Random Blog- Logic is Variable

From the Pakistani blog-

A phrase written on sand by a small boy who lost his parents in flood,"Dear River, I will never forgive you, I will never forgive you, even if your waves touch my feet million times."

Art of the Day- Pakistani Truck Art

Granta- featuring Pakistani issues

via Literary Blog- Isak

Photo of the Day

Source: 36 Hours in New York City

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The 31 Places to Go in 2010 - Sri Lanka tops the list

Elinor Ostrum in South Asia

In the south Asian context, the key contribution by Elinor Ostrom, along with other scholars (Shivakoti and Ostrom 2002) has been to provide effective empirical understanding of the performance of different types of irrigation institutional arrangements, along with a theoretical understanding of how these systems work. She demonstrated the importance of involving farmer-users in the design and management of irrigation systems for successful local resource management policies in Nepal. Work in Asia had amply demonstrated that large, centralised and essentially top-down government management systems tended to underperform, with lower rates of return on investment than systems where incentives to engineers were aligned to those of local farmer-users with their active participation (Wade 1982; Lam 1995; Ostrom 2002). Several Indian scholars have been inspired by Ostrom’s work to study issues of collective action and governance of common property resources, and to search for alternative frameworks for understanding how best to manage such resources which are often vital to the very existence of rural livelihoods in India. A large body of literature exists in India on the contributions of common property resources or CPRs as they are commonly labelled. The National Sample Survey too devoted a special round (54th round) to the de jure and de facto existence and contributions of CPRs in India, particularly in terms of their provisioning services such as fuel-wood, fodder and non-timber forest products from forests. Her work and that following hers in south Asia and elsewhere has found that institutions for collective action can emerge in rural societies characterised by inequality, prior history and poor implementation of centrally determined legal structures. Village society was often able to accept some amount of inequality, overlook prior history and agree on common norms of behaviour to solve the problems of the commons.


Several scholars from south Asia benefited from visiting the “Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis”, which Ostrom established in 1973, along with her husband Vincent, a political scientist at the Indiana University Bloomington. Over time, the Workshop has turned out to be an extraordinary forum for productive deliberations from evolving associations of students and professors thereby producing a wealth of theory, empirical studies and experiments at the interface of political economy, social anthropology, economics, political science, and policy studies thereby further enriching the interdisciplinary discourse of collective action. Quite a few of the research students of Ostrom have visited Indian institutes (Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) in Delhi, being one of the prominent ones) and have worked with Indian scholars, thereby resulting in further exchanges. Ostrom herself has visited academic institutions in India a few times, the most recent visit being at the IEG in October 2008, providing the researchers the intellectual space to discuss and debate design issues in moving from models of governance of local to global commons.

Source: EPW

Related:


Elinor Ostrom and the Future of Economics
Vincent and Elinor Ostrom and public ownership of natural resources

Podcast: Elinor Ostrom Checks In
A Case Study for Elinor Ostrom's 2009 Nobel Speech?

The Significance of Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel

Books vs Articles: The Flaying of Elinor Ostrom;

Her important book that was key to her prize, Governing the Commons, 1990, has been riduculed because presumably unlike an article in the AER, it did not go through a "peer review" process

Elinor Ostrom on the Market, the State, and the Third Sector

The Ostrom Nobel


An institutional economics prize
Ostrom and Williamson get the Riksbank

What this Nobel prize means
Rethinking Institutional Analysis: Interviews with Vincent and Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom and the well-governed commons

Elinor Ostrom - Nobel Laureate 2009
Ostrom on institutions: complex solutions can spontaneously emerge

Reality bites
Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson;

Congratulations go out to Elinor Ostrom, co-author of The Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (OUP, 2005) and Oliver Williamson, author of The Mechanisms of Governance (OUP, 1999), Organization Theory: From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond, 2nd Edition (OUP, 1995), and The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution, and Development (OUP, 1993).

