Indian cities are undergoing an inequality trend as a result of economic liberalisation and globalisation, says the : State of the World’s Cities Report 2008/9 :Harmonious Cities. In 2002, the income gain of the richest 10 per cent of the population in India was about four times higher than that of the poorest 10 per cent, adds the report, released on Thursday by UN-HABITAT. This, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, is the U.N. agency for human settlements.
The report puts the current ecological footprint of humanity as 2.2 hectares per person, while the earth’s biocapacity remains at 1.8 ha. China and India have ecological footprints that are twice their biocapacity. In other words, what the population consumes in a year, their area of earth will take two years to produce. Other challenges facing cities are mobility, waste management and environment. The report says a number of cities in Asia have a high rate of car ownership. In this context, it cites the World Health Organisation’s estimates that more than a billion people in Asia are exposed to air pollution levels that exceed its guidelines. more
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Global crisis threatens to undo all UN’s work: Ban Ki-moon
| Global crisis threatens to undo all UN’s work: Ban |
| UNITED NATIONS (Agencies): UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned his top lieutenants on Friday that the global financial crisis jeopardized everything the United Nations has done to help the world’s poor and hungry. “It threatens to undermine all our achievements and all our progress,” Ban told a meeting of UN agency chiefs devoted to the crisis. “Our progress in eradicating poverty and disease. Our efforts to fight climate change and promote development. To ensure that people have enough to eat.” At a meeting also attended by the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Ban said the credit crunch that has stunned markets worldwide compounded the food crisis, the energy crisis and Africa’s development crisis. “It could be the final blow that many of the poorest of the world’s poor simply cannot survive,” he added, in one of his bleakest assessments of the impact of the financial turmoil. In a statement after the meeting, Ban picked up a theme he has stressed since the crisis erupted last month, that it should not be allowed to hit hardest “those least responsible” the poor in developing countries. more |
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
End of the end of history? by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Hindustan Times Wed,22 Oct 2008
A third-generation Japanese American, Francis Fukuyama obtained his Ph.D from Harvard University where he studied with Samuel P. Huntington (of the ‘clash of civilisations’ infame) and was affiliated with at least one educational enterprise that was associated with Paul Wolfowitz (former World Bank head). A vociferous supporter of the Bush government’s Iraq policy, after 9/11, he suggested that the US “capture or kill Osama bin Laden” and “provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition” for removing Saddam Hussein from power “even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack”.
Fukuyama became a cult figure as a right-wing intellectual when he authored The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world deciding that liberal democracy was the best and only form of governance in the aftermath of the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early-1990s.
He famously wrote: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-War history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
From 2002 onwards, there were discernible changes in the way the professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies viewed the world. He distanced himself from the Bush administration’s policies of unilateral armed intervention in West Asia and even called for the resignation of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He voted against Bush in 2004 and criticised his government for “over-estimating” the threat from radical Islam and its negative attitude towards the UN.
In his 2006 book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy, Fukuyama argued that the US needed to gain a better understanding of political and economic developments in different countries and that military intervention should be used only as a last resort. In an essay that year for the New York Times Magazine, he wrote that “neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support” and even compared it to a strain of ideology that he is bitterly opposed to, namely, the views of Vladimir Lenin.
The wheel has now turned full circle. Fukuyama hasn’t exactly become a socialist but what he stated in the October 13 issue of Newsweek in an article entitled The Fall of America, Inc. could well have been written by a firm believer in analyses of Karl Marx. An excerpt: “Globally the United States will not enjoy the hegemonic position it has occupied until now…America’s ability to shape the world through trade pacts and the IMF and World Bank will be diminished, as will (its) financial resources. And in many parts of the world, American ideas, advice and even aid will be less welcome than they are now.”
Are we witnessing the beginning of a new history now that international capitalism is going through arguably its worst-ever crisis? read it all
A third-generation Japanese American, Francis Fukuyama obtained his Ph.D from Harvard University where he studied with Samuel P. Huntington (of the ‘clash of civilisations’ infame) and was affiliated with at least one educational enterprise that was associated with Paul Wolfowitz (former World Bank head). A vociferous supporter of the Bush government’s Iraq policy, after 9/11, he suggested that the US “capture or kill Osama bin Laden” and “provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition” for removing Saddam Hussein from power “even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack”.
Fukuyama became a cult figure as a right-wing intellectual when he authored The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world deciding that liberal democracy was the best and only form of governance in the aftermath of the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early-1990s.
