Real Heros: Inspiring A 'Chain Of Organ Donations' In India

By Samuel David / Dubai

Father Davis Chiramel set off a chain of kidney donations in his native Kerala by donating one of his kidneys to a total stranger. Now with his Kidney Federation of India supporting and facilitating kidney donations, he hopes the ‘sale’ of kidneys can be stopped.

Forty-three-year-old Gopinathan Chakkamadathil had given up hope. The electrician from Vadanappally in Thrissur district, Kerala, suffered from renal failure and was watching life ebb away.

The Congress Faces A Crisis Of Faith In The Western Ghats

By Ramesh Menon | Trivandrum

With the church spearheading the agitation against the Centre’s decision to ‘save’ the high ranges, the party has much to lose in the Lok Sabha election.

In Kerala, the Catholic Church has always been a staunch ally of the Congress- led United Democratic Front. But the unfolding battle over preserving the Western Ghats has put the church and the party on a collision course.

Treasure Worth 2 Lakh Crore Found Below Tihar Jail!

By Pagal Patrkaar / Delhi

Even as the nation was still to recover from the shock and amusement at the discovery of prized treasure from the underground vaults of a temple in Kerala, a new treasure trove is believed to have been found beneath the cells of Tihar jail.

Primary excavations since last night have already thrown up valuables worth rupees 2 lakh crores, more than double the worth of antiquities estimated to have been found at the ancient Shri Padmnabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram.

“Cash, contracts, licenses, share certificates, and precious commodities like gold, gems, petrol, and onions have been found beneath various cells,” Subramanian Swamy, a senior member of the excavation team spearheading the digging efforts informed.

After Gujarat, Now In Kerala, VHP 'Converts' Christians

A report about 35 people getting converted to Hinduism would be probed by a senior police official, Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said. The conversion reportedly took place in Alappuzha and Kollam districts.

In Alappuzha, members of eight Christian families - a total of 30 people - reportedly embraced Hinduism at a temple function organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). In Kollam, there were five people who reportedly became Hindus.

Focus: Property Hungry NRIs Smile As Rupee Steeply Falls

By Rahul Khanna / INN Bureau

The rupee’s fall may have spelled trouble for many segments but non resident Indians (NRIs) are having a ball. Not only are they sending more money home, they are also investing in property, clearly reflected in the loan books of banks and finance companies. 
    
Nearly 15% of mortgage major HDFC’s book (loan outstanding) comprises loans to NRIs (non resident Indians). “The growth in loans to NRIs has been in line with our overall growth. The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) contributes the largest share within the segment,” Renu Sud Karnad, managing director, HDFC said. The mortgage lender anticipates 14% growth in its NRI loan segment this fiscal, which is in tandem with its overall growth projections. 

Brand 'Narendra Modi' & BJP Is Superhit in Kerala State

By Sukanya George | Kottayam

The lotus is yet to bloom in Kerala, but with the Lok Sabha polls ensuing, Brand NaMo is surely making inroads into the Malayali psyche. The t-shirt depicting BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi, launched by Government Chief Whip P C George at the ‘Run for Unity’ event in Kottayam thereby landing him in a political soup, has run out of stock. 

The overwhelming response to brand NaMo has now prompted the young entrepreneurs behind the initiative to come up with NaMo coffee mug, wrist watch and kurthas. Manu K M, along with his friend Renjith Raj from Kottayam, who started merchandising the NaMo t-shirt in the state and convinced George to launch their initiative is now thanking lady luck. ‘’We launched the tshirts in Kerala on December 15 and in just two weeks we had sold more than 2500 pieces. 

Ever Wondered How Much MLAs In South India Earn?

MLAs in Telangana are a grumpy lot, now. They want a hike in salaries, in fact they are all set to get a hike, but the government is holding back the announcement, just so that they are not accused of amassing wealth at a time when farmers suicides are increasing in state.

In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, MLAs earn Rs 1,20,000 each month, this including constituency allowances, an allowance to travel within the constituency. Telangana now wants to increase the total salary to Rs 2,00,000.

New Style: 'No Hair Splitting With This Politician In Kerala'

By Kareem Kutty / Kozikode

Kerala CPI state secretary Pannian Raveendran maintains his mane for political gain. If you discount film actors and popular artistes, then the most famous hair in Kerala belongs to Pannian Raveendran. This is something of an anomaly because Pannian is a politician.

