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
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Jamshedpur - India's only city where you can drink water straight from the tap
Sunday,28 September 2008 17:38 hrs IST
Drink straight from tap, thanks to Tata
Jamshedpur: This could be India's only city where you can drink water straight from the tap, thanks to the local utility. Ask oil mill owner Manoj Singh, who has paid Rs.10,500 for a connection - a month's income - but doesn't regret a single paisa.
Singh has found no cause for complaint since his working class neighbourhood Shastri Nagar, just outside the township, was connected to the JUSCO network last November.
"Yes, I paid a lot of money for the connection," Manoj Singh said. "But it has been worth it. Now the women do not have to go and queue up for hours to fetch drinking water. We get clean water in our taps, 24 hours a day. Where else in this country will you get that?"
...more
Drink straight from tap, thanks to Tata
Jamshedpur: This could be India's only city where you can drink water straight from the tap, thanks to the local utility. Ask oil mill owner Manoj Singh, who has paid Rs.10,500 for a connection - a month's income - but doesn't regret a single paisa.
Singh has found no cause for complaint since his working class neighbourhood Shastri Nagar, just outside the township, was connected to the JUSCO network last November.
"Yes, I paid a lot of money for the connection," Manoj Singh said. "But it has been worth it. Now the women do not have to go and queue up for hours to fetch drinking water. We get clean water in our taps, 24 hours a day. Where else in this country will you get that?"
...more
Friday, September 26, 2008
Marx was Right: Archbishop Rowan Williams
Fundamentalism is a religious word, not inappropriate to the nature of the problem. Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that, if about little else. And ascribing independent reality to what you have in fact made yourself is a perfect definition of what the Jewish and Christian Scriptures call idolatry. What the present anxieties and disasters should be teaching us is to ‘keep ourselves from idols’, in the biblical phrase. The mythologies and abstractions, the pseudo-objects of much modern financial culture, are in urgent need of their own Dawkins or Hitchens. We need to be reacquainted with our own capacity to choose — which means acquiring some skills in discerning true faith from false, and re-learning some of the inescapable face-to-face dimensions of human trust.
Read it all
Read it all
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Globalization: A Neocolonial Dream
Gurukul Theological College and Research Institute, Chennai,
Globalization: A Neocolonial Dream (Working paper . Dr. T. Jacob Thomas 1.8..2003).
:
Globalization is a violent system, imposed and maintained through use of violence -Vandana Shiva.
The International Monetary Fund defines globalization as "a historical process" involving "the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows" ("Globalization: Threat or Opportunity?" IMF, January 2002). The very word "integration" is derived from "integer", meaning one, complete, or whole. Integration is the act of combining into one whole. It follows that in order to be competitive the productive plant of each country would be torn out of their national context (dis-integrated), in order to be re-integrated into the new whole, the globalized economy. The emergence of World Trade Organization is just a beginning of convergence of global regulatory mechanism of newer genre. There has been multilateral agreements earlier also like on environment and labour. What differentiates the WTO and new genre of multilateral institutions is their formidable capability to influence trade of a particular country; their verdicts could scare away the investors and the global financial institutions from a particular country at a lightening speed. The boundaries between domestic matters and global affairs became increasingly blurred. Whereas the impact of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)- the predecessor of WTO, has been confined to international trade, the impact of WTO agreements is of pervasive all the factors of trade - domestic, international, regional, as well as global.
In practice, this has meant that the governments of the advanced capitalist countries, along with the I.M.F., the World Bank, and the W.T.O., have increasingly sought to force other nations to adopt market economies, privatize public companies and resources, abandon labor and environmental regulations, reduce social services, and embrace "free trade" and the free movement of transnational capital. As William Pfaff points out ("The West's Globalization Drive is Proving a Massive Failure," International Herald Tribune, Sept. 29, 2000), globalization is "the aggressive program for the imposition of Western norms of national economic management, economic deregulation and market opening, and facilitating takeovers of indigenous industries and agriculture by multinational companies." I.M.F. officials argue, "Globalization offers extensive opportunities for truly worldwide development." From their perspective, the increasing global integration of national economies holds great promise because "Markets promote efficiency through competition and the division of labor...." However, the I.M.F. itself concedes, "Markets do not necessarily ensure that the benefits of increased efficiency are shared by all."
John Cavanagh provides a much more critical perspective on globalization. For him and the other authors of a report by the Alternatives Committee of the International Forum on Globalization ("A Better World is Possible: Alternatives to Economic Globalization," Spring 2002), "corporate-led globalization" and the "unrestricted movement of capital" generates enormous profits for transnational corporations but produces significant economic, social, and political harms for the majority of nations and peoples. This report finds that global well-being is threatened by the conversion of national economies to export-oriented production, the increasing concentration of corporate wealth, and the decreasing regulation of corporate behavior. The report also strongly criticizes the "undermining" of national social and environmental programs, the "privatization and commodification" of public services, the erosion of "traditional powers and policies of democratic nation-states and local communities," the "unrestricted exploitation of the planet's resources," the promotion of "unbridled consumerism," and "global cultural homogenization."
Another economist, Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, challenges the claim that globalization has produced economic progress for most countries. Drawing on extensive research that he and colleagues at the C.E.P.R. have done, Weisbrot points out, that the "past twenty years have been an abject failure for most countries." ("The Mirage of Progress," The American Prospect, Jan. 1, 2002). As Weisbrot and his colleagues document, the overwhelming majority of countries have actually experienced significant declines in economic growth rates, increased child mortality, and reduced progress in life expectancy as well as public spending on education (Mark Weisbrot, et al., "The Scorecard on Globalization, 1980-2000: Twenty Years of Diminished Progress," July 11, 2001). In addition, as Cavanagh and his coauthors note, "The undermining of small-scale, diversified, self-reliant, community-based agricultural systems, and their replacement by corporate-run, export-oriented monocultures" is "a major contributing factor to global environmental devastation."
World Bank and Associates in India : some examples of exploitation
India joined the World Bank in 1944 and is the Bank's largest borrower: more than US$47 billion as of June 2000 in market-based loans. India began massive borrowing from the World Bank in 1991 and was forced to accept conditions that included cuts in social spending, privatization of natural resources and agriculture, and free trade to allow multinational corporations to compete against local businesses. The World Bank has funded US$96.8 million in shrimp farming in India. Over 80,000 hectares of land have been converted to shrimp farming. It was initially claimed that shrimp culture creates employment. However, less than 10 people were required to work one-hectare and it was mostly children who were hired as ‘feed boys’ One estimate in the late 1990s showed that while annual revenue through shrimp exports in Tamil Nadu was US$868 million, but, the economic loss in terms of lost livelihood in the traditional activities of fishing and farming, as well as environmental destruction, was more than US$1.38 billion Large-scale shrimp farming uses a wide variety of pesticides, many with links to cancer and genetic damage. Orissa was the first state in India to privatize water, power, and agricultural sectors after a World Bank loan of USUS$350 million in 1996. Fewer than 20% of people living in rural Orissa have electricity access since rates have gone up by 500% after privatization. The development of coal mining industries has had the most significant impact. Greenhouse gas emissions skyrocket as Orissa's coal-fired power plants will be emitting 164 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually by the year 2005. Active resettlement programs displace many people without being given comparable land or even fair compensation. Dead rivers carry toxic effluent and coal ash through villages where people still rely on the blackened water for drinking, bathing and irrigation. Water tables have dried up due to mining and industrial pollutants have contaminated groundwater. Cancer, bronchitis, and other lung and skin diseases are soaring. In 1995, scientists found an astonishing 67% of men and 64% of women are suffering from fluorosis, a crippling skeletal disease caused by the inhalation of fluoride fumes and hydrofluoric acid.
Bhopal Gas massacre and the Union Carbide. On the midnight of 2-3 December 1984, over 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide and other gases leaked from a hazardously designed pesticide factory in Bhopal owned by US based multinational Union Carbide Corporation. Over 500,000 men, women and children were exposed to the poison clouds and at least six thousand people died within the first week of the disaster. The current death toll is well over 16,000. Hundreds of thousands of survivors continue to suffer from multi-systemic injuries. Union Carbide has impeded the search for specific lines of treatment for the survivors' illnesses due to withholding of medical information. It has not taken any responsibility for the incident and avoiding Indian court proceedings.