He famously wrote: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-War history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
From 2002 onwards, there were discernible changes in the way the professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies viewed the world. He distanced himself from the Bush administration’s policies of unilateral armed intervention in West Asia and even called for the resignation of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He voted against Bush in 2004 and criticised his government for “over-estimating” the threat from radical Islam and its negative attitude towards the UN.
In his 2006 book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy, Fukuyama argued that the US needed to gain a better understanding of political and economic developments in different countries and that military intervention should be used only as a last resort. In an essay that year for the New York Times Magazine, he wrote that “neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support” and even compared it to a strain of ideology that he is bitterly opposed to, namely, the views of Vladimir Lenin.
The wheel has now turned full circle. Fukuyama hasn’t exactly become a socialist but what he stated in the October 13 issue of Newsweek in an article entitled The Fall of America, Inc. could well have been written by a firm believer in analyses of Karl Marx. An excerpt: “Globally the United States will not enjoy the hegemonic position it has occupied until now…America’s ability to shape the world through trade pacts and the IMF and World Bank will be diminished, as will (its) financial resources. And in many parts of the world, American ideas, advice and even aid will be less welcome than they are now.”
Are we witnessing the beginning of a new history now that international capitalism is going through arguably its worst-ever crisis? read it all
Europe wants new global financial order -by Andrei Fedyashin
The Hindu Wednesday, Oct 22, 2008 Opinion - News Analysis
America is losing Bretton Woods, the global financial system formed at the U.N. Monetary and Financial Conference, commonly known as the Bretton Woods conference. In July 1944, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to regulate the intern
.............
A Camp David meeting would have been utterly boring and unpleasant for the Americans, if not for Mr. Sarkozy’s compatriot, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Shortly before the Camp David meeting, newspapers reported that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had an affair with Piroska Nagy, an employee of the IMF’s African department.
According to Times Online, the case began in January when Mario Blejer, a senior Argentine-born economist, alleged that Piroska Nagy, his wife, had been seduced by her boss at the Davos international forum.
When their transgression was uncovered, Mr. Strauss-Kahn allegedly helped transfer the Hungarian to a post in London at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The financial official’s romantic fling, which would have gone unnoticed in France, has made breaking news in the U.S. Some say it was done on purpose. British newspapers write that Paris knew about the romantic troubles of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who was living up to his old name as un grand seducteur. Some politicians say “the case had been leaked to the U.S. media to undermine the French effort” because Mr. Sarkozy has been working with Mr. Strauss-Kahn “to form a new Bretton Woods pact on financial regulation.”
Mr. Sarkozy was reportedly furious because Paris had hoped no news would break until Mr. Strauss-Kahn was cleared later this month. Allies of Mr. Strauss-Kahn and some commentators dismissed the affair as another episode of hysteria by puritanical U.S. institutions. However, even Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s indiscretion cannot seriously influence the current situation. Europe has snatched the initiative of creating a new global financial order from the U.S. and Mr. Bush. The U.S. will be part of the new order but it will not play first violin in the new financial orchestra. And Mr. Bush will leave the White House as a man who attended the burial of the Bretton Woods system.
Challenging task
Those who have undertaken the creation of a new financial system face a challenging task. The trouble is that nobody, not Mr. Sarkozy, nor the EU, China or Japan, knows what it should look like, as proposals and ideas refuse to merge into a clear picture.
Everyone knows that the old system is not good. It is rooted in the greediness of banks and their clients, which cannot be eradicated overnight, and in the mystical belief in a markets’ talent for self-regulation. It is also known that to change this system the world must toughen control over global currency and finances and introduce state regulation of the economy, banks, exchanges, dealers, loans, etc.
Everyone knows that the global currency and financial organism cannot function properly without clearly defined rules, but nobody knows what the new model should be.
read it all
America is losing Bretton Woods, the global financial system formed at the U.N. Monetary and Financial Conference, commonly known as the Bretton Woods conference. In July 1944, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to regulate the intern
.............
A Camp David meeting would have been utterly boring and unpleasant for the Americans, if not for Mr. Sarkozy’s compatriot, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Shortly before the Camp David meeting, newspapers reported that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had an affair with Piroska Nagy, an employee of the IMF’s African department.
According to Times Online, the case began in January when Mario Blejer, a senior Argentine-born economist, alleged that Piroska Nagy, his wife, had been seduced by her boss at the Davos international forum.
When their transgression was uncovered, Mr. Strauss-Kahn allegedly helped transfer the Hungarian to a post in London at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The financial official’s romantic fling, which would have gone unnoticed in France, has made breaking news in the U.S. Some say it was done on purpose. British newspapers write that Paris knew about the romantic troubles of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who was living up to his old name as un grand seducteur. Some politicians say “the case had been leaked to the U.S. media to undermine the French effort” because Mr. Sarkozy has been working with Mr. Strauss-Kahn “to form a new Bretton Woods pact on financial regulation.”