See the world like Elinor Ostrom

To see the world more like Elinor Ostrom is to be guided less by ideology and more by the contours of the situation — to use the right institutional tool for the job. “[N]ational governments,” Ostrom tells us, “are too small to govern the global commons and too big to handle smaller scale problems.”

Skyhooks versus Cranes: The Nobel Prize for Elinor Ostrom;

To understand BOTH why we don’t need police officers in some cases AND why police officers don’t follow the rules in other cases, we have to expand models of human preferences to include a contingent taste for punishing others. In reaching this conclusion, she arrived at a point similar to that reached by Avner Greif (whom the Nobel committee correctly cites.)

Princeton’s Dixit Discusses Nobel for Ostrom, Williamson: Audio

Photo of the Day

Third-World Stove Soot Is Target in Climate Fight

The Brothers Karzai

The older brother of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Mahmoud Karzai has major interests in the country’s only cement factory, its dominant bank, its most ambitious real estate development, its only Toyota distributorship and four coal mines.

He and a business partner run Afghanistan’s national Chamber of Commerce — which has far more clout than its American counterpart — allowing him to broker deals and lure foreign investors. For executives with problems with the Afghan government, he is the man to see. One prominent Afghan critic describes him as a “minister maker” with sway in hiring and firing top officials.

An unabashed advocate for money-making in the country his brother runs, Mr. Karzai attributes his success to having big ambitions and taking on ventures that others saw as too risky. “I’m investing in projects that require real work,” he said in an interview. “I’m in love with the idea that Afghanistan can become a Singapore, a Hong Kong.”

Mr. Karzai, though, clearly has exploited his connections, both in Washington and Kabul, to build his business empire. He has collected millions in American government loans for real estate developments in Kandahar and Kabul, capitalized on a friendship with Jack Kemp, the former Republican congressman, for introductions to American officials and international business executives, and benefited from what his rivals charge were sweetheart deals with the Afghan government.

-Another Karzai Forges Afghan Business Empire

A unique way to catch Tuna

Catching tuna Maldivian style

Media Trust improves Health

Individuals with high levels of trust in the mass media tend to be healthier, according to a new study of people from 29 Asian countries....

People in Brunei reported the highest levels of health, while those in Turkmenistan had the lowest opinion of their own wellbeing. People in the Maldives reported the highest level of trust in mass media while Hong Kong residents were the most cynical.

-Trusting media may boost health

What it takes for a girl to go to school in Afghanistan

One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question.

“Are you going to school?”

Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read...

“My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed,” said Shamsia, 17, in a moment after class. Shamsia’s mother, like nearly all of the adult women in the area, is unable to read or write. “The people who did this to me don’t want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things.”

-Afghan Schoolgirls Undeterred by Attack

Job description for a Goddess

Despite being revered as a powerful Hindu divinity, the Himalayan state's Royal Kumari has no option but to step down once she reaches puberty. Because Preeti Shakya, the current holder of the centuries-old role, has reached her 11th birthday, the race is on to find a replacement before the end of the summer...

The job criteria are rigorous: Kumaris, who are typically selected as toddlers, must have a voice “as soft and clear as a duck's”, “the body of a Banyan tree” and “the chest of a lion”. The 32 prerequisite physical “perfections” also include flawless skin, hair, eyes and teeth. A suitable horoscope is mandatory and being afraid of the dark is not allowed.

-Nepal seeks new child goddess

Photo of the Day

via Flickr

Army of Sucide Bombers?

C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants

Yes Afghanistan is a Narco-State

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime was arriving at the same conclusion. Later that year, they issued a report linking the drug trade to the insurgency and made a controversial statement: “Opium cultivation in Afghanistan is no longer associated with poverty — quite the opposite.” The office convincingly demonstrated that poor farmers were abandoning the crop and that poppy growth was largely confined to some of the wealthiest parts of Afghanistan. The report recommended that eradication efforts be pursued “more honestly and more vigorously,” along with stronger anticorruption measures. Earlier this year, the U.N. published an even more detailed paper titled “Is Poverty Driving the Afghan Opium Boom?” It rejected the idea that farmers would starve without the poppy, concluding that “poverty does not appear to have been the main driving factor in the expansion of opium poppy cultivation in recent years.”