DeBeers. India is the world's biggest diamond and gemstone cutting center, polishing 70% of the global diamond yield and providing 17% of India's export earnings. The major supplier of these diamonds is the Central Selling Organisation (CSO), which is controlled by DeBeers. De Beers is the biggest player in the world diamond trade, controlling the sale of 70% of the world's diamonds. The daily pay for polishing the top part of a diamond is 2 rupees, less than 8 US cents, in 1992. This is below the Indian income tax level. Most of the cutters are not protected by India's Factory Act, which applies only to workplaces employing more than 9 workers. In order to avoid regulations such as minimum wage, owners register every pair of ghantis (a cutting table with three or four workers) as a separate workplace.
Champions of Globalization: Indian Elite
Every successive administration in the last decade has eventually succumbed to the pressures of globalization. It suggests that regardless of how different political formations package their policies in advance of the elections, there is a powerful and very vocal lobby for globalization in India. This is because for some sections of Indian society and the Indian diaspora, globalization has come as something of a bonanza. NRIs look forward to new business opportunities in a globalized India. English-language (or even local language) media outlets who expect globalization to increase advertizing revenues have also been eager supporters of globalization. Globalization has been offering a huge increase in salaries of senior managers, accountants, lawyers and public-relations personnel working for MNCs or their local competitors. For the IT-literate, job opportunities have been plentiful, and there are also opportunities to live and earn abroad. For the English-speaking upper middle-class, this has come as a boon. With greater access to disposable income, the seduction of consumerism becomes hard to resist, and the demand for unrestricted globalization inevitably follows the attraction for new and ever more advanced consumer goods. This new and more prosperous class of Indian consumers associates India's progress with the availability of the latest automobile models and consumer goods. The local availability of imported European cosmetics and fashions, imported drinks and confectioneries - these have all become important to those who have sufficient disposable income to purchase such items.
Globalization has other champions too. Importers have a strong financial interest in a globalized economy. But so do exporters dependent on imported parts and machinery. Industrialists with interests in ports, shipping, international warehousing and other aspects of international trade and commerce may also see globalization as beneficial to their sectors of the economy. Indian industrialists who have so far failed to invest in research and development and are losing the battle for market share are also becoming amenable to globalization in the fond hope of partnering with an MNC that will enable them to stabilize or expand their sinking business ventures.
Globalization and Technology Transfers
If integration is the hall mark of globalization, it has its own defining technologies: computerization, miniaturisation, digitalization, internet….and so on. Recent innovations in science and technology have provided us with a "new set of tools" which greatly increase productivity and efficiency in all areas. Technology has changed the rules of competition, rendering many traditional business strategies and processes obsolete. The change in technology is transforming products, services and markets as well as customers and competition. Advocates of Globalization argue that globalization brings in new technology. But today this has proved to be a dishonest claim. For instance, Coca-Cola and Pepsi were welcomed into the country even though they offered little in terms of new technology. Cosmetic manufacturers and manufacturers of designer label clothes have also brought in little new technology of any consequence. The same can be said of advertising companies and manufacturers of consumer non-durable goods like soap, detergent, toothpaste, cereals etc. And although there has been significant investment in the manufacture of automobiles and consumer goods, the capital equipment and the assembly lines for their production is imported. Little of the design and development work takes place in India. So far, globalization in India has not been tantamount to an all-around technological upgradation of Indian design and manufacturing. All the technology that is developed is owned and marketed by the parent company, and other than the slightly higher than average salaries that accrue to a small minority of Indians working in the sector, few benefits accrue to India as a nation. What is worse is that these companies are provided all manner of perks and privileges to exploit India's intellectual capital. They are given tax breaks and tax write-offs. They are given preferential treatment in the allocation of scarce resources like land, and round-the-clock electricity supply.
In a July 20 Times of India report titled 'IT expert warns against digital divide in country' the author wrote: A leading information technology (IT) expert has cautioned against a "digital divide" in the country and creation of disparities between the IT haves and have-nots. The report quoted M. Anandakrishnan (vice-chairman of the information technology task force of the Tamil Nadu government and the vice-chairman of the Tamil Nadu state council for higher education) as saying: "You cannot have a high-tech facility and have 50,000 people within a few kilometres who don't have any access to computers. Availability of computers in every village did not mean accessibility and accessibility does not mean assimilation. Unless there is 'localisation of content' this technology could not be used by 97 per cent of the population." The article goes on to question the euphoria surrounding the growth of the IT sector and again quotes M. Anandkrishnan: "We speak of 57 per cent growth of the software sector and 100 per cent growth of the hardware sector. We must take into consideration that the figures include hardware and equipment imports. We are talking of someone else's products. We are still dependent on imports, and even now we have to use servers abroad to get to the Net".
.
Advocates of globalization have often made the claim that globalization rather than destroy Indian industry would instead accelerate the growth of new industry and cause India's economy to grow faster. But a detailed analysis of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the last few years indicates that a sizeable portion of this investment has not gone into the creation of new productive capacities. Much of the investment has simply gone into into takeovers of existing Indian enterprises or towards speculative investments in the Indian stock market. Moreover, other than India's "hot" IT companies and select MNCs - the vast majority of Indian stocks have not benefited from such highly volatile FDI flows. Transnational corporations, which control more than 33 per cent of the world's productive assets account for only 5 per cent of the world's direct employment! And although the total as¬sets of the world's 100 largest corporations in¬creased by 288 per cent between 1990 and 1997, the number of people these corporations em¬ployed grew by less than 9 per cent during the same period of tremendous growth. One can well imagine the position now in a period of slow-down or recession
MNCs and 'transparency' and 'ethical practices'
There are numerous instances where multinationals have not only displayed a lack of ethics and 'transparency' but have actually broken the law. On October 2, 1998 Sujay Mehdudia in in his report in the Hindu titled: Large-scale tax evasion by MNCs unearthed. wrote: "Income-Tax officials have alleged that these companies evade taxes with impunity as the tax laws of the country are 'inadequate and ineffective' to deal with such cases." He wrote of multinational giants flouting tax laws knowing very well that they could not be arrested or criminally prosecuted against under the Indian legal system and could get away by paying the tax dues when caught. The article quoted a high-ranking tax officer as saying: "Had the violations taken place in some other country, not only would criminal proceedings have been launched but the people responsible for it would have been put behind bars." The author concluded his article with the statement: " A more recent Hindustan Times report (May 12, 2000) was more specific - it began with the headline: Rs 2100 crore tax evasion by MNCs. Minister of State for Finance V Dhananjaya Kumar in a written reply to a question posed in the Lok Sabha had provided data that indicated that MNCs had evaded Rs 1433.89 crores on income tax, Rs 143.80 crore on central excise duty as well as Rs 535.05 crore on account of import duty payable during last three years. Sony was identified as the biggest evader, and charged with evading over 450 crores. SEDCO Forex International Drilling Co, Swiss-Swedish major Asia Brown Baveri, Hyundai Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, LG, Hawlet Packard and Philips were others implicated in cheating on import duties. Several MNCs had not paid enough central excise duties - including stock market darlings like Hindustan Lever, Procter and Gamble and Nestle. EID Parry, Gillette, Pepsi, Bayer, Novaritis and Carrier Aircon were also named as violators. Asia Satellite Telecom, Sabre Inc, Lucent Technologies, Nokia, Caribjet inc and Allied Signal group had been cited for serious income tax violations. Amadeus Marketing, American Airlines, British Airways, Pan Amsat, Motorola, Ashurst Morris Crisp, Reuters and ABN Amro were also in the list of companies to have evaded income tax.
Squeezing the Public Sector, Reducing Social Spending
There is also an assertion that globalization allows India to allocate scarce capital more efficiently because the Indian government could concentrate on areas that need special attention. But few seem to note that in this decade of globalization, the government has been steadily reducing its ability to fund vital social needs or infra structural needs. Numerous tax breaks have been given to MNCs to set up manufacturing in India. States have competed with each other in offering concessions to MNCs. Maharashtra has huge concessions to Skoda for its automobile plant near Aurangabad, Tamil Nadu offered special incentives to GM to set up it's plant near Chennai. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been competing to attract IT businesses in their state. Even the Central Government has joined in the act. Another condition that international lenders often impose on developing nations is that they must stop supporting their public sector enterprises and allow private and external participation in key sectors of the economy. They also call for a reduction in social spending. These conditions are usually disguised as a matter of improved "efficiency" and controlling "unnecessary budget deficits". This means that budgetary support for investment in key areas such as mining, power generation, railways and telecommunication has to be drastically curtailed. The "Import Lobby" is usually unperturbed by these cuts because they view these cuts as an opportunity to increase their imports. But the consequences for the rest of the population as a whole can be quite disastrous.
