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Thursday, February 5, 2026
HomeOpinionIndian Liberals Matter

Indian Liberals Matter

Indian bureaucracy should be given incentives and rewards: MH Mody

Is there a place for a counter-bureaucracy, or a separate and competing bureaucracy to counterbalance the force of the executive’s bureaucracy, asked author MH Mody in 1980.

Demonetisation is a wild hit at the bull’s eye. It will not hurt the guilty: BP Adarkar

Demonetisation is no terror to politicians, officials and big businessmen who had enough notice to take necessary precautions. It'll catch dumb goats, not black sheep, Prof BP Adarkar said in 1973.

Henry George’s Single Tax offers a democratic alternative to communist remedies: DM Kulkarni

The immediate benefit of Single Tax would be to reduce the sale prices of land to nominal ones. Landowners would no longer find it profitable to keep idle lands, wrote DM Kulkarni in 1960.

A shame-faced modesty pervades 1991 reforms. This is strange and inappropriate: Ashok Desai

Liberty is not accepted in India as the ultimate goal of political systems. This is why, for instance, there is so much paranoia about foreign investments, wrote economist Ashok V Desai in 1995.

No constitutional provision deserves repeal more than the one imposing Hindi: P Kodanda Rao

The article to adopt Hindi as the official language of the Union was moved by . Gopalaswami Iyengar. The fact that he was from Madras has been exploited to assert that non-Hindi members welcomed Hindi, wrote P Kodanda Rao in 1988.

Free-enterprise features are reshaping Russia’s socialist institutions: AD Shroff

Just as the economic waste of centralised planning is being realised, the failure on the agricultural front is also making a dent on doctrinaire thinking in the Soviet Union, AD Shroff wrote in 1964.

India’s labour policy left it unable to compete with other eastern economies: Nani A Palkhivala

Liberty without accountability is the freedom of the fool. Our concept of freedom will remain impoverished until it is deepened by liberal education, wrote Nani A Palkhivala in 1995.

Capitalism is the bedrock of all economic progress. Socialism is a parasite: KD Valicha

Today is the anti-socialist era. Libertarianism is fighting; dedicated with all its power and love of liberty. It does not matter whether it wins in the political sphere, wrote KD Valicha in 1957.

Population causes poverty is the devil’s philosophy. It causes prosperity: Sauvik Chakraverti

Crowded cities are rich because there is greater division of labour. The extent of the division of labour depends on the size of the market, wrote Sauvik Chakraverti in 2002.

Nothing suits dictatorship more than a subservient judiciary: Justice HR Khanna

The totalitarian states indeed are never tired of claiming a legal basis for their action and are too eager to make use of conventional legal institutions to further their ends, said Justice HR Khanna in 1980.

On Camera

Does Bangladesh’s student-led NCP have a chance against 7-decade-old parties in the polls?

Nahid Islam—a youth leader and the face of the 2024 resistance movement—founded the NCP after a brief seven-month stint in the interim administration of Muhammad Yunus.

Don’t expect big shifts in inflation & growth trends after CPI & GDP base year reset—MoSPI secy Garg

New consumer basket, expanded markets & digital datasets aim to make inflation estimates more representative, says MoSPI Secretary Saurabh Garg. Henceforth, MoSPI aims to revise base yr every 5 yrs.

HAL out, Indian private firm to make Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft fighter, all eyes on lowest bidder

As per the timeline decided, 5 prototypes of India’s own fifth-generation fighter are set to be rolled out by 2031, with the first by 2028 using the GE 414 engine.

Swiss report should now close Op Sindoor debate. Knowing when to stop the fight is key too

The key to fighting a war successfully, or even launching it, is a clear objective. That’s an entirely political call. It isn’t emotional or purely military.