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[1] From: rkurian@bgl.vsnl.net.in Date: Thu Feb 16, 2006 Subject: Plight of the Poor....Deccan Herald http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb162006/editpage1524442006215.asp Deccan Herald COMMENT Plight of the poor Who is to blame? By Alok Ray There is no point in blaming the markets for the abysmal quality of public services available for the poor Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen fears that if the current trends continue one half of India would be like California and the other half like sub-Saharan Africa. More radical critics even go to the extent of suggesting that at best 10 per cent of India would be like California while the remaining 90 per cent would be reduced to sub-Saharan Africa. But who is to be blamed for this state of affairs? The leftist critics put the blame squarely on liberalisation/globalisation for the plight of the poor in India. Is the critique justified? Or is the state, rather than the market, the principal villain here? The truth is: even before liberalisation efforts replaced the old style central planning in India, India??™s performance in either growth or poverty reduction was nothing to write home about. The problem with the Indian government was that it was doing too much and too little at the same time. Too much in areas where the private sector could do the job equally well, if not better. Public sector units were producing goods from bread to scooters to cars, in many cases by making losses. Too little in areas like developing and maintaining physical (roads, transport, communication) and social (basic education, health services, sanitation, drinking water, social safety net) infrastructure and providing a responsive administrative system and speedy justice for all. The people who suffered most were the poor and the underprivileged. The market would bypass them as they do not have the buying power. The government machinery was either ineffective or corrupt or it was busy looking after the affluent and the well-connected. For instance, food grains were rotting in FCI godowns while people died of starvation in remote areas. Public money was used to create rural roads that got washed away by the rains. Mostly the contractors, local officials and various middlemen prospered at the expense of the intended beneficiaries. Subsidies (on fertilisers, higher education, bank finance, electricity), meant for the poor, were largely usurped by rich farmers, affluent parents and well connected industrialists. The quality of services in public hospitals was awful for the poor patients while the influential people could get far better treatment in special wards. Growth rate improved In the post-liberalisation era, the average growth rate of the economy has improved. But the condition of the poor continues to be as miserable as before. In fact, for the people below poverty line, the extent of liberalisation/globalisation is far less relevant than what the government is doing. Their major concerns are that food grains do not reach the ration shops in remote areas (even when FCI godowns are bursting at the seams), they do not get proper treatment at government hospitals due to acute shortage of beds and medicines, the local primary school teacher is mostly absent and does not teach even when he is there, many of the villages have not yet seen electricity and so on. All these have nothing to do with liberalisation or efficiency of markets. These are the areas of government failure. No point in blaming the World Bank, the IMF or markets for the abysmal quality of public services available for the masses in India. Basically, liberalisation and markets have increased the scope of opportunities. But one needs to have a marketable skill or asset to convert these opportunities into income. The basic problem of the poor is that they either do not have the necessary skills or products to sell or they are so distant from the market that they cannot profitably access the markets. The solution lies in entitling the poor people to land and other resources, including education, and improving the connectivity of villages to the markets through better roads, transport, communication, rural electrification, refrigeration and storage facilities and information about prices in alternative markets. The small farmers, self-employed and small enterprises need to have timely access to finance at affordable rates of interest and insurance for crop and business failures. In addition, the poor people need a social safety net to take care of them when they are out of work or old or sick. In short, India??™s problem is not too much reliance on markets or globalisation. Rather, the problem lies in too little role of government in areas ??” like land reforms, provision of universal basic education and health services, subsidised food and housing to the poor and development of basic infrastructure, specially in rural areas ??” where only the government can deliver. This failure on the part of the state has inhibited the build-up of capacity by a large majority to make use of market opportunities. Markets are not the problem ??” they are part of the solution but only a part. Markets need to be supplemented by an active and effective state to help build capacity to exploit the opportunities. The poor in India can justifiably hold the state responsible for their sub-Saharan existence even after nearly six decades in an independent democratic India. ------------------- From: rkurian@bgl.vsnl.net.in Date: Thu Feb 16, 2006 Subject: Millenium Development Goals..Only through Multilateralism http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb162006/editpage1525342006215.asp IN PERSPECTIVE Multilateralism key to growth By Jayalakshmi K It??™s only through multilateralism that India and other developing countries can reach the MDGs Impressive figures keep popping up for the nation??™s economic growth. Optimists are looking at a 10 per cent growth very soon. From being the tenth largest economy today, to reaching the third slot just behind the US and China by 2015, is how the ADB looks at India??™s potential. But are we as a nation doing well? Has the growth translated into a better quality of life for the citizens? Not really. We have seen an increase of 19 million more hungry people in India between 1990 and 2002. The growth has not been sustainable and equitable. Achieving the MDGs How then can we expect to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) agreed upon by nations in 2000 at the Johannesburg summit? Halve the number of poor people between 1990 and 2015, bring down people in extreme hunger, achieve universal primary education, reduce child mortality... Addressing these issues were experts from across the globe at the Energy Research Institute??™s Delhi Sustainable Development Summit during the first week of February. Economists, ministers, CEOs, leaders, NGO activists and policy makers tackled problems ranging from poverty to climate change to energy security and agreed that equity and development are compatible. Everyone agreed that to meet the MDGs there was need to examine connections between the various goals and sustainable development. Poverty and resource management cannot be divorced. Satellite images of Kenya revealed that deforestation exactly matched the rise in poverty. Food and water are linked. So also water and education and so on. A role for partnerships between governments and the private sector in achieving MDGs was sought. The World Bank, realising the wide gap between foreign aid and FDIs, is now seeking to engage the corporate sector in this exercise. Management guru C K Prahalad asked the corporate world to see the five billion poor as a vital ???new market??