Prayatna

Narayana Murthy mulling a role in politics, says Straits Times

Indian IT mogul 'eyeing role in politics'  says the Straits Times in an article dated April 02, 2007 (subscription required - I heard about this article from a friend who's in Singapore).

INDIAN software mogul N.R. Narayana Murthy may be considering a move into politics, with talk that he may even bankroll the revival of an old political party.

Mr Murthy, founding chief executive of Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies, has discussed the move with at least two prominent industrialists in recent weeks.

'Murthy asked what they thought of reviving the old Swatantra Party. He indicated he is willing to put up as much as four billion rupees (S$140 million) of his own money for the purpose,' a person familiar with the discussions told The Straits Times.

Mr Murthy was in Zurich and was not available to comment. Responding to queries from The Straits Times, Infosys spokesman Bani Dhawan denied that Mr Murthy planned to enter politics or set up a political party.

But well-placed sources close to the discussions think Mr Murthy may be inclined to reconsider his options.

I had earlier wondered about such a possibility in a piece titled Political entrepreneurship - is India ready for it?

We'll have to wait and see if this news is indeed true or if its an April Fool's prank. I haven't yet been able to find any mention of it online in the Indian press or in the blogosphere.

Why write for the public?

I listened to a very interesting interview with Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati on Radio Economics (via Atanu). One remark by Prof. Bhagwati on writing for the public remains stuck in mind - something I think all of us must internalise and aspire to emulate.

Prof. Bhagwati said

I write for the public. I think you have to carry the public with you - that's part of the way in which you have to operate in the real world. If you don't operate on the public, you can't blame the politicians for responding to the public, which is uninformed. So you have to work at it.

An informed citizenry is the keystone to a working democracy, else the politicians will continue to pull the wool over eyes time and again. The only way to force the politicians to raise the level of debate and hold them to what they say and do is to make the public more informed. There are no quick fixes for this - we have to keep at it. The advent of blogs is a very positive development since every one of us can now start writing for the public without the constraint of finding someone to publish it. Blogs have also become a good hunting ground for talent for the mainstream media.

This remark apart, Prof. Bhagwati provides a lot of insights in his interview. Do listen to it (mp3 - 23MB).

Questions covered include: Why did you become an economist and what type of economist would you call yourself? Do you consider yourself more of a free trade economist or a free market economist? How and why did you become so influential in international policy making over the past decades? Do we have a global warming problem? Does the United States have an immigration problem? Where do you see the world economy in twenty years? What economies will dominate and what will be the problems and challenges that will face us?

What is the #1 job of politicians (in India)?

Read on for the answer.

Venky Ganesan of Venchar describes a "pearl of wisdom from Mark Cuban."

Mark asked this rhetorical question:

"What is the #1 job of a General Manager of a NBA team?"

He answered the following:

"You might think it is to win the NBA championship or assemble a great group of players or get the best value for the budget but you will be wrong on all counts. The #1 job of a General Manager is to keep his job because there are only 30 jobs like this and he/she gets paid millions of dollars to work 6 months a year"

Venky adds

This is so true. There are lots of jobs especially high paying jobs in which the incentives of the folks working those jobs are not aligned with their employers. Mutual fund managers come to mind (their goal is to maximize assets not returns), Studio execs (whose job is to keep their job) and some would even argue VC's (keep raising funds independent of the ability to invest it wisely)

So the answer to the question I posed above on politicians?

To get re-elected in the next election and retain the priviliges of power and pelf.

That's not going to change easily or quickly. Technically democracy and elections are supposed to provide the check on politicians to align their incentivies with those of their constituents (us), but it doesn't work out that way in practice. The politicians are able to pull the wool over our eyes and con us with meaningless/foolish short term promises (like bags of rice and colour televisions gifted free to the masses) which would not just be unviable in the long term, but would end up bankrupting the country over the long term.

There's no simple or quick solution, but there's one solution which will work over the long term. Create an informed populace, that will not only not fall for the politicians' gimmicks, but challenge everything they state or promise. That is a long haul solution.

P.S. What was the #1 job of Jagmohan Dalmiya when he was the head of BCCI? No points for guessing.

Parliamentary Research Service - an invaluable site tracking legislative activity in India

I stumbled on the Parliamentary Research Service (PRS) who describe themselves thus.

