Return of the 'big' state

India's latest laptop import restrictions are a matter of concern as nothing exemplifies the failures of the pre-1991 licence-quota raj more starkly than restrictions on electronic goods imports

The Indian “big” state has lately been striking back. It did it again this week by announcing drastic controls on the import of personal computers, laptops, tablets and so on.

This came on top of a relentless state creep-back through a quadrupled tax collected at source (TCS) — from 5 to 20 per cent — on transactions under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), the freedom the Vajpayee government had given Indian citizens to invest or spend foreign exchange overseas.

To be sure, it now added credit card spending too — and then, as protests grew, gave differential limit categories and