Mr. Sarkozy was reportedly furious because Paris had hoped no news would break until Mr. Strauss-Kahn was cleared later this month. Allies of Mr. Strauss-Kahn and some commentators dismissed the affair as another episode of hysteria by puritanical U.S. institutions. However, even Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s indiscretion cannot seriously influence the current situation. Europe has snatched the initiative of creating a new global financial order from the U.S. and Mr. Bush. The U.S. will be part of the new order but it will not play first violin in the new financial orchestra. And Mr. Bush will leave the White House as a man who attended the burial of the Bretton Woods system.
Challenging task
Those who have undertaken the creation of a new financial system face a challenging task. The trouble is that nobody, not Mr. Sarkozy, nor the EU, China or Japan, knows what it should look like, as proposals and ideas refuse to merge into a clear picture.
Everyone knows that the old system is not good. It is rooted in the greediness of banks and their clients, which cannot be eradicated overnight, and in the mystical belief in a markets’ talent for self-regulation. It is also known that to change this system the world must toughen control over global currency and finances and introduce state regulation of the economy, banks, exchanges, dealers, loans, etc.
Everyone knows that the global currency and financial organism cannot function properly without clearly defined rules, but nobody knows what the new model should be.
read it all
Monday, October 20, 2008
Tribals protest against Arcelor Mittal plant in Jharkhand
Yahoo News
Mon, Oct 20 02:44 PM
By Nityanand Shukla
RANCHI (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in Jharkhand on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands.
Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands.
The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years.
The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town.
But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project.
"We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land."
A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers.Tribals protest against Arcelor Mittal plant in Jharkhand
Mon, Oct 20 02:44 PM
By Nityanand Shukla
RANCHI (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in Jharkhand on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands.
Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands.
The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years.
The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town.
But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project.
"We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land."
A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers.Tribals protest against Arcelor Mittal plant in Jharkhand
Mon, Oct 20 02:44 PM
By Nityanand Shukla
RANCHI (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in Jharkhand on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands.
Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands.
The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years.
The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town.
But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project.
"We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land."
A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers. more
Mon, Oct 20 02:44 PM
By Nityanand Shukla
RANCHI (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in Jharkhand on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands.
Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands.
The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years.
The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town.
But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project.
"We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land."
A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers.Tribals protest against Arcelor Mittal plant in Jharkhand
Mon, Oct 20 02:44 PM
By Nityanand Shukla
RANCHI (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in Jharkhand on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands.
Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands.
The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years.
The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town.
But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project.
"We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land."
A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers.Tribals protest against Arcelor Mittal plant in Jharkhand
Mon, Oct 20 02:44 PM
By Nityanand Shukla
RANCHI (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in Jharkhand on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands.
Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands.
The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years.
The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town.
But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project.
"We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land."
A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers. more
Saturday, October 18, 2008
No takers for the physically challneged employment scheme
The government scheme - which pledges contribution of upto 12% of the salary of an employee on behalf of the employer - has failed to find any takers with the FM saying that in the first six months, not a single employer had registered with the EPFO or the ESIC to avail the benefits.
In his Budget speech this year, the FM had said that under the plan, the government would pay the employers' contribution towards provident fund and ESI scheme for each disabled person employed in the private sector. Chidambaram had even made a provision of Rs 1,800 crore for the welfare programme.
read it all
In his Budget speech this year, the FM had said that under the plan, the government would pay the employers' contribution towards provident fund and ESI scheme for each disabled person employed in the private sector. Chidambaram had even made a provision of Rs 1,800 crore for the welfare programme.
read it all
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Bush critic Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize in Economics
American Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize in Economics
13 Oct 2008, 1952 hrs IST,AFP
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
STOCKHOLM: US economist Paul Krugman, a fierce critic of George W. Bush's handling of the global financial crisis, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Eco
An undated handout photo shows US economist Paul Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel Economics Prize. (AFP Photo)
nomics. ( Watch )
Krugman has taken the Bush administration to task over the current financial meltdown, blaming its pursuit of deregulation and unencumbered fiscal policies for the financial crisis that has threatened the global economy with recession.
He has come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican candidate is ``more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago'' and earlier that the GOP has become ``the party of stupid.''
The 55-year-old Princeton University professor has worked intensely on the impact of free trade and globalisation, as well as the driving forces behind urbanisation, the Nobel citation said.
