Long Live Jyoti Basu, The Communist!
Nation mourns for Chandra, No mourning for Dying peasants!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
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The Hindu : National : A political journey with Jyoti Basu"A political journey with Jyoti Basu lasting more than six decades," is how filmmaker Goutam Ghose describes his latest documentary — one on the ...
www.hindu.com/2005/03/31/stories/2005033103721300.htm - 18k
Jyoti Basu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJyoti Basu (Bengali: ?????? ???) (born July 8, 1914) is a Communist politician from West Bengal, India. Basu is a Politburo member of the Communist ...
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Nation mourns for Chandra shekhar! It is celebration time for Taz as well as prolonged Left Brahminical rule in Bengal. No one mourns for the dying peasants as it is predestined in accordance with post modern Manusmriti!Floods in eastern India have left nearly a million people stranded!
Former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar who held center-stage of Indian politics for almost four decades with his unflinching commitment to socialism and strong distaste for personality politics passed away at a New Delhi hospital on Sunday morning.The only Indian elevated as Prime Minister without having previously held an official post, 80-year-old Chandra Shekhar died after battling “multiple mycloma” (cancer of plasma cell) for three months. Two sons survive him.
Despite , declared seven day mourning im memory of the former prime minister,fans and well-wishers of veteran Communist leader and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu today celebrated his 94th birthday at his Salt Lake residence, Indira Bhavan.The nonagenarian Marxist leader was in a jovial mood since morning as school children, partymen and celebrities from different walks of life visited his house to convey their wishes.Bengali film actress Rituparna Sengupta, party leader Subhas Chakraborty and his wife Romala Chakraborty, Rabin Deb and Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh were among those who were present on the occasion to convey their wishes to the country's longest serving chief minister.The queue of well wishers was so long that Basu could not receive flowers or bouquets from all personally.The CPI M leader ran the government of the eastern West Bengal state for 23 years as chief minister. Basu had a special message for the opposition ''criticize our faults, he said but please join us in our good work, including industrialization.''
Even today India's villages are dependent on agriculture for much of their sustenance. Many here have been hurt by the privatization of bloated state-owned enterprises and the opening of the agricultural industry to global competition. Part-time and freelance work is ever more common, replacing respectable salaried jobs. Here, and across India, most of the workers are farmers or landless laborers. For India's riches to extend to them, economists say, will require a revolution in farm productivity; drastic improvements in infrastructure like roads, irrigation and electricity; and the proliferation of labor-intensive factories to absorb surplus labor from the farms. None seems an immediate likelihood.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya pleads that
the sons of soil do not want to be farmer any more. Here you are! The economist argue that Farmers verging on retirement, sensing the decline of their own profession, are treating their children like stocks in a portfolio, sending them out into different vocations so as to minimize the risk of any one collapsing.
Not only the birthday celebration of Basu, the Nation watched as soon as Bollywood star Bipasha Basu exclaimed "Oh my god, it's the Taj Mahal!" in Lisbon, millions of eager Indians who had been glued to their TV sets in the early hours on Sunday watching the function jumped in joy as the 17th century monument of love was selected among a list of new Seven Wonders of the World. The celebration continues undetered by the death of the socialist leader!
Not only the death of a former primeminister, the nation has another cause of mourning!At least 19 people are feared to have been killed in flood-related incidents in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir even as the situation limped towards normalcy in Orissa and West Bengal, officials today said. Heavy rains continued to pound Madhya Pradesh, disrupting rail and road traffic and throwing life out of gear as swollen rivers and rain water submerged many areas in nearly a dozen districts.West Bengal Finance Minister, Asim Dasgupta, said as the affected districts experienced little rains and the main rivers passing through the districts were not rising any further, the situation in East and West Midnapore, Hooghly and Howrah saw marginal improvement.
