provocation in Ladakh is an Indian naval expedition to the South China Sea. The ocean is the solution to the mountains. India should respond to Chinese moves in the Himalayas with counter-moves in the South China Sea and beyond. deccanchronicle.com/360-degree/090…
May 7, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Public attitudes towards alcohol consumption drive policy.

The worst basis for policy is to see alcohol consumption as a moral issue. This ties us in knots and is almost always counterproductive.

1/n Overconsumption of alcohol & alcohol addiction are public health & healthcare policy issues.

Policy goal: We need to deter alcoholism & treat people who are alcoholics.

2/n
Apr 18, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Saw a folksy opinion going around that we’re okay because the pandemic has caused both a supply and demand shock; and that we can live with a smaller GDP.

*You* might be okay with a smaller income; but a smaller income for hundreds of millions of people means poverty. If you live in a rich country, good for you.

For us in India, reviving economic growth is as much a matter of survival as controlling the pandemic.

And no, UBI is not a miracle solution, because we need economic growth to be able to begin to afford it.
Nov 26, 2019 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Some quotes from “Mortal Republic” by Edward J Watts in this thread.

“No republic is eternal. It lives only as long as its citizens want it. ”

1/n “When freedom leads to disorder and autocracy promises a functional and responsive government, even citizens of an established republic can become willing to set aside long-standing, principled objections to the rule of one man and embrace its practical benefits.”

2/n
Sep 24, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
We have 300 million people in our country who have no money. Our per capita income is $2000 per annum.

Economic growth for us is a moral imperative. It is unconscionable to forget this even for a moment. Let me translate that for you, an average Indian makes only around Rs 400 *per day*.

The minimum wage (McDonald’s) in Sweden is around Rs 1000 *per hour*