A former Member of Parliament and current state secretary of the Communist Party of India, Pannian’s long flowing hair goes all the way past his shoulders.

This Is The End Of The Road For Tharoor's Political Career?

By M H Ahssan | INN Live

WEEKEND ANALYSIS The cause of 52-year-old Sunanda Pushkar's "sudden and unnatural" death will come to light much later according to doctors who did the autopsy. But the fate of her 57-year-old husband Shashi Tharoor's five-year-old political career now looks highly uncertain. It dangles precariously on the brink. The doctors who did the autopsy have already dropped hints which could prove fatal to Tharoor's political career. They ruled out any natural cause for Pushkar's death, including any terminal illness, contrary to what was made out by those close to Tharoor.

EDITORIAL: PRIMETIME POLITICS

The medium is the political message

In the good old days when the Congress virtually ruled both the national political stage and the national television screen, there would have been really no need for an institution like Jai Hind TV, which the Congress president has just dedicated to the citizens of Kerala. Doordarshan would then have done the job of projecting Congress news, views and values to the farthest reaches of the land. Alas, no longer.

Even tiny Kerala has a dozen private television stations. Therefore the state must find space for the 13th. One that the Kerala unit Congress president, Ramesh Chennithala, characterises as “independent” but which nevertheless is permitted to be partial to the party. As they say, independent is as independent does.So Kerala is now all set to follow Tamil Nadu in the joys of political television or televised politics, as the case may be. It now has two private channels to project its two dominant parties: Kairali TV for the Left Front and Jai Hind TV for the Congress Front, each with its own committed film superstars — Mammooty emotes for the former, Mohanlal for the latter. But Tamil Nadu is still a hard act to follow. Once it had just Jaya TV and Sun TV.

This made the PMK feel somewhat lonely, so Makkal TV came about. Still later the political sun set on Sun TV and Tamil Nadu’s ruling family is now set to rise on yet another television channel, named aptly enough as Kalaignar TV. Imagine if this trend were to cross the Vindhyas, and we get Lalu TV taking on Nitish TV or Uma Bharati TV taking on Shivraj Singh Chauhan TV, or Balasaheb Thackeray TV beaming down on Deshmukh TV? We should really have no problems with all of this. Let a hundred television channels blare forth if they will. But spare a thought for the poor voter left with sore eyes and addled brains.Going back to Jai Hind TV, wouldn’t it have been more apt to have named it Jai Congress TV instead?

Insight: 'Earning Makes A Living, Giving Makes A Life'

By Radhika Menon / Dubai

‘If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way’ — This quote from Napoleon Hill motivates Lakshmi to carry on with her social commitment. Lakshmi Menon is a religious person who does not rely on her ability but only on her availability. She is a happy-go-lucky individual who takes pleasure in the simplicities of life. “I can eat with my hands, walk on my feet, see with my eyes, listen with my ears and can communicate. I realise the value of these blessingswhen I see many challenged souls in the world struggling in life,” says this compassionate soul.

Special Report: 'Malnutrition Deaths', Common Life In India

By Ramesh Menon / INN Bureau

Social indices topper Kerala just can’t stop the baby deaths in its malnutrition-hit tribal Attapady belt. Under the thick canopy of a peepal tree, beside the road that winds to Pallur Ooru in Attapady in the Western Ghats, is a small tribal burial ground. There are no tombstones to mark the graves and on closer look one sees tiny mounds where the mud has been disturbed. In a quiet corner, a man digs a grave with a pickaxe. It seems the tribal funeral ceremony has been given a miss.

Why The State Of India’s Primary Education Is Shocking?

Do you expect a steady migration of students from government to private schools and a rapid fall in quality of education in a country where education is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right?

Then, that is the story of rural India, where 70 percent of the country’s population live. Its present and future generations are in a royal mess: poor families are spending a lot of hard-to-find cash to get half-baked education for their children.

Even as the government undertakes to educate all its children under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, private schools are mushrooming in rural India and attract 10 % more students every year, compared to the previous year.

It is such a tragedy that by next year, when UPA seeks fresh mandate for all its welfare schemes, 41 percent of the primary school children will be paying for their education and there is no guarantee that what they learn is of any quality or consequence.