Chandra will be cremated with full state honors on Monday at 1600 hours near the “samadhi” of former Presidents Giani Zail Singh, SD Sharma and KR Narayanan. The Union government has declared a seven-day mourning. The national flag will fly at half mast during the mourning period and central government establishments will remain closed from 1300 hours tomorrow, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi informed after a special meeting of the union cabinet.
President APJ Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Ministers AB Vajpayee and VP Singh and Left leaders Prakash Karath and Sitaram Yechuri apart from scores of others including Godman Chandraswamy arrived this morning at Chandrashekhar’s official residence at South Avenue Lane to pay their last respects to the departed leader who was known for his fearless articulation of the goal to establish an egalitarian order.
Some years ago, Basu had said that Communists never retire.
A byword for intellectual, political and personal integrity and for a straightforward but cool and imperturbable style in politics, Basu made a profound, long-term difference to the large, populous and strategically important State that has always been is first priority and commanded his best effort. However, those who remember him mainly as Chief Minister of West Bengal between 1977 and 2000 are likely to underestimate his long experience in the crucible of struggle: as a trade union organiser, as a popular agitator, and as a revolutionary fighter - starting, as was typical for his generation, as a freedom fighter and courageously facing and overcoming state-sponsored repression and intolerance in independent India as well.
Speaking on the occasion, Basu said, "celebration of birthday is not the culture of the Marxists excepting the birthday of departed party leader Muzaffar Ahmed."
"Since a large number of school children rushed to my house to convey their wishes and present bouquets, I cannot dishearten them," Basu said.
''This seventh government that we have formed, it is a Left Front govt, not a CPI-M govt only. Centrally and in the districts, we have the Left Front. I hope no one will ever be able to stop their victorious march,'' said Basu, who as served as Communist leader for 67 years.
''In 1940, I came back as a barrister from London. But I went to Muzaffar Ahmed and said I wanted to be a full-time party worker, I did not want to be a barrister,'' Basu said.
''My relatives, my parents were a little upset because my family had never done politics. But never mind. I am satisfied''.
Interview With Jyoti BasuINTERVIEW WITH JYOTI BASU. “Other States Couldn’t Do What We Could .... We laid emphasis over a radical land reforms programme, and more than 13 lakh acres ...
pd.cpim.org/2007/0624/06242007_jyoti%20basu.htm - 24k -
Ashok Mitra wrote in his the Telegraph article,`A TRIBUTE AND A CRITIQUE’ , published on Friday, June 22, 2007
This week the Left Front regime in West Bengal completes 30 years of uninterrupted existence. It is a record without parallel in the annals of multi-party democratic systems, particularly for a political formation adhering to a leftist ideology. Frustrated opponents have every now and then raised some hullabaloo about skulduggery in the successive elections the front has won. Partly in response to such complaints, the Election Commission had held last year’s poll in the state under the most stringent arrangements. To no avail; the Left Front’s triumph in 2006 was even more resounding than on some of the previous occasions. Why not admit it, it is approval by the people of the front’s policies and programmes which explains the longevity of its tenure. That is however not the entire story. An individual, because of the abundance of his wisdom as well as his imagination and practical sense, was, more than anybody else, in large measure responsible for the Left Front’s reaching the pinnacle of glory it reached. That individual — is it not superfluous to add — is Jyoti Basu.
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Politicians failed; writers, artists should come forward: Mahashweta Devi
http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=381511&sid=ENT&ssid=43
New Delhi, July 08: Jnanpeeth and Magsaysay Award winner writer Mahashweta Devi is totally disillusioned with the politicians and appeals to writers and other artists to create awareness as Premchand and Satyajit Ray had done.
Extremely hurt by the Singur incident, rocked by protests against farmland acquisition, she has taken a break from being a writer as the social activist inside her is more active these days.
"I think our independence is a failure. Promises have not been fulfilled. There are a number of laws in the books but who implement them. The system is accountable but what did the people get?" said the writer in an interview with agencis from Kolkata.
"Creative writers and artists must have social conscience and they should be ready to bear their responsibilities towards society. I have stopped writing novels or stories these days as I am very busy raising these issues through newspaper columns," said the Padam Vibhushan Awardee.