The U.N. reports shattered the myth that poppies are grown by destitute farmers who have no other source of income. They demonstrated that approximately 80 percent of the land under poppy cultivation in the south had been planted with it only in the last two years. It was not a matter of “tradition,” and these farmers did not need an alternative livelihood. They had abandoned their previous livelihoods — mainly vegetables, cotton and wheat (which was in severely short supply) — to take advantage of the security vacuum to grow a more profitable crop: opium....

That is where we are today. The solution remains a simple one: execute the policy developed in 2007. It requires the following steps:

1. Inform President Karzai that he must stop protecting drug lords and narco-farmers or he will lose U.S. support. Karzai should issue a new decree of zero tolerance for poppy cultivation during the coming growing season. He should order farmers to plant wheat, and guarantee today’s high wheat prices. Karzai must simultaneously authorize aggressive force-protected manual and aerial eradication of poppies in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces for those farmers who do not plant legal crops.

2. Order the Pentagon to support this strategy. Position allied and Afghan troops in places that create security pockets so that Afghan counternarcotics police can arrest powerful drug lords. Enable force-protected eradication with the Afghan-set goal of eradicating 50,000 hectares as the benchmark.

3. Increase the number of D.E.A. agents in Kabul and assist the Afghan attorney general in prosecuting key traffickers and corrupt government officials from all ethnic groups, including southern Pashtuns.

4. Get new development projects quickly to the provinces that become poppy-free or stay poppy free. The north should see significant rewards for its successful anticultivation efforts. Do not, however, provide cash to farmers for eradication.

5. Ask the allies either to help in this effort or stand down and let us do the job.

-Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?

Assorted Asia News Links

Asia Foundation Blog

ADBI E-Newsline

The New Asian Hemisphere?

No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat

-Deng Xiaoping

After leading the world toward a period of spectacular economic growth in the second half of the twentieth century by promoting global free trade, the West has recently been faltering in its global economic leadership. Believing that low trade barriers and increasing trade interdependence would result in higher standards of living for all, European and U.S. economists and policymakers pushed for global economic liberalization. As a result, global trade grew from seven percent of the world's GDP in 1940 to 30 percent in 2005.

But a seismic shift has taken place in Western attitudes since the end of the Cold War. Suddenly, the United States and Europe no longer have a vested interest in the success of the East Asian economies, which they see less as allies and more as competitors. That change in Western interests was reflected in the fact that the West provided little real help to East Asia during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. The entry of China into the global marketplace, especially after its admission to the World Trade Organization, has made a huge difference in both economic and psychological terms. Many Europeans have lost confidence in their ability to compete with the Asians. And many Americans have lost confidence in the virtues of competition.

There are some knotty issues that need to be resolved in the current global trade talks, but fundamentally the negotiations are stalled because the conviction of the Western "champions" of free trade that free trade is good has begun to waver. When Americans and Europeans start to perceive themselves as losers in international trade, they also lose their drive to push for further trade liberalization. Unfortunately, on this front at least, neither China nor India (nor Brazil nor South Africa nor any other major developing country) is ready to take over the West's mantle. China, for example, is afraid that any effort to seek leadership in this area will stoke U.S. fears that it is striving for global hegemony. Hence, China is lying low. So, too, are the United States and Europe. Hence, the trade talks are stalled. The end of the West's promotion of global trade liberalization could well mean the end of the most spectacular economic growth the world has ever seen. Few in the West seem to be reflecting on the consequences of walking away from one of the West's most successful policies, which is what it will be doing if it allows the Doha Round to fail.