With the government refusing to invest in these critical areas, crippling shortages develop in vital aspects of the infrastructure. International companies insist on all manner of tax breaks like extended tax holidays, subsidized land, and "counter-guarantees" before they invest. Even though such concessions go against the spirit of "free market economics" that the international lending agencies trumpet, these concessions are treated as inevitable. Costs escalate in spite of all these hidden concessions. For instance, all the power projects that are demanding counter guarantees will generate electricity at almost double the cost of a BHEL built plant in spite of various concessions that should have reduced the cost-basis of these projects. Private industry, particularly MNCs tend to focus on the major metropolitan areas, concentrating growth in some areas and completely ignoring others. Take the boom in car manufacturing - (something encouraged by all the political parties): it is concentrated in just a few major metropolitan areas. The demand is also restricted to a very narrow elite. (And so far, it has also caused a huge drain in the nation's foreign exchange reserves.) Consider also how the Software Industry is booming in a few towns, while the overwhelming majority of Indians have never seen a computer.
Fighting against Goliath
On January 11, 2000, the KRRS,(The Karnataka State Farmer's Movement) sent an open letter to Mr. Mike Moore, the President of the WTO, quoting a placard that was carried by a protestor on the streets of Seattle which read: "Wicked Trade Organisation." The letter accused the WTO for plundering the biological wealth and traditional knowledge from India. The letter said that the WTO is trying to recolonise the developing world under the garb of free trade. Its patent laws have been designed to facilitate biopiracy from the biodiversity rich countries. Almost 90 per cent of India's estimated 45,000 plant species and 81,000 animal species are already stored illegally in the United States. The struggle against the construction of mega-dams on the River Narmada in India is symbolic of a global struggle for social and environmental justice. The Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP) has been conceived without adequate participation from the people who are going to be affected. The construction and planning of many dams of the NVDP has disrupted the lives of millions of people without just and adequate compensation.
The "Battle of Seattle" in late 1999 marked a new stage in the growing revolt against globalization. Prior to that there were mass demonstrations against globalization in May 1998, when more than seventy thousand people protested against the Group of Eight meeting in Birmingham, England. In June 1999, protests were held in several cities in Europe and North America to coincide with the G8 Economic Summit in Cologne, Germany. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, most notably in London... In India one group directly connected to the international anti-globalization movement is the KRRS, the Karnataka State Farmer's Movement, representing thousands of peasant farmers in the southern state of Karnataka. In recent years, the KRRS has physically dismantled -- with iron bars -- a Cargill seed unit, trashed another office of the same multinational agribusiness, burned Monsanto's field trials of biotech cotton, and trashed a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Bangalore. And so, on November 30, while a state of emergency was declared in Seattle, and various militarized police forces proceeded to brutalize thousands of anti-WTO demonstrators, the KRRS organized its own demonstration in Bangalore. Several thousand farmers, along with their allies, issued a "Quit India" notice to multinational food and biotech conglomerate, Monsanto also on November 30, activists of the NBA organized a 1000-strong non-violent procession in the Narmada Valley "protesting against the anti-human agreements and institutions that are pushing India and the rest of the world into the destructive process of capitalist globalisation." One week earlier, 300 adivasis (indigenous peoples) from the state of Madhya Pradesh stormed the World Bank offices in Delhi.
The KRRS has also been a major component of the People's Global Action against "Free" Trade (PGA) movement, which unites peoples' movements on five continents (including the Zapatistas of southern Mexico and the Landless Peasants' Movement (MST) of Brazil).
The ideology of Social Capital. In his works, Bowling Alone (2000 )and Making Democracy Work (1993) Robert Putnam has turned the useful social relational concept of social capital by James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu into an economic theory. Putnam argued for technocratic solutions to world's illness rejecting controversial politics John Harris (Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital. (2001) And Naomi Klein (Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Globalization Debate,2002) have criticized this ideology as a rhetoric ploy by which the World Bank seeks to present the process of development as purely technocratic processes that have no political content. Richard Davis, Research/Executive Officer Joint Methodist-Presbyterian Public Questions Committee, in his article, "Social Capital: A Critique" (http://www.soicialissues.godzone.net.nz, retrieved on 30.8.03) accuses the idea of social capital to be overly capitalistic. According to authors Bob Edwards and Michael W. Foley,( " Social Capital And Civil Society Beyond Putnam," 1998.), such concepts are liable to be misused and counterproductive if appropriated without giving attention to the circumstances in which forms of capital are created and deployed. The social capital theory of Putnam and endorsed by the End of History fame Francis Fukuyama work with the assumption that a single, global variable ("associational membership") can be taken to predict meaningful differences in social, cultural or human capital. Richard Davis cites what happened in New Zealand when the New Right Government came to power in 1990. It has undertaken legal measures to reduce membership of the trade union and the influence of unions generally. They used the concept of social capital as a means to justify cuts in government spending in the areas of labor benefits, health, education and welfare. Government's involvement in favor of the poor is a barrier to social capital. They demonize the political process and deny the community. Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable in a speech given in August 1996 praised Robert Putnam's theory of social capital and compared it to David Green's notion of "civil society". In his book From Welfare State to Civil Society Green argues for a society in which the government will withdraw from welfare and voluntary associations will take its place by assisting the less fortunate, thus placing the poor at the mercy of the rich. The distorted vision of "social capital", destroys communities with suppressing unions, increasing inequality, reducing social spending and pitting different sectors against each other. Margaret Thatcher's saying characterizes this vision:" There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." (Richard Davis "Social Capital: A Critique" . Similar policies are followed by the BJP government in India, which wants to create the rule of the religious aristocracy of Brahminism by Saffronization and control wealth by privatization by effectively shutting out the poor and the minorities. They find great support from the World Bank and its globalization associates.
Globalization: A Neocolonial Dream (Working paper . Dr. T. Jacob Thomas 1.8..2003).
:
Globalization is a violent system, imposed and maintained through use of violence -Vandana Shiva.
The International Monetary Fund defines globalization as "a historical process" involving "the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows" ("Globalization: Threat or Opportunity?" IMF, January 2002). The very word "integration" is derived from "integer", meaning one, complete, or whole. Integration is the act of combining into one whole. It follows that in order to be competitive the productive plant of each country would be torn out of their national context (dis-integrated), in order to be re-integrated into the new whole, the globalized economy. The emergence of World Trade Organization is just a beginning of convergence of global regulatory mechanism of newer genre. There has been multilateral agreements earlier also like on environment and labour. What differentiates the WTO and new genre of multilateral institutions is their formidable capability to influence trade of a particular country; their verdicts could scare away the investors and the global financial institutions from a particular country at a lightening speed. The boundaries between domestic matters and global affairs became increasingly blurred. Whereas the impact of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)- the predecessor of WTO, has been confined to international trade, the impact of WTO agreements is of pervasive all the factors of trade - domestic, international, regional, as well as global.
In practice, this has meant that the governments of the advanced capitalist countries, along with the I.M.F., the World Bank, and the W.T.O., have increasingly sought to force other nations to adopt market economies, privatize public companies and resources, abandon labor and environmental regulations, reduce social services, and embrace "free trade" and the free movement of transnational capital. As William Pfaff points out ("The West's Globalization Drive is Proving a Massive Failure," International Herald Tribune, Sept. 29, 2000), globalization is "the aggressive program for the imposition of Western norms of national economic management, economic deregulation and market opening, and facilitating takeovers of indigenous industries and agriculture by multinational companies." I.M.F. officials argue, "Globalization offers extensive opportunities for truly worldwide development." From their perspective, the increasing global integration of national economies holds great promise because "Markets promote efficiency through competition and the division of labor...." However, the I.M.F. itself concedes, "Markets do not necessarily ensure that the benefits of increased efficiency are shared by all."
