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Private virtues, public vices

Though it is early days, there may be bad news on the monsoon. The economy is more affected by spread of rains across region and time, rather than aggregate precipitation. It is understandable that people should pray for rains or get frogs married off. We have been doing this for thousands of y ....Read more

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Prayers with public moneyBy: Roy | Friday , 26 Jun '09 16:47:00 PM Reply | Forward If the weatherman cant give us good news, the answer is not to follow tradition or faith and organize prayers with public money! Instead, the government should focus its funds and efforts towards building canals, rain water harvesting and other solutions to monsoon failure! Is there any evidence to suggest that prayers bring rains? If so, then the government should say so first (and collect the Nobel prize in chemistry later).

Aggregate rain not importantBy: Rakesh | Friday , 26 Jun '09 13:13:58 PM Reply | Forward The more important point made in this article is that more important than aggregate rainfall is how well the rain spreads across different regions. The MET department only focuses on the aggregate rainfall. It should also tell how well spread the rains are because there's no use if it floods in one area and it there is a drought in another, exactly the thing happening because of climate change. Also, the government has no right to spend public money on these rituals. It's not about secularism. It's plain waste of money. If they want, the Chief ministers can spend money from their own salaries.

What is the harm?By: SC Aggarwal | Thursday , 25 Jun '09 21:07:44 PM Reply | Forward I do not see any reason if the Chief Minister of a State takes part in a yajna being performed by religious persons to bring rains. What is the harm in it? Today, there is no rains and every one in the country wants rains. After all rains are not coming. Government is also waiting for rains. Some secular persons of the country become uncomfortable when they see a Yagna is being performed to bring rains. Their secularism becomes in danger. This kind of secularism of some persons is very dangerous. Our secular persons should not feel sorry if some people with or without the help of Government perform Yagna or pooja to bring rains. After all, what is the harm in it if rains come by performing pooja or Yagna?

Dr Debroy's ArticleBy: viswanathan k s | Thursday , 25 Jun '09 15:59:41 PM Reply | Forward It is useless to write comments as you do not publish them. Whatever suits you only gets published.you acknowledge with:Thanks for posting comment. Your comment has been accepted and will appear shortly.But this does not happen

Rain Makers By: A K Singh | Thursday , 25 Jun '09 14:37:56 PM Reply | Forward Mr Roy misses the point while debunking the divine intervention efforts of the State government. Vast section of Indian populace are god fearing believers. The elected Governments of these states are just carrying out the rituals which the erstwhile Kings of the yore would have done.And you cant blame them as no rational approach/technique to resolving the problem of monsoon failures has yet evolved.Or should the government's of the day pull up and punish the meteorological department - blatant instance of shooting the messenger.

Excellent article -- China leaps ahead while India prays to the Gods!!By: Roy | Thursday , 25 Jun '09 13:24:14 PM Reply | Forward Very few people have the guts to call a spade a spade. So well done Dr Debroy. Government turning to the Gods for rain is not just ridiculous but is also a mean strategy to turn attention away from their own failures to provide water security to the nation. Whatever next? Subbarao praying to the Gods for lower lending rates? Pranab Mukherjee praying to the Gods for lower deficit? Media should expose these ridiculous acts of governments and educate the public (such as an earlier commenter Mr Kondratiev) about the futility of these practices. China leaps ahead while we suckers still pray to the Gods! Atrocious!

GovBy: VDev | Thursday , 25 Jun '09 12:37:35 PM Reply | Forward If prayers could work wonders we would be living in a perfect world....it is absurd for the government to endorse religious practise and I couldn't agree more with Mr. Debroy.

Useless articleBy: M.Kondratiev | Thursday , 25 Jun '09 6:57:52 AM Reply | Forward This author should be banned from everywhere. He write total rubbish and useless materials. Lacl of rain can cause devastations as it is already happening all over India and the whole world may face serious hunger and food shortages just like during the days of Bihar famine of 1965-67. This is a serious issue in a country where only 25 percent of the lands are irrigated and the rest depend on the sky and rain-god.Poor people in desperate situation are asking their gods for help. And this stupid author is making fun of them.

Govt should stay away from religious practicesBy: RJ Khurana | Wednesday , 24 Jun '09 23:54:11 PM Reply | Forward The government of the day should refrain from dabbling in matters of faith and religion.If it does it will surely create more problems than solutions. There are any number of religious organizations of different denominations and they are capable of looking after themselves. The Ministers should keep their personal beliefs to themselves and should not ask this or that organization to organize poojas/prayers for a phenomenon like monsoon rains as has been done in MP and Andhra. This is patronizing obscurantism and blind faith.

We need more columnist like BibekBy: Akash | Wednesday , 24 Jun '09 18:15:01 PM Reply | Forward Excellent work.