"I cannot operate computer, cannot use email either. I can only write and express my feelings through pen and paper. I am following the path of Premchand and Satyajit Ray to create awareness through my work," said Mahashweta Devi who has authored novels, 'hazaar Chaurasir Maa', 'Aranye Adhikar' and many more.
Citing the example of Nandigram and Singur, she alleges law and order does not exist in West Bengal and the state government is "acting like deaf and dumb."
Mamata calls on Jayalalithaa
http://www.chennaionline.com/colnews/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7BC36F701C-FE6B-4A65-A4AC-FB37E24A5ECF%7D&CATEGORYNAME=CHN
Chennai, July 8: Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee today called on AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa and sought her support for her ongoing campaign against the Left Front government in West Bengal on the Nandigram and Singur issues.Arriving at the airport here from Thiruvananthapuram, where she addressed public meetings and conventions to mobilise support to her campaign, Banerjee drove straight to Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence and was closeted with her for about 30 minutes.Later, emerging from the meeting, Banerjee told reporters that she discussed with Jayalalithaa the "state-sponsored terrorism" in West Bengal and also invited her to a rally organised in Koltaka on July 21 against the Left government.
Jayalalithaa also informed her about "atrocities being faced by people in Tamil Nadu" and assured support to her, she added.Asked what kind of support she was expecting from the AIADMK supremo in the wake of reports that she was trying to come closer to the Left parties, Banerjee said, "Every political party has its own choice. We are friendly parties and it is always welcome to work together."
The TC chief said the coming Presidential election was not discussed in the meeting. "We've already made our stand clear on the issue," she added.Stating that she was the first to support President A P J Abdul Kalam's candidature, she said "our party is always for Kalam. It is unfortunate that we are not able to give him a second term."
Industrialisation not at the cost of agriculture: Buddhadeb
The West Bengal government will neither apply force nor go against the people's wishes in setting up industries in the state, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said here Sunday while on a daylong visit to the northeastern state of Tripura.The West Bengal government will neither apply force nor go against the people's wishes in setting up industries in the state, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said here Sunday while on a daylong visit to the northeastern state of Tripura.
'West Bengal will protect and further develop agriculture and the gains of land reforms will not be undermined. But the emphasis on industrialisation will not be given up,' Bhattacharya told a massive gathering here, organised to mark completion of 30 years of Left Front rule in West Bengal.
'The Left parties will tell people across the country about the real story behind the Singur and Nandigram episodes in West Bengal,' the chief minister said.
He said the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Front government has shelved the plan to set up a chemical hub at Nandigram in East Midnapore district and was now looking for an alternative place for the project.According to him, the project would provide direct employment to over 100,000 people, besides creation of downstream projects.
'Massive development will take place after setting up of automobile factory by Tata Motors at Singur in Hooghly district,' Bhattacharya said.
In both places, people have opposed acquisition of farmland - in Singur for the Tata Motors' small car project and in Nandigram for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
At least 14 people were killed in clashes with police in Nandigram March 14.
'We shall go for an industrialisation with small and medium industries after making the agriculture grow in a strong foundation,' Bhattacharya said, adding that the state government has received four proposals for big steel projects, including one by the Jindal Group.
He said the Jindal group would be commissioning the Rs.350 billion steel project on 4,000 acres of land in West Midnapore district.
'During the British regime, Bengal was No.1 in India in industrial sector. But after the independence the state had suffered in industrialisation due to licensing policies of successive central governments. We shall again restore glory of Bengal to become a leading state in industrialisation.'
The chief minister said the Left parties have alternative proposals for unemployed youths, farmers, women as well as organised and unorganised labourers.
Without naming the opposition Trinamool Congress, Bhattacharya said, 'in our state we have an opposition party which is always against development unlike any other state.'
