Last weekend, we had an online academic conference at Takshashila. Rohit Lamba, who co-authored Breaking the Mould with Raghuram Rajan, gave a keynote address. Contrary to popular belief, Rahul, citing the competitiveness of current manufacturing hubs like China and Korea, argued there is nothing left for India to tap into the manufacturing sector. One way forward, he suggested, is for India to focus on high-end value addition services like designing, etc. He justified this by saying that Apple, a firm focused on phone design, has a $3 trillion valuation, and Foxconn, which does manufacturing, has a $500 Billion valuation.
On Geopolitics, we had former NSA Shivshankar Menon as the keynote speaker. When asked about increasing Chinese presence in the South Asia region, Menon replied South Asian countries would love to extract from one country by pointing to the other. He says that’s a fair game in International Relations. Menon advised not to undermine the agency of small countries and, most importantly, not tell them that what they are doing is wrong. He says it is akin to calling one stupid. Far from persuading, you might end up alienating him.
At Samvidhan bot, we discussed the second part of The Grammar of Anarchy. Ambedkar says the idea of liberty, equality and fraternity should be looked at in trinity. The fascinating thing is Ambedkar is ready to trade liberty for fraternity. An example might be restrictions on freedom of speech and expression to ensure communal harmony.
The government announcement of Bharath Ratna dominated the news columns this week. I wrote here why P.V. Narasimha Rao deserves a Bharath Ratna.