At the same time that the Western governments are relinquishing their stewardship of the global economy, they are also failing to take the lead on battling global warming. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, a longtime environmentalist, and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms there is international consensus that global warning is a real threat. The most assertive advocates for tackling this problem come from the U.S. and European scientific communities, but the greatest resistance to any effective action is coming from the U.S. government. This has left the rest of the world confused and puzzled. Most people believe that the greenhouse effect is caused mostly by the flow of current emissions. Current emissions do aggravate the problem, but the fundamental cause is the stock of emissions that has accumulated since the Industrial Revolution. Finding a just and equitable solution to the problem of greenhouse gas emissions must begin with assigning responsibility both for the current flow and for the stock of greenhouse gases already accumulated. And on both counts the Western nations should bear a greater burden.

When it comes to addressing any problem pertaining to the global commons, such as the environment, it seems only fair that the wealthier members of the international community should shoulder more responsibility. This is a natural principle of justice. It is also fair in this particular case given the developed countries' primary role in releasing harmful gases into the atmosphere. R. K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argued last year, "China and India are certainly increasing their share, but they are not increasing their per capita emissions anywhere close to the levels that you have in the developed world." Since 1850, China has contributed less than 8 percent of the world's total emissions of carbon dioxide, whereas the United States is responsible for 29 percent and western Europe is responsible for 27 percent. Today, India's per capita greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to only 4 percent of those of the United States and 12 percent of those of the European Union. Still, the Western governments are not clearly acknowledging their responsibilities and are allowing many of their citizens to believe that China and India are the fundamental obstacles to any solution to global warming.

Washington might become more responsible on this front if a Democratic president replaces Bush in 2009. But people in the West will have to make some real concessions if they are to reduce significantly their per capita share of global emissions. A cap-and-trade program may do the trick. Western countries will probably have to make economic sacrifices. One option might be, as the journalist Thomas Friedman has suggested, to impose a dollar-per-gallon tax on Americans' gasoline consumption. Gore has proposed a carbon tax. So far, however, few U.S. politicians have dared to make such suggestions publicly.

-The Case Against the West by Kishore Mahbubani

The U.S. system may be too lax when it comes to rigor and memorization, but it is very good at developing the critical faculties of the mind. It is surely this quality that goes some way in explaining why the United States produces so many entrepreneurs, inventors, and risk takers. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, until recently Singapore's minister of education, explains the difference between his country's system and that of the United States: "We both have meritocracies," Shanmugaratnam says. "Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. We know how to train people to take exams. You know how to use people's talents to the fullest. Both are important, but there are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well -- like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority." This is one reason that Singaporean officials recently visited U.S. schools to learn how to create a system that nurtures and rewards ingenuity, quick thinking, and problem solving. "Just by watching, you can see students are more engaged, instead of being spoon-fed all day," one Singaporean visitor told The Washington Post. While the United States marvels at Asia's test-taking skills, Asian governments come to the United States to figure out how to get their children to think.

-Fareed Zakaria

They call it the Industrial Revolution because for first time in all of human history standard of living rose at a rate where they were noticeable changes in standards of living in a human life span- changes of perhaps 50 percent. At current growth rates in Asia standards of living may rise 100 fold, 10,000 percent within a human life span. The rise of Asia and all that follows it will be the dominant story in history books written 300 years from now with the Cold War and rise of Islam as secondary stories.

