Last Thursday we asked you if there should be a minimum price fixed by the government below which a supplier should not be allowed to sell a good or a service as airline companies sometimes do. 70 % of you disagreed to minimum price control by the government, while 30 % of you wanted the…
In last Saturday Poll, we asked whether genetically modified (GM) crops are a solution to India's food security problem and most of you who voted had opined that these crops are not such a solution. Of the 49 poll takers, only 27 % believed that genetically modified crops could address the issue of food security…
Discrimination in India on the basis of caste, religion and gender has long been in public focus. Though mentioned now and then, racial discrimination had not received as much attention until two very unfortunate incidents in Delhi in the last couple of weeks. In our last Saturday Poll, we had asked you to tell us…
How well the government has performed in terms of work done per unit of tax collected is difficult to measure but that is not even necessary if we agree that whatever they do, they have to do within a limited part of what the citizens earn. When the government is fiscally imprudent, it affects the…
The need for electoral reforms is evidenced by the many PILs filed every year demanding transparency and accountability of politicians and the process through which they are elected. Last Saturday, we asked you what according to you is the one major electoral reform that India most urgently needs. The top two in the list of…
Democracy-rule by the people, of the people, for the people- is a superior form of government because it is based on fairness, natural justice and equality. It offers the most conducive political climate for peace and prosperity for all. Violence is anathema to the concept of d emocracy, in which rule of law protects people's…
Is the unavoidable politicisation of the execution of death sentence a good enough reason to abolish death sentence? In the last Saturday Poll, we had posed the question whether politicization of the execution of death sentence is a good enough reason to ban death penalty. 85% of the 41 poll takers said “no”. Clearly, most…
In last week’s Saturday Poll, we had asked you whether the right to freedom of speech should include the right to express contrarian views on religion. A mere 8% of the poll takers said it should, against a whopping 92% who feel that the right to express contrarian views should not be considered part of…
In a world which glorifies vigilantism, how many people would come forward to expose a crime putting their lives and safety at stake? In last week's Saturday Poll, we asked you whether you would expose a corrupt authority if you had evidence against them and what factor would influence your decision most. A meagre 8%…
Do minimum wage laws help or harm the poor? There cannot be any argument against the need to protect the vulnerable among us. But whether a law to control wages would achieve that purpose has been questioned by several top economists such as Milton Friedman and Henry Hazlitt. They contend that the minimum wage law…