The financial turmoil that has sent shares crashing has cast a shadow over this year's prize and after his triumph, Krugman said he was "extremely terrified" by the crisis, Sweden's TT news agency reported. more
13 Oct 2008, 1952 hrs IST,AFP
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
STOCKHOLM: US economist Paul Krugman, a fierce critic of George W. Bush's handling of the global financial crisis, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Eco
An undated handout photo shows US economist Paul Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel Economics Prize. (AFP Photo)
nomics. ( Watch )
Krugman has taken the Bush administration to task over the current financial meltdown, blaming its pursuit of deregulation and unencumbered fiscal policies for the financial crisis that has threatened the global economy with recession.
He has come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican candidate is ``more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago'' and earlier that the GOP has become ``the party of stupid.''
The 55-year-old Princeton University professor has worked intensely on the impact of free trade and globalisation, as well as the driving forces behind urbanisation, the Nobel citation said.
The financial turmoil that has sent shares crashing has cast a shadow over this year's prize and after his triumph, Krugman said he was "extremely terrified" by the crisis, Sweden's TT news agency reported. more
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Neel Kashkari to oversee $700bn bailout
Indian American to oversee $700bn bailout
rediff news
October 06, 2008
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to appoint Neel Kashkari as the interim head for its new Office of Financial Stability to oversee the $700-billion bailout programme, a media report said.
Indian origin Kashkari, a Treasury assistant secretary for international affairs, is the key adviser on whom Paulson has come to rely on during the financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Paulson is now seeking Kashkari's help to oversee Treasury's $700-billion programme to buy distressed assets from financial institutions, the report said.
The position is interim and pending for the Senate confirmation. It is unlikely the Senate would take a call on the matter before the November elections, the report added.
Kashkari, who was one of the originator of the bailout plan, was part of the Treasury team that negotiated the asset-repurchase programme with Congress. Now, he would oversee some key decisions on how the rescue programme would operate.
Congress has given Treasury the authority to start buying assets, but choices like which asset managers to hire, which securities to purchase and how, still remain, the report said.
Kashkari originally trained as an aerospace engineer and worked on developing technology for NASA before earning an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker spent much of his tenure at Treasury helping Paulson tackle the fallout of the housing meltdown. more
rediff news
October 06, 2008
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to appoint Neel Kashkari as the interim head for its new Office of Financial Stability to oversee the $700-billion bailout programme, a media report said.
Indian origin Kashkari, a Treasury assistant secretary for international affairs, is the key adviser on whom Paulson has come to rely on during the financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Paulson is now seeking Kashkari's help to oversee Treasury's $700-billion programme to buy distressed assets from financial institutions, the report said.
The position is interim and pending for the Senate confirmation. It is unlikely the Senate would take a call on the matter before the November elections, the report added.
Kashkari, who was one of the originator of the bailout plan, was part of the Treasury team that negotiated the asset-repurchase programme with Congress. Now, he would oversee some key decisions on how the rescue programme would operate.
Congress has given Treasury the authority to start buying assets, but choices like which asset managers to hire, which securities to purchase and how, still remain, the report said.
Kashkari originally trained as an aerospace engineer and worked on developing technology for NASA before earning an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker spent much of his tenure at Treasury helping Paulson tackle the fallout of the housing meltdown. more
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
More than religious it is socio-economic reasons that triggered Kandhamal violence
On Kandhamal, M Venkaiah Naidu, former BJP President, said: ``The incidents have to be viewed in totality. The area is inhabited by the Kandhas, who enjoy the ST status, and the Panas, who have the SC tag. Both are entitled to reservation benefits under the Constitution.
However, as and when large number of the Panas got converted to Christianity, their reservation benefits ceased to operate. However, they wanted the continuance of these benefits even after getting converted and so started demanding ST status for their community.
This was not acceptable to the Kandhas, who want to maintain their traditional faith and have also been resisting conversions,’’ the former BJP president argued.
The Panas, over the years, acquired economic clout and started, through various means, purchasing the land owned by the Kandhas. ``This has been leading socio-economic tensions between the two communities.” read it all
However, as and when large number of the Panas got converted to Christianity, their reservation benefits ceased to operate. However, they wanted the continuance of these benefits even after getting converted and so started demanding ST status for their community.
This was not acceptable to the Kandhas, who want to maintain their traditional faith and have also been resisting conversions,’’ the former BJP president argued.