John Cavanagh provides a much more critical perspective on globalization. For him and the other authors of a report by the Alternatives Committee of the International Forum on Globalization ("A Better World is Possible: Alternatives to Economic Globalization," Spring 2002), "corporate-led globalization" and the "unrestricted movement of capital" generates enormous profits for transnational corporations but produces significant economic, social, and political harms for the majority of nations and peoples. This report finds that global well-being is threatened by the conversion of national economies to export-oriented production, the increasing concentration of corporate wealth, and the decreasing regulation of corporate behavior. The report also strongly criticizes the "undermining" of national social and environmental programs, the "privatization and commodification" of public services, the erosion of "traditional powers and policies of democratic nation-states and local communities," the "unrestricted exploitation of the planet's resources," the promotion of "unbridled consumerism," and "global cultural homogenization."
Another economist, Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, challenges the claim that globalization has produced economic progress for most countries. Drawing on extensive research that he and colleagues at the C.E.P.R. have done, Weisbrot points out, that the "past twenty years have been an abject failure for most countries." ("The Mirage of Progress," The American Prospect, Jan. 1, 2002). As Weisbrot and his colleagues document, the overwhelming majority of countries have actually experienced significant declines in economic growth rates, increased child mortality, and reduced progress in life expectancy as well as public spending on education (Mark Weisbrot, et al., "The Scorecard on Globalization, 1980-2000: Twenty Years of Diminished Progress," July 11, 2001). In addition, as Cavanagh and his coauthors note, "The undermining of small-scale, diversified, self-reliant, community-based agricultural systems, and their replacement by corporate-run, export-oriented monocultures" is "a major contributing factor to global environmental devastation."
World Bank and Associates in India : some examples of exploitation
India joined the World Bank in 1944 and is the Bank's largest borrower: more than US$47 billion as of June 2000 in market-based loans. India began massive borrowing from the World Bank in 1991 and was forced to accept conditions that included cuts in social spending, privatization of natural resources and agriculture, and free trade to allow multinational corporations to compete against local businesses. The World Bank has funded US$96.8 million in shrimp farming in India. Over 80,000 hectares of land have been converted to shrimp farming. It was initially claimed that shrimp culture creates employment. However, less than 10 people were required to work one-hectare and it was mostly children who were hired as ‘feed boys’ One estimate in the late 1990s showed that while annual revenue through shrimp exports in Tamil Nadu was US$868 million, but, the economic loss in terms of lost livelihood in the traditional activities of fishing and farming, as well as environmental destruction, was more than US$1.38 billion Large-scale shrimp farming uses a wide variety of pesticides, many with links to cancer and genetic damage. Orissa was the first state in India to privatize water, power, and agricultural sectors after a World Bank loan of USUS$350 million in 1996. Fewer than 20% of people living in rural Orissa have electricity access since rates have gone up by 500% after privatization. The development of coal mining industries has had the most significant impact. Greenhouse gas emissions skyrocket as Orissa's coal-fired power plants will be emitting 164 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually by the year 2005. Active resettlement programs displace many people without being given comparable land or even fair compensation. Dead rivers carry toxic effluent and coal ash through villages where people still rely on the blackened water for drinking, bathing and irrigation. Water tables have dried up due to mining and industrial pollutants have contaminated groundwater. Cancer, bronchitis, and other lung and skin diseases are soaring. In 1995, scientists found an astonishing 67% of men and 64% of women are suffering from fluorosis, a crippling skeletal disease caused by the inhalation of fluoride fumes and hydrofluoric acid.
Bhopal Gas massacre and the Union Carbide. On the midnight of 2-3 December 1984, over 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide and other gases leaked from a hazardously designed pesticide factory in Bhopal owned by US based multinational Union Carbide Corporation. Over 500,000 men, women and children were exposed to the poison clouds and at least six thousand people died within the first week of the disaster. The current death toll is well over 16,000. Hundreds of thousands of survivors continue to suffer from multi-systemic injuries. Union Carbide has impeded the search for specific lines of treatment for the survivors' illnesses due to withholding of medical information. It has not taken any responsibility for the incident and avoiding Indian court proceedings.
DeBeers. India is the world's biggest diamond and gemstone cutting center, polishing 70% of the global diamond yield and providing 17% of India's export earnings. The major supplier of these diamonds is the Central Selling Organisation (CSO), which is controlled by DeBeers. De Beers is the biggest player in the world diamond trade, controlling the sale of 70% of the world's diamonds. The daily pay for polishing the top part of a diamond is 2 rupees, less than 8 US cents, in 1992. This is below the Indian income tax level. Most of the cutters are not protected by India's Factory Act, which applies only to workplaces employing more than 9 workers. In order to avoid regulations such as minimum wage, owners register every pair of ghantis (a cutting table with three or four workers) as a separate workplace.
Champions of Globalization: Indian Elite
Every successive administration in the last decade has eventually succumbed to the pressures of globalization. It suggests that regardless of how different political formations package their policies in advance of the elections, there is a powerful and very vocal lobby for globalization in India. This is because for some sections of Indian society and the Indian diaspora, globalization has come as something of a bonanza. NRIs look forward to new business opportunities in a globalized India. English-language (or even local language) media outlets who expect globalization to increase advertizing revenues have also been eager supporters of globalization. Globalization has been offering a huge increase in salaries of senior managers, accountants, lawyers and public-relations personnel working for MNCs or their local competitors. For the IT-literate, job opportunities have been plentiful, and there are also opportunities to live and earn abroad. For the English-speaking upper middle-class, this has come as a boon. With greater access to disposable income, the seduction of consumerism becomes hard to resist, and the demand for unrestricted globalization inevitably follows the attraction for new and ever more advanced consumer goods. This new and more prosperous class of Indian consumers associates India's progress with the availability of the latest automobile models and consumer goods. The local availability of imported European cosmetics and fashions, imported drinks and confectioneries - these have all become important to those who have sufficient disposable income to purchase such items.
Globalization has other champions too. Importers have a strong financial interest in a globalized economy. But so do exporters dependent on imported parts and machinery. Industrialists with interests in ports, shipping, international warehousing and other aspects of international trade and commerce may also see globalization as beneficial to their sectors of the economy. Indian industrialists who have so far failed to invest in research and development and are losing the battle for market share are also becoming amenable to globalization in the fond hope of partnering with an MNC that will enable them to stabilize or expand their sinking business ventures.
Globalization and Technology Transfers
If integration is the hall mark of globalization, it has its own defining technologies: computerization, miniaturisation, digitalization, internet….and so on. Recent innovations in science and technology have provided us with a "new set of tools" which greatly increase productivity and efficiency in all areas. Technology has changed the rules of competition, rendering many traditional business strategies and processes obsolete. The change in technology is transforming products, services and markets as well as customers and competition. Advocates of Globalization argue that globalization brings in new technology. But today this has proved to be a dishonest claim. For instance, Coca-Cola and Pepsi were welcomed into the country even though they offered little in terms of new technology. Cosmetic manufacturers and manufacturers of designer label clothes have also brought in little new technology of any consequence. The same can be said of advertising companies and manufacturers of consumer non-durable goods like soap, detergent, toothpaste, cereals etc. And although there has been significant investment in the manufacture of automobiles and consumer goods, the capital equipment and the assembly lines for their production is imported. Little of the design and development work takes place in India. So far, globalization in India has not been tantamount to an all-around technological upgradation of Indian design and manufacturing. All the technology that is developed is owned and marketed by the parent company, and other than the slightly higher than average salaries that accrue to a small minority of Indians working in the sector, few benefits accrue to India as a nation. What is worse is that these companies are provided all manner of perks and privileges to exploit India's intellectual capital. They are given tax breaks and tax write-offs. They are given preferential treatment in the allocation of scarce resources like land, and round-the-clock electricity supply.
In a July 20 Times of India report titled 'IT expert warns against digital divide in country' the author wrote: A leading information technology (IT) expert has cautioned against a "digital divide" in the country and creation of disparities between the IT haves and have-nots. The report quoted M. Anandakrishnan (vice-chairman of the information technology task force of the Tamil Nadu government and the vice-chairman of the Tamil Nadu state council for higher education) as saying: "You cannot have a high-tech facility and have 50,000 people within a few kilometres who don't have any access to computers. Availability of computers in every village did not mean accessibility and accessibility does not mean assimilation. Unless there is 'localisation of content' this technology could not be used by 97 per cent of the population." The article goes on to question the euphoria surrounding the growth of the IT sector and again quotes M. Anandkrishnan: "We speak of 57 per cent growth of the software sector and 100 per cent growth of the hardware sector. We must take into consideration that the figures include hardware and equipment imports. We are talking of someone else's products. We are still dependent on imports, and even now we have to use servers abroad to get to the Net".