At this rate, sooner than later, India’s education sector will resemble its crumbling public health system in which three-fourth of the people pay for their health expenditure.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2012) for rural India, released a few days ago by PRATHAM, an NGO, exposes the shocking mess that our school education is in. With longitudinal data from 2008, the report shows how the country is falling into dangerous lows both in terms of quality and the invasion of the private sector.

Let’s look at some key facts of the ASER.

First, on the quality of education:
In 2008, only about 50 percent of Standard 3 students could read a Standard 1 text, but by 2012, it declined to 30 percent – a fall of 16 percent. About 50 percent of the Std 3 kids cannot even correctly recognise digits up to 100, where as they are supposed to learn two digit subtraction. In 2008, about 70 percent of the kids could do this.

Not only that the country is unable to improve the learning skills of half its primary school children, in the last four years, it has fallen to alarming lows. Similar deterioration in standards of education was also noted among Std 5 students.

Importantly, the report notes that the decline is cumulative, which means that the “learning decline” gets accumulated because of neglect over the years. The poor quality of education from Std 1 pulls down their rate of learning progressively so that by the time they are in Std 5, their level of learning is not even comparable to that of Std 2.

The private schools are “relatively unaffected” but their low standards remain low. They have also shown a “downturn” in maths beyond number recognition.

The poor quality of education and rate of decline are however not uniform across India. Some states are low in quality, but are staying where they are (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh) while some have higher levels of education, which are neither improving nor deteriorating (Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab).

It also says that the decline is more noticeable since 2010, when the RTE came into effect, indicating targets of blanket coverage compromising quality and standards.

Second, on privatisation:
The report notes that the private sector is making huge inroads into education in rural India. By 2019, when the RTE would have done a decade, it will be the majority service provider. The private sector involvement will also be strengthened by 25 percent quota of the government (under the RTE Act).

Quoting DISE (District Information System of Education) data, it says that Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Goa have more than 60% of private enrollment in primary schools. Andhra, Maharashtra and Karnataka are at 40 percent, while UP is at 50%. Ironically, the highest private sector enrollment is in Kerala, where successive governments claim commitment to welfare policies, particularly on education and health.

Besides private schools, parents also spend considerable amount of money on private tuitions, making quality education more inaccessible to people without money.

What do these findings tell us?
That the country is in a serious crisis – its quality of school education is startlingly low and is in free fall, while the private sector is exploiting this weakness even in rural India. Although the study doesn’t throw considerable light on the reasons of the decline and possible corrective steps, it does indicate a correlation between the acceleration of the deterioration and the implementation of the RTE Act.

If the correlation is correct, it is clear yet again that a populist and insincere political instrument does more harm than good. When the Act was passed, there were misgivings by many – particularly on the haste, lack of appropriate consultation with all stakeholders and also on the logic of applying a uniform principle across states with huge disparity in coverage and quality of education. In some states such as Kerala, Himachal and Punjab it was evidently superfluous.

Even after two years, it’s still not clear, how the finances are met and if the states are committed at all. The estimates in 2010 for the implementation of RTE was pegged at about Rs 210,000 crores with centre shouldering 68 percent of the burden.

Whether the RTE is being implemented or not, it’s abundantly clear that it is certainly not working. “There has been a feeling that RTE may have led to relaxation of classroom teaching since all exams and assessments are scrapped and no child is to be kept back. Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation(CCE) is now a part of the law and several states are attempting to implement some form of CCE as they understand it,” says the report.

“Does CCE catch this decline? Are teachers equipped to take corrective action as the law prescribes? Is corrective action going to be taken? Given the magnitude of the problem, it will be a good idea to focus just on basics at every standard and not treat it as a “remedial” measure. At this stage, teaching-learning of basic foundational skills should be the main agenda for primary education in India.”

As the report notes there is a national crisis in learning. The quality of education and performance of the students in both government and private schools have to improve and the government has to check the invasion of the sector by private capital.

Higher education has long since been sold out and today it is only the preserve of those with money. With or our without RTE, even the primary school education is moving in the same direction.

If markets are to run the country, why do we need governments?

Why The State Of India’s Primary Education Is Shocking?

By Dr. Shelly Ahmed (Guest Writer)

Do you expect a steady migration of students from government to private schools and a rapid fall in quality of education in a country where education is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right? Then, that is the story of rural India, where 70 percent of the country’s population live. Its present and future generations are in a royal mess: poor families are spending a lot of hard-to-find cash to get half-baked education for their children.

