The internationally recognised Freedom Caravan, organised by the Centre for Civil Society in partnership with Atlas Economic Research Foundation travelled to 14 colleges in 8 cities bringing together over 2000 students to explore ideas about individual liberty and economic prosperity.

Why is India poor? We asked this pertinent question to students all across the country. Among the typical responses we received were overpopulation, colonial exploitation, pervasive corruption, lack of education and resources, culture and attitudes, political instability, to name a few. Through Freedom Caravan our goal was twofold:

  1. To debunk perennial myths about the causes for India’s poverty through data and evidence, and offer our audience a plausible answer that lack of economic freedom explains India’s poverty, and;

  2. More fundamentally, convince them about an approach to analysing this type of question and gain a pattern of thinking that will help them assess different possible answers to these kinds of questions until they get down to the root causes.

Freedom Caravan: 2013
  • 21 Aug 2013 18 Sep 2013
Application Deadline
15 Aug 2013
Covered Sessions
Session
1
LPQ Raj – The Politics of Poverty

To highlight archaic laws that hinder the poor from earning an honest livelihood while at the same time breaking the common notion people have about "the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer in India" citing bad policies and regulations being the root cause of India's poverty.

Session
2
Would You Give Up the Internet for a Million Dollars?

Asks participants to struggle with the question "Would You Give Up the Internet for a Million Dollars?" and explores how and why capitalism has created unfathomable wealth and prosperity of ordinary people.