Global megatrends such as income inequality, climate change, demographic shifts, technological progress, and urbanisation are shaping the future of societies. Yet, their quantitative impacts on development are neither well understood nor established. This paper examines the individual and combined effects of these global forces on poverty, using both cross-section and …
THE Aravallis, the oldest and hoariest mountain range in India, are today some of the most barren sentinels in the country. At the foothills of this range, which extends all the way from Haryana to Rajasthan, lie villages which live in desperate poverty, lacking food and water. Aravalli Paharian Hariali …
Sri Lankans im hotting up about an ambitious anti-poverty scheme to be launched in June. Us Samurdhi, about 100,000 families earning below US a month will get a direct income transfer of a little 4 US $20 a month from the government. The remais 1. 1 million families earning less …
TO DAHELI and her husband Lalia, a conference of the order of the World Social Summit for Development has little significance. Daheli is a plump, middle-aged tribal peasant woman, belonging to the Mankar subtribe of the Bhils, residing in a village called Attha in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. …
THE dirty linen of the developed countries was brought out in the open and, as expected, created a furore. The setting was the 3-day workshop on the Basel Convention held in Dakar, Senegal, between March 15-17. Green activism had already heated up the debate on the transboundary movement of hazardous …
THE World Summit for Social Development, held recently in Copenhagen, was convened to discuss 3 of the most critical issues facing humankind today--poverty, unemployment and social exclusion. Three UN official statements, prepared by NGOs prior to the Summit, were considered for the final NGO statement--the Oslofjord Declaration, the New Agenda …
ONLY the pathologically optimistic expected the recently-concluded un World Summit for Social Development to trumpet to a momentous, pathbreaking climax. "Anything that we developing countries wanted, they (the industrialised nations) voted as a bloc against us," said a disgusted Mercedes Arzu Wilson, a Guatemalan government delegate, at the end of …
JULY 16, 1945. With a deafening roar, a part of the New Mexico desert blew up into an umbrella, with the brightness of a thousand suns: America had exploded its first atomic bomb. Only 4 years later, rival Russia echoed that blast in Semiplatinsk. And 40 years after the dust …
Late January, the European Patent Office took a tough stand on gene patenting by upholding a patent granted to the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine, Melbourne, Australia. The patent covered the gene for H2-relaxin, a protein that allows the pelvic girdle to widen during pregnancy and childbirth. …
THE trappings of power were all there, and so were the traps. The United Nation's World Summit on Social Development, held in Copenhagen between March 6-12, had been projected as a potential washout. The preparatory committees and rounds of meetings, the charting of highly charged agenda, the government delegations and …
"ATTACKING Poverty, Building Solidarity, Creating Jobs" --these are the 3 central themes on which the United Nations-sponsored World Summit For Social Development, to be held from March 6-12 in Copenhagen, Denmark, rests. Various international communities are patching together a last-minute-bid to define their stands on these issues. For, despite the …
FAR from the shrill cut-and-splice medley of liberalisation, reform and the free market highway to economic growth, some experts have been advocating an alternative approach to alleviating poverty and dealing with energy scarcity in India. They banded together in Bangalore recently to suggest a bioresources strategy for India. Bioresources, essentially …
Imagine this scene unfolding in one of the cool rooms off the magnificent Central Hall of the Indian Parliament: a Member of Parliament punches 2-fingered into an imported laptop 486, plugs it -- fax modem and all -- into the telephone socket, and blasts off a missive to the mofussil …
THE government of India introduced the Constitution (65th Amendment) Bill, 1989, in Parliament in August. The statement of objects and reasons underscored endowing urban local bodies "with such powers and authority as are necessary to enable them to function effectively as units of local self-government...". Although the bill was passed …
AT THEIR most convivial, Indian NGOs tend to keep a wide no-person's-land between themselves and the government. So when Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao called for voluntary organisations to cooperate with the government in order to eradicate poverty, they considered the possibility with lips pursed in doubt. They made …
You have talked at length on sustainable development. But your conception of sustainability seems to be incompatible with development. Could you explain? For me, sustainable development is an oxymoron. Development with a capital D has for 40 years meant economic development. But in as much as development means giving a …
"For a long time now, we have been calculating the number of people below and above the poverty line. And, these numbers have become a hot political issue. But the important thing is to eradicate hunger. This can be done by identifying the critical areas of poverty and helping the …
THE SIX Nations native reserve in Ontario, Canada, has been reduced to an ugly waste dump, according to Multinational Monitor. Situated close to the industrial heartland of the country, the reserve is susceptible to refuse from neighbouring communities. Industrialists can afford to take such liberties because Indian lands are governed …
THE CLINTON administration's policy on nuclear proliferation and the use of plutonium -- the main ingredient of nuclear warheads -- is being put to test by a Swiss request to ship used commercial nuclear fuel to Britain. The fuel was provided by the US on the condition that it retain …
DEVELOPED countries are busy increasing the breadth and depth of the intellectual property regime, using accusations of piracy. Yet, the innovations that multinationals have patented are heavily dependent on the biological and artistic knowledge of the people of the South. The argument that R&D; to isolate, separate and screen genes …
IN DECEMBER, newspapers seized gleefully upon yet another episode originating in Hyderabad of a minor Muslim girl married to an Arab. Kaneez Begum, said to be 16 years old, had been sold for Its 20,000 against her wishes. As always, the reporting was one-dimensional. So it is appropriate to focus …