Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The races for seats in America's Senate will be just as pitched as the presidential contest.

That's especially true in Alabama, which two years ago elected Doug Jones, the first Democratic

senator in a quarter of a century. Our correspondent pays him a visit and says that his moderate

ways hold a lesson for other Democrats.

And air pollution levels in Delhi at last seem to be dropping.

The thick smog was declared a public health emergency earlier this month.

It's clear that poor air quality can shorten lives,

but the danger is particularly acute for kids.

First up, though.

In the early days of the Internet, a philosophy grew up that it should be free, open, and democratic. I declare the global social space we are building

to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.

You have no moral right to rule us,

nor do you possess any methods of enforcement. We have true reason

to fear.

That was John Perry Barlow, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which from 1990 called

for civil liberties in the digital world, for the nascent internet to be borderless and unregulated.

He was one of what came to be known as techno-libertarians. Their ideas gained considerable traction.

In the new century, liberty will spread by cell phone and cable motor. In the past year,

the number of internet addresses in China has more than quadruple from 2 million to 9 million.

...