In this issue

Conquest Without Victims - Another look at Kashmir: Unlike armed conquests, conquests by the market forces leave no victims, only winners–peace and prosperity.  Let us now give the market a chance in Kashmir and the whole region.

Who is an Indian? : In a civilization that is characterised by its ability to absorb and assimilate all, it is ironic that a debate on who is a foreigner is being sought. This is the first of a series of articles on various issues before the electorate in the forthcoming general elections in September 1999.

Excerpts:
The Importance of being an Indian, by Sashi Tharoor (The Indian Express, 30 May 1999)
The Rights of Citizen Sonia, by Mushirul Hasan (The Indian Express, 22 May 1999)

The Legacy of Hayek: Continuing relevance of Nobel Laureaute F. A. Hayek in the 21st Century. A centenary tribute.

War Can’t be Fought without Commitment: Prof. Tibor R. Machan says that by confining to bombing in Yugoslavia, the politicians are hoping to avoid the need for full military commitment. But that commitment is lacking because there is no clear-cut justice on the side of the military in such a fight.

A Voice from the Balkan: Ayn Rand wrote in Global Balkanization(1977), “If a province wants to secede from a dictatorship in order to establish a free country–it has the right to do so. But if a local gang, ethnic or otherwise, wants to secede in order to establish its own government controls, it does not have the right.” Tomislav Kresmovic, a human rights activist in Serbia, argues that the key to the solution and the only possible lasting solution of the problem in Kosovo and the entire Balkans is the building of democratic institutions and society.

The Market is Green: The environmental cost of restricting the market has become obvious. Clearly the need now is to ensure efficient allocation of environmental resources by bringing them under the discipline of the marketplace. 

Should lotteries be banned? Rakesh Wadhwa points out the futility of efforts to ban the lotteries. Instead he calls for privatising and deregulating the lotteries, since the government is as inefficient in running them as it is running airlines, trains or post offices.

Book Review: The Commanding Heights, by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw
The tide has turned. The fortunes of statism are at an ebb. Economics of the marketplace is gainining strength. The book is a narrative history of this transition, writes Pramit Pal Chaudhuri in this review.

The Fountainhead Essay Contest '99: The second all India essay contest for high school students is now open.

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(C) Liberty Institute, New Delhi, 1999