.
Advocates of globalization have often made the claim that globalization rather than destroy Indian industry would instead accelerate the growth of new industry and cause India's economy to grow faster. But a detailed analysis of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the last few years indicates that a sizeable portion of this investment has not gone into the creation of new productive capacities. Much of the investment has simply gone into into takeovers of existing Indian enterprises or towards speculative investments in the Indian stock market. Moreover, other than India's "hot" IT companies and select MNCs - the vast majority of Indian stocks have not benefited from such highly volatile FDI flows. Transnational corporations, which control more than 33 per cent of the world's productive assets account for only 5 per cent of the world's direct employment! And although the total as¬sets of the world's 100 largest corporations in¬creased by 288 per cent between 1990 and 1997, the number of people these corporations em¬ployed grew by less than 9 per cent during the same period of tremendous growth. One can well imagine the position now in a period of slow-down or recession
MNCs and 'transparency' and 'ethical practices'
There are numerous instances where multinationals have not only displayed a lack of ethics and 'transparency' but have actually broken the law. On October 2, 1998 Sujay Mehdudia in in his report in the Hindu titled: Large-scale tax evasion by MNCs unearthed. wrote: "Income-Tax officials have alleged that these companies evade taxes with impunity as the tax laws of the country are 'inadequate and ineffective' to deal with such cases." He wrote of multinational giants flouting tax laws knowing very well that they could not be arrested or criminally prosecuted against under the Indian legal system and could get away by paying the tax dues when caught. The article quoted a high-ranking tax officer as saying: "Had the violations taken place in some other country, not only would criminal proceedings have been launched but the people responsible for it would have been put behind bars." The author concluded his article with the statement: " A more recent Hindustan Times report (May 12, 2000) was more specific - it began with the headline: Rs 2100 crore tax evasion by MNCs. Minister of State for Finance V Dhananjaya Kumar in a written reply to a question posed in the Lok Sabha had provided data that indicated that MNCs had evaded Rs 1433.89 crores on income tax, Rs 143.80 crore on central excise duty as well as Rs 535.05 crore on account of import duty payable during last three years. Sony was identified as the biggest evader, and charged with evading over 450 crores. SEDCO Forex International Drilling Co, Swiss-Swedish major Asia Brown Baveri, Hyundai Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, LG, Hawlet Packard and Philips were others implicated in cheating on import duties. Several MNCs had not paid enough central excise duties - including stock market darlings like Hindustan Lever, Procter and Gamble and Nestle. EID Parry, Gillette, Pepsi, Bayer, Novaritis and Carrier Aircon were also named as violators. Asia Satellite Telecom, Sabre Inc, Lucent Technologies, Nokia, Caribjet inc and Allied Signal group had been cited for serious income tax violations. Amadeus Marketing, American Airlines, British Airways, Pan Amsat, Motorola, Ashurst Morris Crisp, Reuters and ABN Amro were also in the list of companies to have evaded income tax.
Squeezing the Public Sector, Reducing Social Spending
There is also an assertion that globalization allows India to allocate scarce capital more efficiently because the Indian government could concentrate on areas that need special attention. But few seem to note that in this decade of globalization, the government has been steadily reducing its ability to fund vital social needs or infra structural needs. Numerous tax breaks have been given to MNCs to set up manufacturing in India. States have competed with each other in offering concessions to MNCs. Maharashtra has huge concessions to Skoda for its automobile plant near Aurangabad, Tamil Nadu offered special incentives to GM to set up it's plant near Chennai. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been competing to attract IT businesses in their state. Even the Central Government has joined in the act. Another condition that international lenders often impose on developing nations is that they must stop supporting their public sector enterprises and allow private and external participation in key sectors of the economy. They also call for a reduction in social spending. These conditions are usually disguised as a matter of improved "efficiency" and controlling "unnecessary budget deficits". This means that budgetary support for investment in key areas such as mining, power generation, railways and telecommunication has to be drastically curtailed. The "Import Lobby" is usually unperturbed by these cuts because they view these cuts as an opportunity to increase their imports. But the consequences for the rest of the population as a whole can be quite disastrous.
With the government refusing to invest in these critical areas, crippling shortages develop in vital aspects of the infrastructure. International companies insist on all manner of tax breaks like extended tax holidays, subsidized land, and "counter-guarantees" before they invest. Even though such concessions go against the spirit of "free market economics" that the international lending agencies trumpet, these concessions are treated as inevitable. Costs escalate in spite of all these hidden concessions. For instance, all the power projects that are demanding counter guarantees will generate electricity at almost double the cost of a BHEL built plant in spite of various concessions that should have reduced the cost-basis of these projects. Private industry, particularly MNCs tend to focus on the major metropolitan areas, concentrating growth in some areas and completely ignoring others. Take the boom in car manufacturing - (something encouraged by all the political parties): it is concentrated in just a few major metropolitan areas. The demand is also restricted to a very narrow elite. (And so far, it has also caused a huge drain in the nation's foreign exchange reserves.) Consider also how the Software Industry is booming in a few towns, while the overwhelming majority of Indians have never seen a computer.
Fighting against Goliath
On January 11, 2000, the KRRS,(The Karnataka State Farmer's Movement) sent an open letter to Mr. Mike Moore, the President of the WTO, quoting a placard that was carried by a protestor on the streets of Seattle which read: "Wicked Trade Organisation." The letter accused the WTO for plundering the biological wealth and traditional knowledge from India. The letter said that the WTO is trying to recolonise the developing world under the garb of free trade. Its patent laws have been designed to facilitate biopiracy from the biodiversity rich countries. Almost 90 per cent of India's estimated 45,000 plant species and 81,000 animal species are already stored illegally in the United States. The struggle against the construction of mega-dams on the River Narmada in India is symbolic of a global struggle for social and environmental justice. The Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP) has been conceived without adequate participation from the people who are going to be affected. The construction and planning of many dams of the NVDP has disrupted the lives of millions of people without just and adequate compensation.
The "Battle of Seattle" in late 1999 marked a new stage in the growing revolt against globalization. Prior to that there were mass demonstrations against globalization in May 1998, when more than seventy thousand people protested against the Group of Eight meeting in Birmingham, England. In June 1999, protests were held in several cities in Europe and North America to coincide with the G8 Economic Summit in Cologne, Germany. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, most notably in London... In India one group directly connected to the international anti-globalization movement is the KRRS, the Karnataka State Farmer's Movement, representing thousands of peasant farmers in the southern state of Karnataka. In recent years, the KRRS has physically dismantled -- with iron bars -- a Cargill seed unit, trashed another office of the same multinational agribusiness, burned Monsanto's field trials of biotech cotton, and trashed a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Bangalore. And so, on November 30, while a state of emergency was declared in Seattle, and various militarized police forces proceeded to brutalize thousands of anti-WTO demonstrators, the KRRS organized its own demonstration in Bangalore. Several thousand farmers, along with their allies, issued a "Quit India" notice to multinational food and biotech conglomerate, Monsanto also on November 30, activists of the NBA organized a 1000-strong non-violent procession in the Narmada Valley "protesting against the anti-human agreements and institutions that are pushing India and the rest of the world into the destructive process of capitalist globalisation." One week earlier, 300 adivasis (indigenous peoples) from the state of Madhya Pradesh stormed the World Bank offices in Delhi.
The KRRS has also been a major component of the People's Global Action against "Free" Trade (PGA) movement, which unites peoples' movements on five continents (including the Zapatistas of southern Mexico and the Landless Peasants' Movement (MST) of Brazil).