Parliamentary Research Service (PRS) is an independent, not-for-profit initiative that seeks to promote wider debate on upcoming legislative issues in Parliament. PRS seeks to promote good governance in India through supporting a transparent, better informed, and participatory legislative process. The work of PRS is collaborative and seeks to complement existing expertise in government, research institutions, business and citizen sector. PRS aims to

• Provide timely, easy-to-use and balanced analysis on upcoming legislative issues.
• Facilitate interaction of experts with those who seek a deeper understanding of legislative issues.
• Inform the larger public of the legislative issues being debated in Parliament and develop platforms for their opinions to be expressed.

PRS is being incubated by the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, which is an autonomous institution with the objective of studying major policy issues before the nation and suggesting alternative policy options.

There is very little quality reporting, let alone analysis, of the various bills and legislation coming up for discussion in Parliament today, in the mainstream newspapers and magazines. There are no websites that track parliament on a regular basis either. Given this, the PRS is an invaluable service. I hope they go on to become as comprehensive and detailed as CQ.com - the site that tracks the United States Congress and legislative/political activities in USA.

The PRS site lists recently introduced or to be introduced bills in Parliament - the list makes very interesting reading.

I'm sure the PRS site will attract a large enough number of users from both within Indian and outside that Google Adwords (or a similar service) could serve as a reasonable source of income for the site. Since PRS will have no say on who advertises on the site if they choose to use Google Adwords (or a similar service), conflicts of interest between editorial and advertising can be avoided.

Ram Guha on the tragedy of Indian Communists

Ramachandra Guha, writing in Indiatogether.org says

The central paradox of Indian communism is that its practice is vastly superior to its theory. Communist leaders and activists are probably more intelligent than their counterparts in other parties. This is why it is such a great pity that their often honourable practice is crippled with an archaic and outmoded theory

A very interesting and insightful critique of the Indian communists. Go, read it.

Prospects for a third force in Indian politics

Vidya Subrahmaniam in an insightful article in The Hindu argues that there has never been a genuine third political alternative in india (apart from the Congress and the Jan Sangh/BJP) and is unlikely to arise out of the current crop of a large number of small regional parties that comprise the "Other Parties". But I think there could be a silver lining to the cloud, that is as yet invisible. But I'm leaping ahead of myself. First let's see what the numbers say.

Subrahmaniam considers the following data on the percentage of seat and vote shares in parliament from 1952 up until 2004 (the source for the data isn't mentioned) and looks at the share of seats and votes of the Congress and the Jan Sangh/BJP together and compares it to the share of the Other Parties.

The data indicates that we seem to be heading towards a balance with close to half the seats going to Other Parties  and the other half to both the Congress and Jan Sangh/BJP put together (see the share of the Other Parties in blue in the graph below).

 

Even if the Congress and the BJP combined together, they may at best have just a marginal marjority of seats. The absence of a huge difference between the share of their combined votes and and their combined seats in recent years as opposed to the 1950-70 period (above graph) seems to indicate that the balance of seats between the Other Parties and the Congress-Jan Sangh/BJP combine is here to stay.

Aside: Meghnad Desai has been suggesting for some time now that a grand BJP-Congress coalition would be best for India and could deliver 8% growth, but its extremely unlikely that such a coalition could happen. Despite that, Harkishan Singh Surjeet of the CPI(M) sees Desai's suggestion as a diabolical plan -  "a British national like Lord Meghnad Desai had had the temerity to suggest that the Congress and BJP should form a "grand alliance" on the question of (so-called) reforms. Now, irrespective of whether such an alliance materialises or not, the very fact that such a suggestion was made shows the pressures international finance capital is seeking to bring on Indian parties and political system."

As Subrahmaniam asks,

So what are the realistic chances that the third alternative will become the first choice? The answer is built into the question. The first requirement of power is a simple majority. The potential partners must be able on their own to win 272 or more seats in a House of 543. Put another way, a non-Congress, non-BJP government can come about only when the combined strength of prospective third front constituents exceeds the combined tally of the Congress and the BJP.