™ that could play a bigger role in shifting the balance of power from the company to the consumer. Above all is the need to talk to the people at whom the projects are aimed at. Recalling two instances from his experiences, Rajat M Nag, ADB adviser in south-east Asia, noted how in ignoring the people, a big blunder was committed. A bridge was built across a river, on whose two sides were two different nations that adopted the left and right hand side driving respectively. Once the bridge was built, naturally it led to chaos atop! So also the building of a big dam that resulted in the loss of all fish in the river and a loss of livelihoods. Identifying energy and agriculture as two cornerstones of sustainable development, the economic value of environmental protection also was highlighted. The colossal amount of money spent on disaster management arising due to climate change was proof that environment cannot continue to take the low road while development takes the high road. ???Save the Titanic??™ ???We should act now if we wish to save the Titanic. There is no need to melt the glaciers for that,??? quipped Yvo, referring to the planet as the Titanic. The need to act now in realising the MDGs resonated at the DSDS. Climate change is real and it is no more enough to mitigate this but adapt suitable measures. India which stands fourth in the level of its emissions needs to look at technological and policy innovations to change this. The Environmental Sustainability index developed at Yale university places India way below its 1-100 range at 101. Finally, if globalisation has been perceived as the big villain in the skewed economic growth of the world, why not use the powers of the same globalisation to alleviate the problems? As observed by Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, director of Yale Centre for the study of globalisation, and winner of Sustainable Development Leadership Award this year, ???due to political hurdles global solutions to global problems is not forthcoming. Multilateralism is going through the darkest moments but it has to be pursued as an absolute necessity.??? It is only together that we can achieve the MDGs. ---------------- [3] From: "editor@countercurrents.org" <editor@countercurrents.org> Date: Thu Feb 16, 2006 Subject: CC News Letter 16/02-More Photos; More War Crimes Hello Kindly forward this newsletter to your friends and encourage them to join this mailing list. http://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm In Solidarity Binu More Photos; More War Crimes By Mike Whitney http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-whitney160206.htm The photographs illustrate in excruciating detail the commitment to physical coercion that the Bush administration has vigorously defended in its legal memoranda and justified in terms of its war on terrorism. The battered faces and hooded victims of American brutality attest to the shocking inhumanity of the present campaign ----------------------- [4] From: rkurian@bgl.vsnl.net.in Cc: indiathinkersnet@yahoogroups.com Date: Thu Feb 16, 2006 Subject: English a "threat" to the British... http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1417019.cms?headline=English~a~'t\ hreat'~to~British English a 'threat' to British [Thursday, February 16, 2006 10:37:07 amIANS ] LONDON: Thanks to large numbers of English speakers in India and China, British citizens no longer have the traditional advantage in the use of the English language, according to research commissioned by the British Council. In fact, the global dominance of English now poses a threat to Britain's international standing, the research, published Wednesday, states. The study reveals that as the number of people around the world who speak English nears two billion, the advantage traditionally enjoyed by British citizens is disappearing, with millions of students in other countries speaking English and at least one other language. The report's author, David Graddol, says British students should be encouraged to learn Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic - languages of the future - if they want to keep up with international competitors. "This trend has major implications for the UK where many people do not speak another language with any great proficiency. When we are in competition economically, educationally or culturally, conversing in English alone is no longer enough," he told The Guardian. The report found that English is not taught as a foreign language in many countries, including China and India, where is seen as a basic universal skill. In China, 60 per cent of primary school children learn English and more people in India and China speak the language fluently than anywhere else in the world, the report added. The newspaper reported that Digby Jones, director of the Confederation of British Industry, had repeatedly called for more students to study foreign languages to improve competitiveness. The British Council said the report was a "call to action for the UK". "In terms of dealing with the future that Graddol predicts we've already kick-started Mandarin teaching in the UK and have pioneered programmes to encourage language learning and student/teacher exchanges both in Europe and the Arab world and further afield," said John Whitehead of the British Council. "It is absolutely essential for British children to learn other languages and we will be working hard to put further ------------ [5] From: Parvez Jamasji <parvez1942@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Feb 16, 2006 Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] Cartoons and the "Street Arab". After a long time I read such an interesting post, forwarding it to friends PRJ I. K. Shukla@yahoo.com wrote: CARTOONS AND THE ???STREET ARAB??? I.Shukla And then the US launched its wars. One of the major disconnects in the present conflict is the way in which European and American analysis obsesses with --------- (6) From: "Aditya Mishra" <hindu.skeptic@gmail.com> Date: Thu Feb 16, 2006 Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] Cartoons and the "Street Arab". NO, it is not too difficult to understand because the strategy of calling one's enemy as barbaric is nothing new specially for Hindus. The king of Lanka was called a terrorist and demon even though he did not attack any one in Ram's kingdom. He did not even molest Ram's wife when he had her kidnapped as a retaliation for brutal disfigurement of his sister who had become infatuated with the white skinned young prince whose father had 3 wives and it would have been quite logical for her to accept the position of a cowife. He respected Sita as much as he respected his own sister. Ram sent his missile Hanuman to burn the entire kingdom of Lanka in which mostly civilians were the victims. And the Hindus still worship Ram more than the American worship Bush. Of course Mohammad also encouraged his followers to kill infidels only because they did not accept his self proclaimed messiahood. ----- Original Message ----- From: <I. K. Shukla> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 Subject: [indiathinkersnet] Cartoons and the "Street Arab". > CARTOONS AND THE "STREET ARAB" > I.Shukla > > And then the US launched its wars. One of the major disconnects in the > present conflict is the way in which European and American analysis > obsesses with the apparently anarchic ---------- |
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