-Larry Summers

Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke

Jeff Greenwald

Book recommendation- The Size of the World

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Thirteen Tips for the Accidental Ambassador

Tamil Tigers, Africa, etc

Latest from Foreign Exchange show

IMF on Pakistan budget reforms

Update on Pakistan: Report on Observance of Standards and Codes - Fiscal Transparency Module;

An MTBF process has been initiated, but crucial elements of budget integration and policy transparency have still to be put in place. The development of an MTBF was initiated in 2003, and an MTBF process involving detailed activity costing and identification of ministry objectives and output indicators applied progressively from FY 2005–06.8 In phase one of the MTBF implementation, emphasis was given to establishing better costing and budget preparation techniques in the line ministries. From December 2006, however, the strategy has been changed to give primary emphasis to top-down budget control—while continuing to build up management capacity in the line ministries. The current and development budgets continue to be prepared and presented in the budget document as separate elements. Three separate call circulars are sent to ministries (for current, development, and MTBF budgets). Costs of policy objectives are shown, but further work is needed to link output indicators and budget allocations. The technical and policy basis of out-year estimates are not yet sufficiently clear in the budget documents and, in practice, out-years are resubmitted rather than being rolled over as the base data for the following year’s budget...

A program classification, based on subdetail functions, covering all ministries should be developed as part of the full MTBF rollout. The MTBF implementation is following an ambitious rollout plan. A unified classification derived from the existing COA will build on the present system and support the top-down allocation process. FAD staff suggest that the present budget classification permits evolution to a more focused program approach which will help to address a number of critical long-term change issues. Operational “programs” so defined would incorporate both development and recurrent budgets relevant to that function element. Starting from an across-the-board classification within the existing chart of accounts would contribute to several important transparency and management objectives. It would help to:

- Unify the development and recurrent budget processes—“new proposal submissions” for programs should be evaluated in a similar way to development projects, but cover both capital and recurrent spending;
- Eliminate crossover problems when the development phase of a project is complete and recurrent costs are transferred to the revenue budget;
- Provide a framework that applies to all ministries, allowing a more phased approach to establishment of effective budget management by line ministries;
- Provide a framework that applies to all levels of government, helping to coordinate cross-government programs, particularly those included in the PRSP24; and
- Set a basis for redefinition and harmonization of the roles of the Planning and Development Division (PDD)25 and the Budget Wing of the MOF.

31. Actual outcomes as well as forward estimates should be included in the MTBF presentation. Given the expected improvement in availability of data, it should be possible in the near future to meet the fiscal transparency code requirement that the budget and MTBF estimates should (in addition to the MTBF out-years) show actual outcomes for two years previous and provisional data for one year previous to the budget year. Allied to this, the budget documents should include summary tables showing original budget versus actual outcomes over several years.
32. The methodology for preparing MTBF out-year estimates should be clearly specified. Clear technical specifications for calculation of out-years will both improve the efficiency of budget preparation and improve transparency and accountability of the budget. Specification of technical parameters (such as price) and policy for the estimates will permit an analysis of factors causing changes in the estimates in the following year— most importantly, separating price changes from introduction of new policies. In turn, this will limit the need for data entry to establish baseline ceilings for following years’ budgets, since the first out-year can be automatically entered as data for the next budget year in the roll-over process.

See also Bill Dorotinsky's comments to my comments.

What's your favorite national anthem?

Indian national anthem via Sepia Mutiny.

Related;

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is reported to have said in 1947: "In due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims - not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state.

Assorted on World Food Prices and its consequences

Robert Zoellick said that in Bangladesh, staples such as rice can cost almost half of a poor family's daily income.

Prices of bread, rice, maize products, milk, oil, soybeans and others basic foods have increased sharply in recent months in a number of developing countries, despite policy measures -- including export restrictions, subsidies, tariff reductions and price controls -- taken by governments of both cereal importing and exporting countries to limit the impact of international prices on domestic food markets.

Food riots have been reported in Egypt, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Haiti in the past month. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to avoid seizing of food from the fields and from warehouses.

“Food price inflation hits the poor hardest, as the share of food in their total expenditures is much higher than that of wealthier populations,” said Henri Josserand of FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning system. “Food represents about 10-20 percent of consumer spending in industrialized nations, but as much as 60-80 percent in developing countries, many of which are net-food-importers.

Highly recommended interview with David Dawe, economist at FAO