LANKA PULLS OFF JACKFRUIT FROM INDIA

By M H Ahssan

Jackfruit curry has always been hugely popular in Sri Lanka. But now it is more popular than it has ever been because of a ‘minimal processing' revolution that has swept the island.

“Earlier, most homes would make jackfruit curry only during weekends. Thanks to minimal processing, now we make it twice or thrice a week,” says Dr Subha Heenkenda, a senior officer in the department of agriculture in Sri Lanka.

Minimal processing makes jackfruit ready to cook. The result is that consumption has shot up to five tonnes of tender jackfruit and 10 tonnes of the unripe variety in a day.

Sri Lanka now has more than 200 minimal processing units offering ready-to-cook polos (tender jackfruit) and kos (mature jackfruit).

Polos curry, of course, is like a signature recipe of Sri Lanka. It is available in most of the hotels and restaurants. In tinned form, it is exported to many countries.

Many people here in India still don't know that jackfruit is a versatile vegetable too. As a vegetable, it has four stages – tender, slightly grown, mature unripe and ripe. Sri Lanka has a tradition of using it not only as a vegetable, but as staple, in place of rice. The Sinhala name for the jackfruit tree – Baat Gasa – means ‘tree of rice'.

Sri Lanka stands first in the world in consuming jackfruit as a vegetable. According to Dr Heenkenda, the country consumes about 25 to 30 per cent of its tender jackfruits as vegetable. This is a very positive step towards local food security. Probably no other country in the world matches this.

Minimal processing involves light preparatory operations like washing, trimming, peeling, slicing or chopping. The jackfruit becomes more consumer friendly, but remains close to its natural form.

The main problem with jackfruit is that it is big and difficult to consume in its entirety. It is also difficult to cut and separate the edible portion.

Ready-to-cook jackfruit always used to sell on the roadside in Sri Lanka. But eight years ago, the agriculture department saw an opportunity in making the ready to cook variety available on a large scale through organized minimal processing.

Recalls senior research officer, Senarath Ekanayake, “We saw fresh cut vegetables getting popular in US markets. Then we thought, why can't we make jackfruit also available in ready form.”

The food research unit started a series of training programmes. But initially this didn't make much impact. It used radio and articles in newspapers and magazines to popularize the idea. “We did on-the-spot demonstrations at exhibitions too,” recalls Ekanayake.

But as with any other new technologies, it required catching hold of a few interested people and ‘hand-holding' them for some time. It didn't take long for Sri Lankans to realize the employment and income generation potential of this simple process. Seeing the success of the pioneers, many others joined in.

Today, points out Dr Sarananda Hewage, head of the food research unit: “Kandy has 13 units doing minimal processing with jackfruit. There are 30 in Colombo.”

With Colombo and Kandy leading the way, minimal processing has spread to other towns and urban centres. It has made it possible to earn more from jackfruit.

On roadsides, a 250 gm pack of tender jackfruit packet will be priced around 30 to 40 Sri Lankan Rupees. In super markets and shops, the price is slightly higher.

Small household enterprises abound, which is good but also a problem if standards of hygiene are not maintained

The investment is very small. “They require a few buckets, two good stainless-steel knives and a small sealing machine,” points out Ekanayake. Most of them are units run by families.

Interestingly, half of these entrepreneurs are farmers themselves. Previously they weren't getting mentionworthy returns for their jackfruit. Now, with minimal processing, they are making in a day what they did during a season.

Lesson for India: “A machine can be used for cutting jackfruit to make the task easier,” says Dr Christin P. Robert, programme coordinator of CARD Krishi Vijnan Kendra, Pathnamthitta, Kerala. “The Sri Lankan model of minimal processing has tremendous scope for us in India. Take the case of a producer state like our Kerala. Though we have ample jackfruit production, we have considerable number of towns, cities and office-going women. People like jackfruit but don't always have the time to cut and cook it.”

From Kerala, a huge quantity of tender jackfruit is sent to the northern Indian states. In jack season, every day, trucks carry about 400 tonnes of tender jack go from Kerala to north India. In states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, it is cut and sold in vegetable shops for Rs 30 a kilo.

