An economics writer who makes for interesting reading

Businessworld's Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is an exception in many ways including

1. He writes interestingly on economic matters, and

2. He provides a refereshing change to the leftist "economists" who have dominated the Indian media - including unfortunately, the business media - for a long time.

His latest column titled "Tragic outcome of bad economics" is a nice example where he weaves a pattern using three real-life happenings. One of them describes how, in Sholapur district, family members have "bumped off their aged, shown them to be suicides caused by suffocating debts, and then claimed compensation from the government." (If the government incentivices suicides, it reaps murders!)

Government policies that violate the laws of economics often do more harm than good. It could be any of the idiocies that the political class perpetrates: the urge to announce blanket compensation packages, the attempt to buy votes through promises of cheap (or even free) power, or the attempts to block the growth of efficient cash and forward markets for agricultural products. Each can have perverse results - from the misuse of energy to cold-blooded murder.