As an idea, the third front is incomparable, aligned as it is to the genius, diversity, and contradictions of the Indian polity. By contrast the mainline parties represent a unitary vision that is hierarchy-bound and resistant to change. The third alternative, at least in theory, comprises forces that have historically fought the status quo: in that sense it is inherently federal in spirit and more naturally inclined towards social justice. However, for the very reason that many of the "alternative" players have come up the hard way, they also tend to be authoritarian and opportunistic. There is little internal democracy in the parties run by Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad, Mayawati, Chandrababu Naidu, and Jayalalithaa. As for opportunism, Kanshi Ram once famously defended this attribute in the Bahujan Samaj Party. If seizing opportunities was opportunism, he was proud to be an opportunist, the BSP leader said. Indeed, purists may cavil at the BSP's frequent and "unprincipled" alliances with its "manuwadi" foe but the fantastic growth graph of Ms. Mayawati's party is proof that the Hindutva taint caused it no harm.

So we face a multiplicity of inter-related problems here, starting with the impatience of the regional and marginal players to access power - which is seen as the swiftest route to influence and growth. This involves making short-term alliances and compromises, which, however, dilute the ideological cohesion vital for the viability of any alternative front. Thus, third front unity has invariably been transitory, achieved not to implement a collective, long-term vision but as a momentary response to one or another political challenge. And since this challenge always came from either the Congress or the BJP, the third front inevitably became a second front that took the support of the Jan Sangh/BJP to oppose the Congress, and then the support of the Congress to oppose the BJP.

And when [the third front] does [come into play], the front will have many hurdles to negotiate. If India's 14 Lok Sabhas tell a story, it is that the third front is not an easy alternative. Even assuming the combined Congress-BJP strength falls short of 272 in a future Lok Sabha, an autonomous third front government will not materialise unless all other parties miraculously unite. This means the BSP and the SP have to bury the hatchet; this means the allies of the BJP and the Congress (most of whom are bound to these parties in the States) have to be ready to strike out on their own. Can the Janata Dal(U), the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Shiv Sena afford to snap their links with the BJP? Can Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad, Shibu Soren, and M. Karunanidhi decide they do not need the Congress in their respective States?

The answer to Subrahmaniam's rhetorical question is self-evident. Given the regional nature of those that make up the Other Parties, their opportunism, and their differences in ideology, priorities and more, a third front indeed seems like a mirage.

So where is the hidden silver lining to the cloud, you may ask. I think it lurks just beneath in the form of an opportunity for an altogether fresh pan-Indian party based on a well articulated ideology and vision.

If the Indian National Congress which started out in the 1880s, in an era

• that had no pan-Indian organisation whatsoever,
• when the Government of the day was all powerful
• when illiteracy and poverty were widespread
  
• when newspapers were just starting up and had limited influence
• that lacked all the communication appurtenances of today's world like radio, television, mobile phones and the Internet to be able to communicate ideas

could go on to mobilise public opinion and support, keep growing and evolving to finally achieve its primary objective, why shouldn't a similar effort to start a new pan-Indian party today have more than a fair chance of success? I think the odds are very good for the success of such an effort.

But it is unlikely that any such party starting out today will be able to win elections at the national level for at least 20-30 years, maybe longer. Politics is a long term activity. Indeed, just as the Indian National Congress took a good 62 years from 1885 to 1947 to succeed in its primary objective, changing leaders along the way, changing strategies and focus along the way, a new party starting today will have to look at a 20-30 year horizon at the least, to win an election at the national level and be in a position to unfold its vision for the country, which itself will have to evolve. In the first 20 years, the new party will have to go through an institution building phase and aim to

• articulate the basic principles and ideology on which the party is founded in a clear and simple manner
• open a chapter in every single constituency in the nation - a local presence is a must
• actively recruit members from all sections of society in every constituency
• have an active media strategy not just in English, but in every Indian language, to promote the party's ideology and brand across all media, and articulate the party's stance on various issues
• go on an aggressive, but transparent, fund raising drive and raise funds from individuals and corporations
• run a web site and a series of shadow blogs for each ministerial portfolio at the state and national levels and take a stance on all important issues and lobby with the government
• hold periodic (monthly) meetings of members in each constituency and organise public lectures by experts in various fields
• bring out a monthly newsletter on email and in print
• identify suitable candidates and run for office in every single constituency in every election at every level, from the local body elections all the way up to the parliamentary elections, to build credibility, commitment and visibility for the party as well as its candidates for office

The real questions facing us today are the following. Who/where are the political entrepreneurs who can start and run such a pan-Indian party today, with a long term perspective? Many of those who start it out today may not be around to taste the fruits of their efforts 20 years later, like Gokhale and others who started the Indian National Congress in 1885. Will those who are in a position to start out today be able to groom the next generation of leaders and pass on the baton to them with the flame still glowing bright, for them to take the ideology and vision onward?