Sri Lanka's success has great lessons for India. So far our efforts to provide jackfruit – both as a vegetable and a table fruit – in a consumer friendly form are next to nothing. Agriculture universities and research stations would do well to make minimal processing a priority.

Special: Was It The Spice Route? Or, The Spice Web?

It was a network, yes. And, the story of the movement of more than spices. Here’s looking at the yesterday and today of a few ports that made this magical migration of taste possible.

It is a hot Sunday afternoon. Parangipettai, the white town, less than an hour's drive from Cuddalore, is deserted. The Dutch stayed here till the 18th century. The Portuguese called it Porto Novo, the new port; it was the first colonial outpost on the Coromandel coast. Barely a blip on the map now, its only brush with history was the battle that Haider Ali fought with the British.

Solar: The Technology Beyond Political Tangle

By Kushal Verma (Guest Writer)

The word ‘solar’ has taken on a lot of new meanings and implications in recent times, especially in Kerala. But in most other parts of the world, it is still more popular as an economical, viable and non-polluting alternative to traditional sources of energy. Let me explore a bit into the latter, lest the scientific aspects of it should be drowned in the political swamp.

Why Congress Made Shiela Dikshit As Kerala Governor?

By Sanjay Singh | Delhi

ANALYSIS On the eve of the Election Commission’s announcement of poll schedules for the Lok Sabha elections, the Manmohan Singh government hurriedly took its last major executive decision, appointing Sheila Dikshit as Kerala Governor. 

The serving governor Nikhil Kumar has resigned and is expected to contest as the Congress candidate from the Aurangabad parliamentary seat in Bihar. But the issue and its implications are not simply limited to the political reactivation of Kumar and the rehabilitation of Dikshit. The timing of Sheila’s appointment, hours ahead of the model code of conduct coming into force, is bound to be controversial.

Rabies Is Just One Reason Why Stray Dogs Are A Snarling Menace In India

By SOWMYA RAJ | INNLIVE

Last week, six-year-old Ramya was mauled badly by a pack of stray dogs in a suburb in Bengaluru. She was badly injured and is recovering in a hospital.

This was a few days after the TCS World 10K marathon in the city that was marred when the lead Ethiopian runner, Mulle Wasihun was bitten by a stray dog.

There have been several such incidents in the city, where stray dogs have attacked children and adults, morning walkers, two-wheeler riders and pedestrians.

Another Critique Of Modi Growth Model Goes Nowhere

An important project for intellectuals in India these days is debunking the Gujarat growth story. Since many “secularists” dislike Narendra Modi, it has become important to deny him what he claims as one of his achievements: the state’s fast-paced growth.

While it is nobody’s case that every achievement of Gujarat should be attributed to Modi’s leadership or even his tenure, the efforts by many to punch holes in his story are sometimes pathetic. You don’t improve your case against what Modi may have done wrong in 2002 by rubbishing what he may have done right at other times.

More often than not, the holes punched in the Gujarat story are bizarre because they are forced. They are also illogical: if Gujarat’s growth is not the result of Modi’s work, which is what his critics want to claim, you can’t in all fairness attribute all of Gujarat’s failures to Modi either. The argument cuts both ways.

Another debunking of the “Modi miracle” has been attempted by Arvind Subramanian in Business Standard. He says the Modi model fails on a key governance standard: the metric of the state’s own tax revenues (OTR) as a share of state GDP.

Quoting research by Utsav Kumar of the Asian Development Bank, the author says that Modi’s Gujarat does not pass the “smell test” of high or stable OTR-to-state GDP. While traditionally well-governed states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have maintained stable or rising OTR-to-GDP ratios, the average figure for Gujarat has declined, from 7.84 percent to 6.65 percent of GDP between 1990-99 and 2006-11.

The drop is large, but predates Modi. During Modi’s tenure, the drop has been from 6.93 percent to 6.65 percent.  If anything, he may have arrested the rate of fall in the second half of his tenure.

In contrast, the comparative figures for Karnataka (8.98 percent to 9.57 percent), Tamil Nadu (8.93 percent to 8.54 percent), and Andhra Pradesh (6.78 percent to 7.73 percent) were either stable or better over the two decades.

While Karnataka and Andhra show a rise, Tamil Nadu was stable in the 1990s, but reported a drop that was more or less similar to Gujarat’s during the last decade (8.8 percent to 8.54 percent – a drop of 0.26 percent from 2000-2005 to 2006-11 against Gujarat’s 0.28 percent).