The ideology of Social Capital. In his works, Bowling Alone (2000 )and Making Democracy Work (1993) Robert Putnam has turned the useful social relational concept of social capital by James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu into an economic theory. Putnam argued for technocratic solutions to world's illness rejecting controversial politics John Harris (Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital. (2001) And Naomi Klein (Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Globalization Debate,2002) have criticized this ideology as a rhetoric ploy by which the World Bank seeks to present the process of development as purely technocratic processes that have no political content. Richard Davis, Research/Executive Officer Joint Methodist-Presbyterian Public Questions Committee, in his article, "Social Capital: A Critique" (http://www.soicialissues.godzone.net.nz, retrieved on 30.8.03) accuses the idea of social capital to be overly capitalistic. According to authors Bob Edwards and Michael W. Foley,( " Social Capital And Civil Society Beyond Putnam," 1998.), such concepts are liable to be misused and counterproductive if appropriated without giving attention to the circumstances in which forms of capital are created and deployed. The social capital theory of Putnam and endorsed by the End of History fame Francis Fukuyama work with the assumption that a single, global variable ("associational membership") can be taken to predict meaningful differences in social, cultural or human capital. Richard Davis cites what happened in New Zealand when the New Right Government came to power in 1990. It has undertaken legal measures to reduce membership of the trade union and the influence of unions generally. They used the concept of social capital as a means to justify cuts in government spending in the areas of labor benefits, health, education and welfare. Government's involvement in favor of the poor is a barrier to social capital. They demonize the political process and deny the community. Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable in a speech given in August 1996 praised Robert Putnam's theory of social capital and compared it to David Green's notion of "civil society". In his book From Welfare State to Civil Society Green argues for a society in which the government will withdraw from welfare and voluntary associations will take its place by assisting the less fortunate, thus placing the poor at the mercy of the rich. The distorted vision of "social capital", destroys communities with suppressing unions, increasing inequality, reducing social spending and pitting different sectors against each other. Margaret Thatcher's saying characterizes this vision:" There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." (Richard Davis "Social Capital: A Critique" . Similar policies are followed by the BJP government in India, which wants to create the rule of the religious aristocracy of Brahminism by Saffronization and control wealth by privatization by effectively shutting out the poor and the minorities. They find great support from the World Bank and its globalization associates.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Poverty :The World Bank's new criterion questions the much-touted trickledown
Poverty Of Statistics
The World Bank's new criterion questions the much-touted trickledown
RAGHAV GAIHA
| E-MAIL | ONE PAGE FORMAT | FEEDBACK: SEND - READ |
The extent of poverty in India remains much debated. Ditto questions about whether policy reforms have contributed to a more rapid reduction in poverty over the past few years. These issues have now been ignited by the shocking news that India continues to account for roughly one-third of the poor globally. The World Bank's own estimate of poverty in 2007 has been drastically revised by new cost-of-living data. If we go by the new poverty line of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing power parity (PPP), poverty afflicts 41.6 per cent of India's population. This means the number of poor is as high as 456 million.
Read it all
The World Bank's new criterion questions the much-touted trickledown
RAGHAV GAIHA
| E-MAIL | ONE PAGE FORMAT | FEEDBACK: SEND - READ |
The extent of poverty in India remains much debated. Ditto questions about whether policy reforms have contributed to a more rapid reduction in poverty over the past few years. These issues have now been ignited by the shocking news that India continues to account for roughly one-third of the poor globally. The World Bank's own estimate of poverty in 2007 has been drastically revised by new cost-of-living data. If we go by the new poverty line of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing power parity (PPP), poverty afflicts 41.6 per cent of India's population. This means the number of poor is as high as 456 million.
Read it all
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Crisis of Capitalism By Michael Albert
Talk Delivered to Venezuela Conference on Crisis of Capitalism
September 05, 2008
My country, the U.S. is the world's leader in violent crime per capita.
It leads in the gap between richest and poorest.
It leads in means of communication, but also in levels of ignorance and deceit.
It leads in the manufacture, dissemination, and use of weapons of mass destruction, and of weapons generally...
My country leads as well in interventions abroad, in violent coercion, in arrogant export of commercial and often vapid culture, and of course in virtually unlimited hypocrisy.
Thecrisis of capitalism is capitalism itself.
The crisis is not just when capitalism is upset, rickety, having problems.
The crisis is capitalism's persistent perpetual ugliness per se. It is the system per se, even at its very best.
Read more
September 05, 2008
My country, the U.S. is the world's leader in violent crime per capita.
It leads in the gap between richest and poorest.
It leads in means of communication, but also in levels of ignorance and deceit.
It leads in the manufacture, dissemination, and use of weapons of mass destruction, and of weapons generally...
My country leads as well in interventions abroad, in violent coercion, in arrogant export of commercial and often vapid culture, and of course in virtually unlimited hypocrisy.
Thecrisis of capitalism is capitalism itself.
The crisis is not just when capitalism is upset, rickety, having problems.
The crisis is capitalism's persistent perpetual ugliness per se. It is the system per se, even at its very best.
Read more
Friday, August 22, 2008
India refuses to accept WB terms for SSA loan
22 Aug 2008, 0238 hrs IST, Akshaya Mukul,TNN
NEW DELHI: The recent $600 million (Rs 2,400 crore) World Bank loan for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, that has come after nearly one-and-a-half years of negotiations, is among the rare examples of India refusing to let the Bank micromanage flagship programmes and inflict its highly centralized system on the country.
Officials of department of economic affairs said this negotiation should become a template for future loans for other flagship programmes. Negotiations for the loan, taken entirely on Indian terms, started in January 2007, went through several low phases and by last December, matters came to a head and it looked as if loan agreement would not happen.
read it all
NEW DELHI: The recent $600 million (Rs 2,400 crore) World Bank loan for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, that has come after nearly one-and-a-half years of negotiations, is among the rare examples of India refusing to let the Bank micromanage flagship programmes and inflict its highly centralized system on the country.
Officials of department of economic affairs said this negotiation should become a template for future loans for other flagship programmes. Negotiations for the loan, taken entirely on Indian terms, started in January 2007, went through several low phases and by last December, matters came to a head and it looked as if loan agreement would not happen.
read it all
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Railways lost more than Rs 50 crore due to the Gurjjar agitation
Railways lost more than Rs 50 crore in past 17 days
Tue, Jun 10 02:49 AM
One thousand one hundred trains were either cancelled, diverted or "short-terminated" due to the Gurjjar agitation in Rajasthan in the past 17 days. And even as the Ministry of Railways is yet to officially come out with the quantum of losses suffered due to this agitation, preliminary estimates coming from zonal railways suggest that the final figure could be more than Rs 50 crore, including the damage to railway property.
According to Rail Bhavan sources, the railway blockade in Bayana has already led to cancellation of more than 750 trains, around 500 of which were mail or express trains.
"Around 200 trains had to be diverted and more than 150 were short-terminated," a senior railway official said. Short termination essentially means a train is terminated short of its destination due to extraordinary circumstances.
The Delhi-Mumbai trunk route is the worst-affected owing to the blockade in Rajasthan. And both Western and Northern railways have incurred maximum losses.
While the Northern Railways, whose major earnings come from passenger operations, has already suffered a loss of more than Rs 6.5 crore due to cancellations, Western Railways is incurring losses worth Rs 3 crore per day on both passenger and freight operations.
"Initial estimates suggest that we have lost roughly Rs 1 crore daily on account of passenger ticket refunds and around Rs 2.5 crore per day on freight trains," a Western Railways source told The Indian Express.
Officials point out that more than the refund of passenger tickets, it is the Railway's inability to operate freight trains on the Delhi-Mumbai route that has cost them dear.
"The agitation has meant that Railways have had to limit its freight loading for destinations, which can be reached through the affected route," a railway official dealing with freight movement said.
Tue, Jun 10 02:49 AM
One thousand one hundred trains were either cancelled, diverted or "short-terminated" due to the Gurjjar agitation in Rajasthan in the past 17 days. And even as the Ministry of Railways is yet to officially come out with the quantum of losses suffered due to this agitation, preliminary estimates coming from zonal railways suggest that the final figure could be more than Rs 50 crore, including the damage to railway property.
According to Rail Bhavan sources, the railway blockade in Bayana has already led to cancellation of more than 750 trains, around 500 of which were mail or express trains.
"Around 200 trains had to be diverted and more than 150 were short-terminated," a senior railway official said. Short termination essentially means a train is terminated short of its destination due to extraordinary circumstances.
The Delhi-Mumbai trunk route is the worst-affected owing to the blockade in Rajasthan. And both Western and Northern railways have incurred maximum losses.
While the Northern Railways, whose major earnings come from passenger operations, has already suffered a loss of more than Rs 6.5 crore due to cancellations, Western Railways is incurring losses worth Rs 3 crore per day on both passenger and freight operations.
