Friday, April 26, 2013

Damn globalisation!

If you are one of those who sits back over a cup of coffee, marvels at India’s growth & takes all pessimism with a pinch of salt; this is a book you can’t miss. It’s a rich account of where we stand & where we’re headed

When I read ‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ a few years back, I was shocked to know that the US government has such extensive involvement in private corporations, which further its objective of global dominance. What I understood from the book was that underdeveloped or developing economies with vast amounts of natural resources were exploited by the US, which did so by embroiling them in a debt trap. However, as I sat through Aseem Shrivastava’s and Ashish Kothari’s Churning The Earth – The making of global India, I realised that global politics has moved much beyond and globalisation is now a grand scheme through which powerful nations wish to achieve global dominance. Shiravastava (an economist) and Kothari (an environmentalist) weave an intricate and comprehensive account of the social and environmental changes that have brought about unprecedented development (or so it seems) in India over the last two decades, at a horrible cost. In summary, the book is about India’s unbelievable growth story, why it is a sham and how millions of people suffer everyday at the cost of a few elites ending up better off. The writers have managed to assimilate a great deal of data to substantiate their arguments. For instance, to prove that the increase in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has done more harm than good, the authors use the Government of India’s Economic Survey – data which is easily available in the public domain. As per statistics churned out by the survey, India managed to finance its investment from domestic sources between 2002 to 2008 because domestic savings equalled domestic investments. This implies that FDI worth $120 billion during this period generated massive returns for investors without adding any new productive capacity. The more important question is what was all this money used for? It piled up in the form of RBI’s dollar reserves, which were in turn used to finance surplus imports. In short, India was tricked into spending beyond her means even when she could have done without it.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
 


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
 
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