Saturday digest

In a boring piece by Suresh Menon the only good para was this

"...What makes these people special? What keeps them motivated after every peak has been climbed, every obstacle overcome? It is easy to believe that scoring yet another century would be for Tendulkar, like mountain-climbing after the Everest. Yet they do it....."

I loved this extract from Nilakeni's book though the title is dull. This is a dream of a job

This is a planning commission paper released in 2001 by Arvind Virmani and PV Rajeev. It is about reforming the PDS. Beautifully analyzed and written with neat policy prescriptions. Having read related stuff (opposition from Madhura Swaninathan at the ISI, how it is done in the US, and more )over the last month I am all for food stamps and more market based interventions now. I think it is a bit early too dismantle PDS completely coz of the vastness of the coverage, the inability of the society to take up such a spike in reforms, weak law enforcement of law etc. Starting off with 'Food Stamps'/ Food credit cards' will be good