"Initial estimates suggest that we have lost roughly Rs 1 crore daily on account of passenger ticket refunds and around Rs 2.5 crore per day on freight trains," a Western Railways source told The Indian Express.
Officials point out that more than the refund of passenger tickets, it is the Railway's inability to operate freight trains on the Delhi-Mumbai route that has cost them dear.
"The agitation has meant that Railways have had to limit its freight loading for destinations, which can be reached through the affected route," a railway official dealing with freight movement said.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Microsoft to offer money for search engine use
Microsoft to offer money for search engine use
22 May 2008, 0352 hrs IST,REUTERS
REDMOND: Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it launched a new "cashback" search service that pays users a rebate for buying products they found through the company's Windows Live search engine.
Live Search cashback is the latest attempt by the world's largest software maker to draw users to its online search engine, which is a distant third behind market leader Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.
"This is giving you a reason why you should use a particular search engine," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said at the company's Advance 08 advertising conference.
Microsoft sees online search as a critical component to establishing an online advertising powerhouse. By placing text-based ads next to results from its ubiquitous search engine, Google has become the leader in Web advertising.
A product search on Windows Live will call up links to online retailers offering that item. The user who buys that item from the retailer's site will get 2 percent to 30 percent of the purchase price back as a rebate.
Consumers would have to sign up for a free Windows Live cashback account to participate in the program. Rebates would be issued after a 60-day waiting period to make sure there are no returned products.
Microsoft's Gates said it will partner with more than 700 retailers including eBay Inc, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot Inc.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will offer advertisers a cost-per-acquisition model of payment, meaning that they only pay for ads that lead to purchases. The current cost-per-click model charges advertisers for every click on a sponsored link associated with certain keywords.
"If you knew the user and watched their behavior you could do a lot better for them in terms of taking them directly to the information or presentation they want. Search can be dramatically better," said Gates.
"We think we're entering a period where there'll be quite a bit of change (in search)."
The company's effort to gain more market share in Web search led to its unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo Inc earlier this year. It withdrew a sweetened $47.5 billion offer a few weeks ago, but said on Sunday it had re-approached Yahoo with an alternative deal.
A source familiar with the talks said Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo's search business and take a minority stake in the rest of the company after selling off its Asian assets. Microsoft executives did not address the Yahoo issue directly at the conference.
Microsoft also launched Live Search Farecast, based on the airfare-predicting technology that the company bought in April through its acquisition of travel site Farecast. Microsoft also said it will consider cash rebates for flights booked through the search.
Shares of Microsoft fell 51 cents, or 1.77 percent, to $28.25 on Nasdaq.
22 May 2008, 0352 hrs IST,REUTERS
REDMOND: Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it launched a new "cashback" search service that pays users a rebate for buying products they found through the company's Windows Live search engine.
Live Search cashback is the latest attempt by the world's largest software maker to draw users to its online search engine, which is a distant third behind market leader Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.
"This is giving you a reason why you should use a particular search engine," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said at the company's Advance 08 advertising conference.
Microsoft sees online search as a critical component to establishing an online advertising powerhouse. By placing text-based ads next to results from its ubiquitous search engine, Google has become the leader in Web advertising.
A product search on Windows Live will call up links to online retailers offering that item. The user who buys that item from the retailer's site will get 2 percent to 30 percent of the purchase price back as a rebate.
Consumers would have to sign up for a free Windows Live cashback account to participate in the program. Rebates would be issued after a 60-day waiting period to make sure there are no returned products.
Microsoft's Gates said it will partner with more than 700 retailers including eBay Inc, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot Inc.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will offer advertisers a cost-per-acquisition model of payment, meaning that they only pay for ads that lead to purchases. The current cost-per-click model charges advertisers for every click on a sponsored link associated with certain keywords.
"If you knew the user and watched their behavior you could do a lot better for them in terms of taking them directly to the information or presentation they want. Search can be dramatically better," said Gates.
"We think we're entering a period where there'll be quite a bit of change (in search)."
The company's effort to gain more market share in Web search led to its unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo Inc earlier this year. It withdrew a sweetened $47.5 billion offer a few weeks ago, but said on Sunday it had re-approached Yahoo with an alternative deal.
A source familiar with the talks said Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo's search business and take a minority stake in the rest of the company after selling off its Asian assets. Microsoft executives did not address the Yahoo issue directly at the conference.
Microsoft also launched Live Search Farecast, based on the airfare-predicting technology that the company bought in April through its acquisition of travel site Farecast. Microsoft also said it will consider cash rebates for flights booked through the search.
Shares of Microsoft fell 51 cents, or 1.77 percent, to $28.25 on Nasdaq.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
SBI decision may play havoc with Bihar's agriculture plans
SBI decision may play havoc with Bihar's agriculture plans
Patna (PTI): The State Bank of India's (SBI) decision not to finance agriculture equipment would tremendously impact Bihar and may wreak havoc on the state's agriculture plans, according to Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
'The agriculture income in the state is low and medium and marginal farmers do not have the money to buy agricultural equipment like power tillers and tractors required for modernising agriculture in the state', Modi, also the state Finance Minister said while reacting to the SBI decision.
'It has come at a time when the state government has launched an agricultural roadmap and it may adversely affect the state's ambitious plans', he said.
'The four per cent agricultural growth target will also remain a pipedream and the food security of the nation compromised if the State Bank of India is allowed to continue with its decision', Modi feared.
Patna (PTI): The State Bank of India's (SBI) decision not to finance agriculture equipment would tremendously impact Bihar and may wreak havoc on the state's agriculture plans, according to Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
'The agriculture income in the state is low and medium and marginal farmers do not have the money to buy agricultural equipment like power tillers and tractors required for modernising agriculture in the state', Modi, also the state Finance Minister said while reacting to the SBI decision.
'It has come at a time when the state government has launched an agricultural roadmap and it may adversely affect the state's ambitious plans', he said.
'The four per cent agricultural growth target will also remain a pipedream and the food security of the nation compromised if the State Bank of India is allowed to continue with its decision', Modi feared.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Mukesh Ambani's pay cheque is over Rs 44 cr
Mukesh Ambani's pay cheque is over Rs 44 cr
19 May 2008, 1808 hrs IST,PTI
NEW DELHI: Top business house Reliance Industries has given its chief Mukesh Ambani, the country's richest person and presumably top-paid executive, a hefty pay hike of about 45 per cent to take his annual remuneration to over USD10 million.
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, got a total payout of Rs 44.02 crore in financial year 2007-08, marking an increase of about Rs 13.5 crore from the previous fiscal.
In fiscal 2006-07, Ambani's annual remuneration had increased to Rs 30.46 crore, from Rs 24.77 crore previously.
However, a large part of Ambani's full-year pay cheque comes in the form of commissions that the company pays to select executives as a ratio of its net profits.
According to the company's annual report being sent to shareholders, Ambani got a salary of Rs 60 lakh (Rs 5 lakh per month) and another Rs 48 lakh (Rs 4 lakh per month) in the name of "perquisites and allowances".
In addition, he got Rs 18.75 lakh under the head of "retiral benefits" and Rs 4,275.44 lakh toward commission on net profit, taking his total to Rs 4,402.19 lakh for 2007-08.
RIL Chief was the top-paid executive in fiscal 2006-07, followed by Madras Cement's Chairman and MD P R R Rajha, who had an annual payout of about Rs 24.8 crore.
However, Ambani, who was ranked as world's fifth richest by Forbes magazine earlier this year with a net worth of USD 43 billion, may not find a place even among the 200 most paid chiefs globally.
In a separate list, Forbes named Oracle's CEO Larry Ellision at the top of 500 most paid CEOs in the US with a pay cheque of USD 192.9 million. A total 177 CEOs in the list had a salary of over USD 10 million.
It is not yet clear whether Ambani would be highest paid executive in India for 2007-08, as most of the companies are yet to disclose the remuneration figures for that year.
Among the Indian companies that have disclosed their top-management salaries so far for 2007-08, Managing Directors of Merck, ICI India and Crisil have their annual pay cheques running into crores -- but they are way behind Ambani.
Merck's M Dziki got Rs 2.02 crore, while ICI India's Rajiv Jain and Crisil's Roopa Kudva got Rs 1.25 crore and Rs 1.1 crore respectively in the latest fiscal.
Mukesh Ambani has been CMD of RIL since July 31, 2002. His current term expires on April 18, 2009. RIL's board of directors at a meeting held on April 21, 2008 approved re-appointment of Ambani for a further five years at a remuneration determined by the concerned committee.