In an previous post, I'd looked at who these potential political entrepreneurs could be and where their following could come from in the intial stages.

Political entrepreneurship - is India ready for it?

(I wrote this back in December 2003 on a group blog, which has since become defunct.)

I sense a feeling amongst many of us today that our only political options are either the BJP or the Congress (with the myriad other parties throwing their weight behind one or the other), and that we have to put up with all their negatives in the hope that the negatives of either of them (or even both) will somehow disappear over time.

If this were a market scenario, I'm sure there would be at least a handful of punters willing to seize the opportunity and bet that starting a new outfit afresh (free from the past baggage, the vested interests and the geriatric leadership) would stand a very fair chance of success over time. There are enough instances of successful late entrants in the business world for us to take heart. Why, there's even an example in politics right here at home - the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) started out quite late to provide an alternative to the Congress and has quite successfully established itself.

The CPI(M) of course fancies its chances of becoming a credible national alternative on its own and states in the political resolution adopted at the 18th Congress of the CPI(M) in April 2005, "The Party is not for the consolidation of two bourgeois formations headed by the Congress and the BJP. The Party will work for the realization of a third alternative as the political situation matures for it."

I think there's much more than a fighting chance for a new and well organised party, starting from scratch, to gain a substantial mindshare and influence the political agenda of the nation. The initiative towards starting a new party - the Liberal Party of India, is one such step in that direction. Of course, it will be a long haul and will take a lot of doing - but are the majority of us aborting action on this front even before contemplating it, overcome by the enormity of the challenge?

We need political entrepreneurs today just as much business entrepreneurs, may be more so. Can (or will or should) some of the successful business entrepreneurs look to turning political entrepreneurs? In many other countries, successful business entrepreneurs have gravitated to politics in their later years - a trend that has been on the ascent in recent years. Narayana Murthy (NM) of Infosys is a name that comes to mind as a possible example of someone who could do the same in the Indian context. NM has built up a very successful organisation from scratch and commands a phenomenal amount of goodwill and equity from the middle classes to be able to ignite the hope that a newly launched political entity can be successful and actually go on to mobilise people towards turning that hope into action. I think he can do it if he chooses to.

If NM were to think about this, he might ask himself if he should focus on business (Infosys) or politics (the nation), going ahead? Are the two options largely mutually exclusive or can he do both simultaneously? One could argue that serving Infosys and continuing to help it grow is itself the best way for him to serve the nation, but is that how he can add the most value, being who he is and given his experience and stature?. Going back over a hundred years, many leading successful (wealthy) lawyers of the day (among them Patel, Rajagopalachari, (Motilal) Nehru, Rajendra Prasad and others) thought it necessary to also be politically active, alongside pursuing their professions to make a living, and eventually managed to help the nation become free. Is it the turn of successful businessmen to do something similar now to catalyse and hasten progress?

In addition to successful entrepreneurs, can salaried professionals from all fields also get involved in politics part-time, in addition to their normal professional activities or does politics absolutely require full-time commitment which is possible only for either the very wealthy who have no need for any other means to make a living or the opportunistic folks who get into politics to make a "living". I think involvement in politics outside of work time is very much possible and quite necessary. A political entrepreneur can count on this huge constituency of professionals if he or she is able to paint an attractive vision for the future along with a plan to get there and convince this large constituency to buy into it.