Please read:
From the Bengal Famine to the Green Revolution
http://indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm
MoU signed for Perambalur SEZ
Hindu, India - 7 Jul 2007
The Hyderabad-based group will develop the Rs.1500-crore SEZ on 3000 acres by 2009. Projects involving an investment of Rs.5000 crore will come up in the ...
TN to get multi-product SEZ Rediff
40 km from Pune, 1500 farmers seek SEZ status for their village
Pune Newsline, India - 19 hours ago
Prior to the gram sabha meeting, the 11-member Avasari Khurd gram panchayat too had unanimously passed a resolution seeking SEZ status for the village on ...
Breaking new ground
Hindu Business Line, India - 20 hours ago
SEZs: The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) concept is also fast catching the attention of real estate developers. An SEZ is a duty-free enclave, ...
After highlighting the problems of the agricultural sector in the Economic Survey and making large allocations to the rural sector, including agriculture, in the budget, the Prime Minister recently announced a Rs 25,000 crore revival package for the agricultural sector. The Centre has sought the states' active participation in the revival programme. The money will be used to increase the output of grain, provide assistance for irrigation, research and restructuring of fertilizer subsidy programme etc.Instead of having an all India agricultural strategy it may be more meaningful to have a state specific agricultural strategy with due respect to climatic zones within the overall general national agricultural strategy.
The new rehabilitation law may make it binding on promoters to develop infrastructure such as roads in the 20-kilometre periphery of a special economic zone, besides providing facilities like health, education and housing to the people displaced by the project.
"The responsibility of the people acquiring land will not be limited within the SEZ in which they operate. They will be responsible to share the development responsibility along with the state government within a periphery of 20 km of an SEZ," a high-level government official said.
The National Rehabilitation Policy, which will be converted into a law, could also require SEZ developers to share a larger responsibility along with the state government.
The draft of the Rehabilitation Bill, being prepared by the Rural Development Ministry, provides for strong punitive action against those failing to fulfill the responsibility towards those displaced and the inhabitants in nearby areas.The National Rehabilitation Policy, which will be converted into a law, could also require SEZ developers to share a larger responsibility along with the state government.
The draft of the Rehabilitation Bill, being prepared by the Rural Development Ministry, provides for strong punitive action against those failing to fulfill the responsibility towards those displaced and the inhabitants in nearby areas.
Oversight mechanism
As per the proposed law, state governments would be asked to set up an oversight mechanism to ensure that SEZ developers meet their obligations.
Further, unlike the present arrangement, "quite a large part of the compensation will have to be paid well before the displacement itself", the official said.
The Rural Development Ministry is also proposing 'Land for Land Policy' where alternate land should be provided. In case of larger displacement, developers would be asked to set up a separate colony for the affected people with facilities like education, health and housing.The government has so far approved more than 500 SEZs, including formal and in principle, but has been facing stiff opposition on the matter, particularly after violent protests at Nandigram in West Bengal and other places.
On the other hand, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Saturday, ` Small farmers cannot sustain on agriculture alone and should look at diversification and beyond the realm of farming.’There is a need to inculcate amongst the small farmers a streak of entrepreneurship so that it is easier for them to sustain their families by diversifying, which is not possible if they continue to solely depend on agriculture, he said after inaugurating the state-of-the-art 250-bed Noble Hospital at Hadapsar.
Pawar said there has been a sea change in the profile of Hadapsar, which until a few years ago was a green belt area.
Today it has all the modern infrastructural facilities and its IT Park employs some 30,000 engineers whose number is set to double in coming years.
The Union Minister said Pune has become a major automotive and IT hub of the country. He said the automobile component exports from Chakan, Pimpri and Talegaon areas of the district would touch Rs 75,000 crores in the years to follow.
He said expansion and urbanisation of cities was putting increased pressure on local self governments for basic amenities like drinking water. The influx of people from different parts of the country has brought in demographic change in the profile of many major cities of Maharashtra like Thane, Nagpur and Pune.
Poor infrastructure and lack of other facilities in rural areas was driving people towards the cities, increasing the problems of local bodies to cope with the issues that surface with rapid urbanisation.