The shareholders would vote on these board decisions at the company's 34th AGM to be held on June 12, 2008.
Addressing the shareholders, Ambani said in the annual report that the company "set new records for turnover, net profits and dividend payout."
He said that RIL has become India's first private sector company to surpass cash profit of Rs 25,000 crore and net profit of Rs 15,000 crore.
"India's growth is creating wealth and jobs across the world. We are an integral part of this evolution and have the responsibility to accelerate India's growth by reinvesting our cash flow in our business," he wrote.
Ambani's pay hike of about 45 per cent is even higher than the rise in total managerial remuneration given by RIL in the latest fiscal. RIL paid total managerial remuneration of Rs 67.53 crore in 2007-08, up 43 per cent from Rs 47.14 crore in the previous fiscal. The figure stood at Rs 44.36 crore in 2005-06.
The company paid its non-executive directors a total of Rs 1.85 crore in the latest fiscal, up from Rs 1 crore in 2006-07 but down from Rs 2 crore in 2005-06.
The perquisites and allowances include accommodation or house rent allowance in lieu thereof, house maintenance allowance together with reimbursement of expenses for gas, electricity, water, furnishing and repairs, medical reimbursement, leave travel concession for self and family, club fees and medical insurance, among others.
However, reimbursement for expenses like business trips, car use for company business and residence telephone expenses are not considered as perquisites, although they would be reimbursed, the annual report said.
19 May 2008, 1808 hrs IST,PTI
NEW DELHI: Top business house Reliance Industries has given its chief Mukesh Ambani, the country's richest person and presumably top-paid executive, a hefty pay hike of about 45 per cent to take his annual remuneration to over USD10 million.
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, got a total payout of Rs 44.02 crore in financial year 2007-08, marking an increase of about Rs 13.5 crore from the previous fiscal.
In fiscal 2006-07, Ambani's annual remuneration had increased to Rs 30.46 crore, from Rs 24.77 crore previously.
However, a large part of Ambani's full-year pay cheque comes in the form of commissions that the company pays to select executives as a ratio of its net profits.
According to the company's annual report being sent to shareholders, Ambani got a salary of Rs 60 lakh (Rs 5 lakh per month) and another Rs 48 lakh (Rs 4 lakh per month) in the name of "perquisites and allowances".
In addition, he got Rs 18.75 lakh under the head of "retiral benefits" and Rs 4,275.44 lakh toward commission on net profit, taking his total to Rs 4,402.19 lakh for 2007-08.
RIL Chief was the top-paid executive in fiscal 2006-07, followed by Madras Cement's Chairman and MD P R R Rajha, who had an annual payout of about Rs 24.8 crore.
However, Ambani, who was ranked as world's fifth richest by Forbes magazine earlier this year with a net worth of USD 43 billion, may not find a place even among the 200 most paid chiefs globally.
In a separate list, Forbes named Oracle's CEO Larry Ellision at the top of 500 most paid CEOs in the US with a pay cheque of USD 192.9 million. A total 177 CEOs in the list had a salary of over USD 10 million.
It is not yet clear whether Ambani would be highest paid executive in India for 2007-08, as most of the companies are yet to disclose the remuneration figures for that year.
Among the Indian companies that have disclosed their top-management salaries so far for 2007-08, Managing Directors of Merck, ICI India and Crisil have their annual pay cheques running into crores -- but they are way behind Ambani.
Merck's M Dziki got Rs 2.02 crore, while ICI India's Rajiv Jain and Crisil's Roopa Kudva got Rs 1.25 crore and Rs 1.1 crore respectively in the latest fiscal.
Mukesh Ambani has been CMD of RIL since July 31, 2002. His current term expires on April 18, 2009. RIL's board of directors at a meeting held on April 21, 2008 approved re-appointment of Ambani for a further five years at a remuneration determined by the concerned committee.
The shareholders would vote on these board decisions at the company's 34th AGM to be held on June 12, 2008.
Addressing the shareholders, Ambani said in the annual report that the company "set new records for turnover, net profits and dividend payout."
He said that RIL has become India's first private sector company to surpass cash profit of Rs 25,000 crore and net profit of Rs 15,000 crore.
"India's growth is creating wealth and jobs across the world. We are an integral part of this evolution and have the responsibility to accelerate India's growth by reinvesting our cash flow in our business," he wrote.
Ambani's pay hike of about 45 per cent is even higher than the rise in total managerial remuneration given by RIL in the latest fiscal. RIL paid total managerial remuneration of Rs 67.53 crore in 2007-08, up 43 per cent from Rs 47.14 crore in the previous fiscal. The figure stood at Rs 44.36 crore in 2005-06.
The company paid its non-executive directors a total of Rs 1.85 crore in the latest fiscal, up from Rs 1 crore in 2006-07 but down from Rs 2 crore in 2005-06.
The perquisites and allowances include accommodation or house rent allowance in lieu thereof, house maintenance allowance together with reimbursement of expenses for gas, electricity, water, furnishing and repairs, medical reimbursement, leave travel concession for self and family, club fees and medical insurance, among others.
However, reimbursement for expenses like business trips, car use for company business and residence telephone expenses are not considered as perquisites, although they would be reimbursed, the annual report said.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Haryana contributes more wheat to Central pool
Agri. & Commodities
Haryana contributes more wheat to Central pool
Chandigarh (PTI): Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Chander Mohan said on Thursday that the State has contributed 18 lakh Metric tonn (MT) more wheat in the Central Pool which was 54 per cent more than the previous year.
He said that as much as 51.50 lakh MT of wheat was contributed in the Central Pool so far while during the last entire rabi season only 33.50 lakh MT of wheat was given in the Central Pool.
Mohan said that as much as 52.14 lakh MT of wheat has arrived in the Mandis of the State.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that during the entire season of last year, the arrival of wheat in the Mandis was 37.37 lakh MT and out of this 33.50 lakh MT of wheat was procured by the Government procuring agencies.
Sirsa district was ahead in the arrival of wheat with the arrival of 7.46 lakh metric tonnes followed by Karnalwith 6.01 lakh metric tonnes of wheat.
Haryana contributes more wheat to Central pool
Chandigarh (PTI): Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Chander Mohan said on Thursday that the State has contributed 18 lakh Metric tonn (MT) more wheat in the Central Pool which was 54 per cent more than the previous year.
He said that as much as 51.50 lakh MT of wheat was contributed in the Central Pool so far while during the last entire rabi season only 33.50 lakh MT of wheat was given in the Central Pool.
Mohan said that as much as 52.14 lakh MT of wheat has arrived in the Mandis of the State.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that during the entire season of last year, the arrival of wheat in the Mandis was 37.37 lakh MT and out of this 33.50 lakh MT of wheat was procured by the Government procuring agencies.
Sirsa district was ahead in the arrival of wheat with the arrival of 7.46 lakh metric tonnes followed by Karnalwith 6.01 lakh metric tonnes of wheat.
U.N.'s mid-year economic projections:grim
UN: World economy "teetering on brink"
UNITED NATIONS (AP): The U.N. says the world economy is ``teetering on the brink'' of a severe downturn and will grow by only 1.8 percent in 2008.
That's down from a global growth rate of 3.8 percent in 2007.
The U.N.'s mid-year economic projections released Thursday blamed the downturn on further deterioration in the U.S. housing and financial sectors in the first quarter.
The U.N. said the U.S. problems are expected to continue to be ``a major drag for the world economy'' into 2009. It forecast global economic growth of 2.1 percent next year.
But developing countries won't suffer as badly. The U.N. said they should reach 5 percent growth this year, compared to a robust 7.3 percent in 2007.
UNITED NATIONS (AP): The U.N. says the world economy is ``teetering on the brink'' of a severe downturn and will grow by only 1.8 percent in 2008.
That's down from a global growth rate of 3.8 percent in 2007.
The U.N.'s mid-year economic projections released Thursday blamed the downturn on further deterioration in the U.S. housing and financial sectors in the first quarter.
The U.N. said the U.S. problems are expected to continue to be ``a major drag for the world economy'' into 2009. It forecast global economic growth of 2.1 percent next year.
But developing countries won't suffer as badly. The U.N. said they should reach 5 percent growth this year, compared to a robust 7.3 percent in 2007.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