Impact of Michael Moore's Farhrenheit 9-11

After watching the movie Fahreheit 9-11 (I watched it well after the 2004 presidential election), a bunch of thoughts struck me:

• It is a one-sided movie that leaves no doubt about what Moore wants to convey by presenting only one side of the story. John Berger writing in The Guardian termed it in the same breath "cunning and moving." Moore isn't trying to present both sides of the picture and let the viewer make up his/her mind - he's out to convince the viewer of the truth of what he believes to be right.
• It is a powerful movie - most folks who watched the movie couldn't but start to wonder if Bush deserves four more years after all one saw in the movie.
• How many Americans actually watched the movie? Quite a few it seems. According to Boxofficemojo.com, it grossed over $119 million across 2000+ theatres in the US alone in 2004 including about $24 million in the opening weekend and grabbed the top spot in the U.S. home video rental market as the most watched documentary debut of all-time with more than 2.6 million DVD and VHS viewers, turning 1.36 million copies and earning more than $5.46 million in its first week. It was also available on pay-per-view to subscribers of the Dish Network in USA, and for online streaming through the internet video provider CinemaNow on election eve to potential audience of millions of households.
• How many Americans never watched the movie because they felt it was too anti-American, when Moore's intention I thought was to be pro-American but anti-Bush?
• Have there been any studies on the impact of Fahreheit 9-11 on voters' choices in the 2004 election? The movie's influence on the voting decisions of those who watched the movie and those who didn't watch it, but heard about it in the press and the voting decisions of pro-Bush, anti-Bush and the fence-sitting voters. What are the results of those studies, if any? (I haven't been able to find any mention of a study online as yet).

Wondering about the veracity of Moore's presentation, I came across  a list of 59 deceits in Fahrenheit 9-11 published by Dave Kopel, who lists himself as a lifelong Democrat who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Koppel says

In this report, I number Moore’s deceits. Some of them are outright lies; some are omissions which create a false impression. Others involve different forms of deception. A few are false statements Moore has made when defending the film. Judge for yourself the credibility of Michael Moore's promise, "Every single fact I state in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' is the absolute and irrefutable truth...Do not let anyone say this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying."

Kopel has also published a detailed item by item explanation of each of the 59 deceits in the movie along with Moore's response to some of the items. Reading this drove home the power of the visual medium to influence people's views by selective presentation of facts and opinions and towards what one wants them to believe. The medium leaves little room for critical thinking, if that is the intent of the producer.

An article in the International Herald Tribune (before the 2004 election) argues that it still holds true that  people go to the movies to be entertained, fully aware that they are seeing artifice, even if it is nonfiction artifice.

Polls have already shown that the impact of "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been minimal or nonexistent. Most of its audience was anti-Bush before entering the theater, and the other folks are as likely to be repelled as converted. One of the wiser political consultants, David Axelrod, noted that while many swing voters are disappointed with Bush, few dislike him. For them, Moore's blunt polemic could prove counterproductive.

It turns out that the Republicans reacted to Fahrenheit 9-11 by coming out with their own film titled Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain Begins to Die to put across their point of view. I wonder how many Democratic supporters would have watched this film.

It seems to be dawning on the Democrats that Michael Moore might actually be a double-edge sword they've cut themselves on. An article in The American Prospect suggests that Michael Moore and his movie had more of a negative impact on the Democrats than positive to the extent that some

Democrats are even blaming Moore for Kerry's loss and have called for Democrats to surrender Moore to the same gods to which Bill Clinton sacrificed the controversial rapper Sister Souljah in 1992.

Back then, at a conference of the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, candidate Clinton caused a small ruckus by repudiating earlier comments from Souljah that some had construed as condoning black-on-white violence. The genius of Clinton’s rebuke of Souljah was that it was geared not to the assembled black leaders seated in front of him but to moderate whites, who needed to see that Clinton was not some patsy of narrow left-wing interest groups. It was cold, calculated, and effective. “You have to recognize that Clinton was the only non-accidental Democratic president elected in 40 years,” one high-ranking Democratic operative told me, suggesting that Jimmy Carter won by virtue of Watergate and Lyndon Johnson by virtue of succeeding a slain president. “With that in mind,” he said, “Democrats have to be prepared to recognize the utility of some of the tactics he employed to get into office, including the ‘Sister Souljah moment.’”

Of course, “Sister Souljah-ing” Michael Moore would only be tactically useful for Democrats if they can plausibly argue that Moore scares away more voters than he attracts. According to University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who has been poring over polling data from the election, this remains unclear. “While it is fair to say that he contributed to additional turnout on both sides,” Sabato says, “data specifically analyzing the individual impact of Moore does not yet exist.” To the extent that voters associated Moore’s politics with that of the Democratic Party, it is because Democrats are not effectively articulating what it is they actually stand for.”

