Zoo Station

Last night, I attended the Bastiat Awards dinner with fellow bloggers, Prashant Kothari, Yazad Jal and Manish Vij. As regular readers know, our colleague and friend, Amit Varma, was one of the finalists for the Bastiat prize. Given that he was facing the likes of Clive Crook and Jonah Goldberg, it's fair to say the odds were against Amit.

So, imagine all of our collective surprise when Amit in fact won the Bastiat. We were all thrilled to bits for him. Amit won the award for his libertarian essays in Mint. True to form, Amit delivered a really funny acceptance speech extempore (pic above, courtesy Manish Vij). He was also gracious in acknowledging the Libertarian Cartel, and Niranjan Rajyadhaksha for his superb stewardship of the Mint op-ed pages.

Congratulations once again, Amit! Boy, you deserve it, and here's to a continued defence of Bastiat's ideas in the Indian media and blogosphere.

If you're wondering who won the prize last year, it was none other than Tim Harford. And Tim's out there somewhere raising a toast to Amit as well.