Subramanian also notes that states which have recently been mentioned in the same breath as Gujarat on growth and improved governance – Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh – have managed to improve significantly on this ratio. Bihar’s figures are 4.30 percent and 4.61 percent (hardly earth-shattering); Chhattisgarh’s 7.32 percent is excellent (the earlier figures were not available); and Odisha’s improvement significant (4.65 percent and 5.63 percent).

What ties these three states’ OTR performance together is political stability.

That’s the answer to Subramanian when he asks: “In the tax collection data, why can one see a Raman Singh effect, a Nitish Kumar effect, a Naveen Patnaik effect, but not a Narendra Modi effect?”

Gujarat, on the other hand, saw a degree of political instability in the late 1990s and early 2000s – remember the Keshubhai-Vaghela political fight – till Modi came to power.

To assess Subramanian’s criticism, we have to examine his assumption that over the long term one would expect taxes as a share of GDP to rise as incomes and growth rise. However, this assumption can be flawed depending on the circumstances of each state, and also the development model adopted.

If you have adopted a private sector-led growth model, where the big investments are in infrastructure, agriculture and manufacturing (as in the case of Gujarat), taxes may not rise in proportion to state GDP. Infrastructure investments (in ports, new cities, roads, power and rural water bodies) are typically long-gestation projects which may boost growth well ahead of tax revenues. For example, Gujarat’s investments in infrastructure will start paying off once the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor takes off, but the failures relate to slow progress upstream and downstream of Gujarat – in Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Agriculture, where Gujarat has seen a major spike, pays no taxes. Infrastructure such as ports will yield higher customs revenues as trade increases, but these go to the centre and do not accrue directly to the state (so, little rise in own tax revenues). The big investors in the state – Reliance, Essar and the automobile companies – have been lured in with huge tax incentives. The assumption is that they will generate more business and jobs than revenues for the exchequer in the initial stages. They will yield revenues only after their tax-free status ends.

Given this model of development, one would expect growth to precede revenue growth in Gujarat. And this is what may be happening. But we will have to suspend judgment on this for a few more years to check if it really does happen.

In contrast, Chhattisgarh’s revenues depend on mining, while the growth of states such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has been led as much by services such as software as manufacturing and agriculture.  One should thus expect a different revenue-to-GDP skew in such cases. Services are, by definition, highly profitable, unlike infrastructure. Highly profitable service industries employing lakhs create local spends that boost OTR.

The real fallacy of the analysis lies in the fundamental assumption itself: that states should be judged not by growth or other parameters, but by revenues. While over the long term the correlation between economic activity and tax revenues may be positive, it may not be so if a state consciously seeks to give itself a more recessed role, by remaining more an enabler than a spender.

The downside of excess state spending can be seen at the centre today, where high fiscal and current account deficits have together brought growth itself down.

Another state that fares equally badly as Gujarat is Kerala – which is supposed to excel on human development indicators. Between 1990-99 and 2006-11, Kerala’s OTR-to-GDP ratio fell from 8.86 to 7.83 percent, a sharp one-percent drop, despite high growth rates driven by private spending.

Subramanian conveniently forgets to make this comparison, since Kerala-Gujarat comparisons are often otherwise made on social indicators to show Gujarat in bad light.

Both Kerala and Gujarat, for reasons that may be peculiar to them, have seen GDP growth but not high tax revenues shares in GDP.

More important is this truism: a ratio rises or falls not only on the basis of the numerator (taxes), but the denominator (GDP). If GDP is growing fine, the ratio will fall even if tax revenues are rising, but more slowly. As a metric, more is not necessarily better when it comes to taxes. What matters is the outcome – growth and equity. In fact, one can invert the OTR-GDP ratio to GDP-OTR to prove that Gujarat is growing faster on a lower government spend, and thus government is more efficient.

Perhaps worried that he may have made too big a point about tax revenues, Subramanian debunks his own argument partially and admits that “this might be a very misleading, even unfair, assessment,” since “Modi could argue – consistent with his right-of-centre ideology – that …he should be celebrated for delivering dream outcomes…”. These outcomes being small government and efficient government.

That is precisely the point. Modi’s critic has effectively demolished his own argument.