By contrast, the Republican “brand” is strongly recognized, and voters can easily distinguish mainstream Republicanism from its extremist impostures. Ronald Reagan made the distinction clear in 1966, when he mused that the endorsement by the McCarthyite John Birch Society of his candidacy for governor of California meant only that “they’re buying my philosophy; I’m not buying theirs.” More recently, no one seriously thought that the über-conservative author Ann Coulter represented the views of the Republican Party when she suggested in a column soon after the September 11 attacks that the proper response September 11 was to “invade [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”

The Democrats, meanwhile, make no such distinction. Indeed, some Democratic leaders have appeared publicly with Moore, and when he appears with members of the party, it becomes ever more difficult to deny that he, at least in some way, represents them. Just ask Virginia Schrader, a progressive Democrat who in 2004 narrowly lost the congressional race for the 8th District of Pennsylvania, located in suburban Philadelphia and the Delaware River Valley. Early in her campaign, Schrader hosted a fund-raiser at which she screened Fahrenheit 9-11. Months later, as the campaign was getting down to the wire, the Republican National Congressional Committee targeted the district with a flier that read “The Hate America Crowd has found their candidate. Ginny Schrader raised money by showing the anti-American movie Fahrenheit 9-11.” The flip side featured a chubby caricature of Moore’s face, above which read “Now there’s a running mate that will slow you down.” The flier was nasty, but effective. Polling data Schrader relayed to the Prospect after the race indicated that 12 percent of the flier’s recipients claimed to have been affected by it one way or the other. And for 8 percent of those 12 percent, the flier helped persuade them to vote against Schrader.

A timeline of Congress History

Here's a timeline of Congress History from 1885 through to 2003, to which will be added the Congress resurgence of 2004.

An interesting book that I came across (haven't read it yet) is Myron Weiner's book on Party Building In a Developing Nation: Indian National Congress detailing how the Congress party built its base in first decades after independece.

The Indian Liberal Group

On Thursday, I attended the second Minoo Masani Memorial Lecture at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan auditorium in Chennai, organised by the Indian Liberal Group. The speaker was N. Vittal and he spoke on "Corruptions mocks at liberalisation". I will post a summary of the lecture separately.

It was heartening to learn of an organisation like the Indian Liberal Group (ILG) and what they are upto. I've been pleasantly surprised to discover such a group, having never heard of them so far. I believe there is a crying need for a group such as this to help activate and mobilise the citizenry and I have decided to become a member of the ILG. What about you?

The purpose and objectives of the ILG have been very simply stated.

To foster the values of

• freedom
• responsibility
• tolerance
• social justice, and
• equality of opportunity

based on the Liberal belief that

• liberty with individual responsibility are the foundations of civilized society;
• the State is an instrument of the citizens it serves;
• any action of the State must respect the principles of democratic accountability and the rule of law.

The primary objective of the Indian Liberal Group is to defend the fundamental Liberal belief

• of the right of individuals to personal liberty, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
• of the right of association;
• of the right to private property;
• of free choice of occupation;
• of the right to information so as to enable the exercise of one's right meaningfully.

While tolerance is integral to Liberalism, the Indian Liberal Group will not tolerate Intolerance. The Indian Liberal Group

• believes that the business of government is governance not business;
  
• is opposed to any kind of monopoly;
  
• believes that technology is needed to promote human development and draws attention to the fact that the growth of Liberalism has been contemporaneous with the development of science and technology;
  
• affirms that active and participatory citizenship at all levels is essential for sustaining a liberal and democratic society.

Above all, the Indian Liberal Group believes in the need to uphold values and excellence; character and integrity. To develop men and women with faith in such principles is the real task and goal before Liberals.

Their website also describes the structure of the ILG in terms of local chapters, the state executives and the national executive and has a copy of the full constitution of the ILG as well.

The ILG has a web site at http://www.liberalsindia.com/, but the front page points to the wrong page. There is a wealth of content on their web site behind the front page, but still accessible including various position papers, information about the organization and recent press releases. They also publish a magazine called Freedom First and a newsletter - the Aug 2003 issue is available online.

The First National Convention of the ILG was held in December 2002 at Hyderabad and the Second National Convention is to be held in December 2004 at Mangalore, Karnataka.