Things to Ponder

The national budget gets a lot of coverage and analysis. While the state budgets hardly get covered or analyzed. Even though 60% of government spending happens through our states. This fraction is even higher for higher income states.

 

Karnataka’s (state) GDP is $340 billion. What steps should it take to become a $1 trillion economy? How much does the state spend on Bangalore v/s how much does it get from Bangalore? Obviously this wouldn’t be of interest for national media, but surely it should be for state media?

 

I am curious whether this problem of coverage is limited to the English media alone? Or is it a problem with the regional language media too?

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It’s a common complaint about how little parliament meets – we’re not talking of individual MP’s attendance, this is about how many days parliament is convened. In case you wondered, it’s 60 days per year. And so much of that gets washed away in shouting each other down, or boycotting sessions. But compared to the state legislatures (just 26 days on average), the national numbers actually look quite good! In addition, parliament has a Standing Committee system on many matters outside of LS/RS sessions. Equivalent systems at the state either don’t exist at all, or are even more dysfunctional than the ones at the national level.

 

Bottomline: State legislatures are even more broken than the national ones. It is depressing to learn that the national legislature is not the worst. Who’d have thought? (Though I am sure the legislature of several states must be better than the national one)

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Why do we have so many lawyers in India who work alone? As opposed to the large law firms of the West? This is apparently rooted in the antiquated idea that the legal service is a “noble profession”, and thus it shouldn’t be allowed to accept capital from non-lawyers (which apparently would impact their independence!). In addition, the profession cannot accept foreign investment – this prohibition was based on the fear (at the time of Independence) of foreign influence and interference in our legal system.

 

In effect, these restrictions mean that Indian lawyers can only partner with other Indian lawyers. This is a hugely restrictive constraint and prevents law firms from getting big. It also rules out any possibilities of efficiencies of scale, which increases the cost for litigants. It also results in the near impossibility of brand building for most small firms and individual lawyers.

 

Is it time to liberalize the legal sector? Or are there forces fighting any such attempts?

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