A Vision of the Twenty First Century Like that of most others, my vision of the country in the twenty-first century is also tempered by hopes of betterment in all aspects of living. Considering the progress Indian society has made so far, particularly in the period following Independence, such hopes are reasonable and certainly not unfounded. By believing in the dictum that ‘the future is merely an extension of the present’,...

Taxation Josephine, Emperor Napoleon’s wife, is reputed to have made the famous remark about the certainly of death and taxes. About two hundred years later, even in the age of tax havens and tax-free investment options, taxation is as relevant to society as it has ever been. In the tax havens of the present, though income and investments may not be taxed, the services these havens provide to the public are...

Inflation There may be many people even in the modern world who have never heard of inflation; but certainly not many among them have been able to keep clear of its influence. Economists see it or sense it in government policies and programmes and consider it with dispassionate neutrality. For them, inflation is yet another parameter of their hugely complex ‘situation models’, which they use to study the mechanics of money....

Trade vs Aid Trade, as one of the oldest and most enduring of occupations, plays a very important role in our everyday lives. It is also perhaps the most pervading of human activities, embracing in its fold, the work of an ordinary street vendor, who sells ice-cream or vegetables, and the activities of nations around the world, which exchange their goods and manufactures for the money and merchandise of others. The...

Banking Money — an ingenious creation of man-is helping him ease his dealings with his fellow men; but banking — a relatively newer concept-is revolutionising those dealings. As a practice, banking seems audacious enough even to overturn, in a way, the tenets of natural law, by delivering more than what it accepts, without any obvious effort. Just as wine matures and enriches itself with age, so money, stored in a bank,...

Liberalization of the Economy The term ‘liberalization’ is the buzzword that has been engaging political ideas and debates in India since the early 1990s. Though it has become very common usage, its connotations are, extremely complex, to the extent that they are often confusing and mutually contradictory. Put differently, liberalization means different things to different people. If some consider it a blessing or a welcome development, others think of it as...

The Use of Helmets In recent times, lively arguments, supporting and opposing helmet use in two-wheeler riding, have made it a popular issue for public debate. Those who support its use, consider the helmet an insurance against head injuries and possible death, whereas the others, while not disputing its ability to save lives, oppose its use on the basis of the unhealthy side-effects it creates. However, any debate on the merits...

The United Nations and World Peace The capability of modern warfare to destroy humanity is perhaps the most important cause for the creation of the United Nations Organization. Though wars have been quite common since the beginning of history, their potential for destruction was not as great as it is now. Peace, or at least a war-free world, has, therefore, become more a necessity than an aspiration. The United Nations, created...