The Panas, over the years, acquired economic clout and started, through various means, purchasing the land owned by the Kandhas. ``This has been leading socio-economic tensions between the two communities.” read it all
Monday, October 6, 2008
India's ‘mixed’ economy is proves not a bad idea
OP-ED ASian Age October 06, 3008
Global crisis shows our ‘mixed’ economy isn’t such a bad idea
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
At a time when international capitalism is going through an unprecedented crisis, it is worth reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of India’s so-called mixed economy. Our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the country to assimilate the best elements of both capitalism and socialism. More than six decades later, the verdict is almost unanimous: we took the worst of both worlds. But there is more than a silver lining to the dark clouds of recession hovering over the global economy as far as India is concerned — the world’s largest democracy can still show the way to the rest of the world. more
Global crisis shows our ‘mixed’ economy isn’t such a bad idea
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
At a time when international capitalism is going through an unprecedented crisis, it is worth reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of India’s so-called mixed economy. Our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the country to assimilate the best elements of both capitalism and socialism. More than six decades later, the verdict is almost unanimous: we took the worst of both worlds. But there is more than a silver lining to the dark clouds of recession hovering over the global economy as far as India is concerned — the world’s largest democracy can still show the way to the rest of the world. more
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Bad for Wall Street but Good for Democracy, writes Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz
A good day for democracy
Joseph Stiglitz
A sad day for Wall Street but it may be a glorious day for democracy, writes Joseph Stiglitz. Now the U.S. Congress must draw up a plan in which the costs are borne by those who created the problem.
— Photo: AP
Polluter pays: Wall Street has polluted the U.S. economy with toxic mortgages. It should now pay for the cleanup.
What are we to make of the Congressional rejection of the Paulson proposal? The politics is simple: elections are a rare moment of accountability in our political process and all 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election in a matter of weeks. The Bush administration has lost the confidence of the American people, and so has Wall Street.
Those who created the problem are now the doctors offering the prescriptions. A little while ago, we were told everything was fine. Then, less than six months ago, we were told that the economy was on the mend. Now we are told the patient needs a massive transfusion, but everyone can see that the patient is suffering from internal bleeding; in California, the number of foreclosures may already be outpacing voluntary sales. Yet nothing is being done to stem the haemorrhaging. read it all
Joseph Stiglitz
A sad day for Wall Street but it may be a glorious day for democracy, writes Joseph Stiglitz. Now the U.S. Congress must draw up a plan in which the costs are borne by those who created the problem.
— Photo: AP
Polluter pays: Wall Street has polluted the U.S. economy with toxic mortgages. It should now pay for the cleanup.
What are we to make of the Congressional rejection of the Paulson proposal? The politics is simple: elections are a rare moment of accountability in our political process and all 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election in a matter of weeks. The Bush administration has lost the confidence of the American people, and so has Wall Street.
Those who created the problem are now the doctors offering the prescriptions. A little while ago, we were told everything was fine. Then, less than six months ago, we were told that the economy was on the mend. Now we are told the patient needs a massive transfusion, but everyone can see that the patient is suffering from internal bleeding; in California, the number of foreclosures may already be outpacing voluntary sales. Yet nothing is being done to stem the haemorrhaging. read it all
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
World Bank Report explodes the myth of shining India
Sunita Vakil
The latest report of the World Bank on poverty has exposed the myth of growth and development in the country since the economic reforms were introduced. In fact, many critics long before the report came, believed that the number of poor have increased since the reforms that have helped raise the number of billionaires. There is urgent need to redress this for poverty is the mother of all crimes and ailments.
The World Bank’s latest poverty data is a telling reflection of India’s poor anti-poverty infrastructure.
There is really nothing incredible or shinning about the latest World Bank Report that points a very dismal picture of the nation’s state of poverty. Though there is a surge in the number of Indian billionaires every year in the Forbes list, the very fact that even after a decade of economic reforms India is still home to the world’s largest number of poor, should be a sobering thought. According to the new World Bank statistics, about 456 million people in India that translates to roughly 42% of the population are living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 per day. And, this despite the fact that the country has entered its seventh decade as a sovereign nation. Read more
The latest report of the World Bank on poverty has exposed the myth of growth and development in the country since the economic reforms were introduced. In fact, many critics long before the report came, believed that the number of poor have increased since the reforms that have helped raise the number of billionaires. There is urgent need to redress this for poverty is the mother of all crimes and ailments.
The World Bank’s latest poverty data is a telling reflection of India’s poor anti-poverty infrastructure.
There is really nothing incredible or shinning about the latest World Bank Report that points a very dismal picture of the nation’s state of poverty. Though there is a surge in the number of Indian billionaires every year in the Forbes list, the very fact that even after a decade of economic reforms India is still home to the world’s largest number of poor, should be a sobering thought. According to the new World Bank statistics, about 456 million people in India that translates to roughly 42% of the population are living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 per day. And, this despite the fact that the country has entered its seventh decade as a sovereign nation. Read more
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