Sun, May 10, 2026 | UPDATED 10:01 AM IST
Voices from author
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To succeed, Vietnam should abandon communism
April 22, 2026, 10:55 PM IST
I spent a delightful couple of weeks in Vietnam recently. Vietnam is an ancient land with a charming culture that has also imbibed influences from China and India. Its scenic beauty verges on the magical….
April 22, 2026, 10:55 PM IST
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Western life expectancy increased by 50 years since capitalism emerged
March 6, 2026, 8:46 PM IST
Life expectancy in the West is around 80 years today. Two key questions arise: what was it before capitalist development began (in around 1650-1700) and what factors have contributed to this huge improvement? Addressing the…
March 6, 2026, 8:46 PM IST
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A general theory of contagion
February 15, 2026, 6:46 PM IST
Even as the very thought of a contagion that might be spreading globally drives panic, border closures, and lockdowns, there has never been a systematic articulation of the scientific principles to determine a society’s calibrated…
February 15, 2026, 6:46 PM IST
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What if the smallpox vaccine had not been invented? – Part 3
February 8, 2026, 3:51 PM IST
5(c) Clear proof that isolation was the remedy There are a number of proofs (apart from Haygarth’s experiment and Leicester) that it was isolation, not ring vaccination, that eradicated smallpox. First, we know from the…
February 8, 2026, 3:51 PM IST
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What if the smallpox vaccine had not been invented? – Part 2
January 31, 2026, 2:23 PM IST
4. Imperfect isolation can’t eradicate smallpox The lack of laser-focus on isolation meant that many avoidable gaps remained in the way isolation was practiced. First, insufficient surveillance. Dr Charles Chapin noted in a 1912 textbook:…
January 31, 2026, 2:23 PM IST
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What if the smallpox vaccine had not been invented? (Part-1)
January 23, 2026, 7:44 PM IST
Although the world’s first vaccine, for smallpox, was a wonderful invention, it would be an error to assume that smallpox would still be with us if the vaccine had not been invented. In fact, it…
January 23, 2026, 7:44 PM IST
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The case for two-year patents and copyright – Part 3
September 29, 2025, 4:03 PM IST
Kinsella asserts that abstract ideas and patterns are not scarce, hence “[c]onflict is not possible with respect to the knowledge that guides action”. But disputes are rife in this area. A vast number of cases…
September 29, 2025, 4:03 PM IST
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The case for two-year patents and copyright – Part 2
September 22, 2025, 9:40 AM IST
Risk-stimulating property rights Even if formal property rights exist, a society will only achieve efficient allocation of resources, not growth. In 1874, Leon Walrus arrived at a mathematical formulation of competitive market equilibrium based on…
September 22, 2025, 9:40 AM IST
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The case for two-year patents and copyright – Part 1
September 15, 2025, 10:17 AM IST
The idea of a copyright and patent law (intellectual property rights, or IPR) seems innocuous enough and most of us will never bother to inquire into these legal mechanisms. Till recently, I didn’t, either. But…
September 15, 2025, 10:17 AM IST
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Irrationality makes the world go around – Part 3
September 10, 2025, 2:04 PM IST
For obvious reasons, this biological basis of human irrationality escaped thinkers in the past. Aristotle thought that our mental functions occur in the heart and that the brain’s function was to cool the heart. In…
September 10, 2025, 2:04 PM IST
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Irrationality makes the world go around – Part 2
August 31, 2025, 3:51 PM IST
3. The major thinkers on irrationality Despite human irrationality being self-evident, almost all philosophers have claimed human rationality while relegating animals to the irrational heap. There have, however, been a few commendable exceptions. In a…
August 31, 2025, 3:51 PM IST
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Irrationality makes the world go around – Part 1
August 25, 2025, 7:12 PM IST
On the 1st of February 2024, I showed why we need to revisit our understanding of human rationality: “humans are unique among animals, but not for their rationality. Instead, they are unique for their wild…
August 25, 2025, 7:12 PM IST
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Limestone proves the impossibility of a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth
August 5, 2025, 8:22 PM IST
Rocks tell us a story which most climate scientists seem to have ignored in their panic about a runaway greenhouse effect from CO2. Geologists, however, have long known the impossibility of such an effect because…
August 5, 2025, 8:22 PM IST
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Why economics should abjure ethics
July 7, 2025, 3:21 PM IST
In 2023, I suggested why public health ethics is useless at best, harmful at worst. In 2024 I explained why, in my view, ethics must be expunged from public health. In doing so I also…
July 7, 2025, 3:21 PM IST
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Impossibility of a theory of externalities – Part 2
May 21, 2025, 9:29 AM IST
3. Much theoretical confusion, such as the Coase theorem The externalities theory is littered not only with indefinable and unmeasurable terms but by trivial (and often defective) “insights”. Take the Coase theorem. Ronald Coase himself…
May 21, 2025, 9:29 AM IST
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Impossibility of a theory of externalities – part 1
May 17, 2025, 10:07 PM IST
If the same analytical “tool”, when placed in the hands of different people, tells us two radically different things, such as that lockdowns are good and that they are bad, it means we are not…
May 17, 2025, 10:07 PM IST
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Why public health must always be led by economists
April 23, 2025, 5:02 PM IST
Dr Anthony Fauci was obsessed with covid. On 13 May 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fauci is “not … making the case that continuing to restrict activities will make Americans healthier overall, but…
April 23, 2025, 5:02 PM IST
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How can we prevent a repeat of covid totalitarianism?
March 31, 2025, 10:29 PM IST
When covid lockdowns and (later) vaccine mandates were implemented, I initially thought that the experts were making a blunder. But within a couple of years, it became clear that the experts were actually right. If…
March 31, 2025, 10:29 PM IST
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Does the estimate of 154 million lives saved by vaccines since 1974 stack up?
February 20, 2025, 3:05 PM IST
In May 2024, The Lancet published an estimate of 154 million lives saved by the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) that was launched in 1974. In this piece I show that this estimate doesn’t stack…
February 20, 2025, 3:05 PM IST
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Milk won the battle against measles long before antibiotics and vaccines – Part 2
February 16, 2025, 4:00 PM IST
Clean milk supply skyrocketed from around 1910 The impact of milk on general life expectancy was perhaps first studied by John Christian Curwen (1756 – 1828). A 1825 book by J. Harding reports Curwen’s studies…
February 16, 2025, 4:00 PM IST
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