India proposes new oppressive space law
India’s government has proposed a new space law that essentially places all control of future space projects under the control of the central government.
The proposed law, which is open for comment for the next month, can be read here [pdf]. I’ve read it, and it astonishes me in its oppressiveness and hostility to private enterprise. This clause, one of many similar clauses, sums this up quite well:
Any form of intellectual property right developed, generated or created onboard a space object in outer space, shall be deemed to be the property of the Central Government.
The law would also require anyone who wants to launch a space project to get a license from the government, and gives the government the power to control that license in all aspects, including the power to cancel it for practically any reason.
If this law passes I expect that India’s burgeoning space industry will suffer significantly, especially because it will make it difficult to attract investment capital. Instead, it will be the central government that will run the business, and in the long run such government businesses always do badly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
India’s government has proposed a new space law that essentially places all control of future space projects under the control of the central government.
The proposed law, which is open for comment for the next month, can be read here [pdf]. I’ve read it, and it astonishes me in its oppressiveness and hostility to private enterprise. This clause, one of many similar clauses, sums this up quite well:
Any form of intellectual property right developed, generated or created onboard a space object in outer space, shall be deemed to be the property of the Central Government.
The law would also require anyone who wants to launch a space project to get a license from the government, and gives the government the power to control that license in all aspects, including the power to cancel it for practically any reason.
If this law passes I expect that India’s burgeoning space industry will suffer significantly, especially because it will make it difficult to attract investment capital. Instead, it will be the central government that will run the business, and in the long run such government businesses always do badly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This looks like an attempt by the professional bureaucrats of India – sometimes known as the Babu State – to assert their authority over an additional area of national economic life. My grasp of Indian internal politics is insufficient to form any rational opinion as to what the odds of this proposal becoming law might be, but I agree with Mr. Z that India would be shooting itself in the foot with a shotgun if it is so foolish as to enact such a law.
India the other year introduced a catastrophic currency reform. To eliminate the black market which is what upwards a billion of Indians live off of daily. Their savings were eradicated over night because they save in cash and those paper bills were suddenly declared worthless and could only be transformed to a fraction of their nominal value via criminal gangs well connected with the corrupt authorities. Since there was a sudden shortage of cash, commercial activity collapsed. Not in the big export industry that drives official GDP figures, but in the huge informal small-scale business economy of India.
The people of India create all of this wealth with their skills, despite of their mad government. I was unfortunate to study statistics at a university (which isn’t fun because it’s hard), and pretty much every text book and paper in the literature list had an unpronounceable Indian name. They certainly know something math genetically. They invented chess! But they are poor at electing political leaders. I think that this whole democracy and government thing is alien to their nature and that they would do much better without it.
“Gems of Ramanujan and their Lasting Impact on Mathematics”
International Center for Theoretical Physics
November 2016
https://youtu.be/ay1RCfQkrWQ
(1:08:21)
Thomas Sowell in his books on economics uses India as a bad example of over regulation across the board. It’s not just this example.