What is the Buddha Line of Capitalist Development of Rural Bengal, that is quite different from Jyoti Basu`s Land Reforms and Rural Development. Thus the staunch supporters of Basu Regime join Nandigram Insurrection!
A change in eating patterns in south India is one of the factors behind the mismatch in demand and supply in foodgrains that has resulted in food insecurity in the country, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said yesterday.
Buddha line sees:What is changing is the nature of the rich-poor divide. That divide was once synonymous with the urban-rural split. The only way to get rich was to live in town, and to reside in the country was to be bound to interminable poverty.But increasingly, the rural economy is a microcosm of the national economy, with its own rich and poor. The rural rich are 1,000 times as likely as the rural poor to own a motorcycle, 100 times as likely to own a color television and 25 times as likely to own a pressure cooker, according to a survey of 96,000 rural households by the research council. India's 700 million villagers now account for the majority of consumer spending in the country, more than $100 billion a year. Millions step into consumerism each year, graduating from the economics of necessity to the economics of gratification, buying themselves motorcycles, televisions, transistor radios and pressure cookers.Diverse forces are fueling the trend. The government has invested billions of dollars in development, including road building and rural electrification, and has forced banks to lend to farmers. Hearty monsoons have fattened farmers' profits. Widening educational access has helped farmers' children to get city jobs and send money home.
With the private sector booming, industry and services have overtaken farming to account for 54 percent of rural income.
Across India, the shift is palpable. Around one-fifth of village households now generate their primary income from a salaried job or a small business like a village store, not from farming. And it is these new jobs that are driving rural demand, with that one-fifth segment accounting for 60 percent of rural purchases of refrigerators, for example.
The growth of the agricultural sector is critical to sustain nine per cent growth rate of the economy as a whole, in curbing inflation and in helping restrict large scale imports of grain and pulses as the prices of these products are very high in the international market. A year ago the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission observed: "The major weakness of the economy is the agricultural growth, which had decelerated from 3.2% in the period from 1980-81 to 1995-96, to an average of below 2% subsequently." This is in sharp contrast to the performance of the manufacturing and the service sectors which are recording double digit growth.
Professor MS Swaminathan, the architect of Green Revolution in India, has been expressing his concern for a couple of years now over the trends in the agricultural sector. He is disturbed by the fact that there are no real policies in the agricultural sector except subsidies. He is also agitated over the fact that nothing is being done to check the conversion of prime agricultural land into non-farming land. Commenting on the revival package Prof. Swaminathan says that the allocation is not just enough to take up all the schemes as indicated therein, but should be used by the States to narrow the yield gaps "in the second fertile crescent comprising West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa."
Increasing the yield per hectare is urgent since independent studies have pointed out that the things will not be the same in 20 years from now. Researchers have shown that if the food productivity continues to decline the demand for cereals will exceed domestic production by 23 million metric tonnes by 2020. India by then will be a net importer of foodgrain to feed its population.
It is common knowledge that productivity of Indian agriculture is much less than the agricultural productivity of other countries, and that the Indian agriculture has a long way to go to realize its goals; we have now no option left but to make conscious efforts to increase our productivity and bring it at par with the international standards.
Around 1930, Will Durant visited India, which interested him since his study for the celebrated book The Story of Civilization. Quite startled by what he saw, he wrote, "…I have seen a great people starving to death… due to the most sordid and criminal exploitation of one nation by another… even a casual traveller perceives the decay of agriculture…" After the Bengal famine of 1943, the Indian Agent General in Washington, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, melodramatically told the world while addressing the Combined Food Board, "In the south and west of India, 120 million people are already within uneasy hearing of the fluttering of the wings of the Angels of Death… for us, there can be no tightening of belts because you cannot straighten a straight line."
The scenerio has not changed, we may not say. The change is there, of course, and the transformation is a National Death Zone Entire Rural India targeted by MNCs and Promoters! Ruling class set up is perhaps different as the characters have adopted modern mechanism and differnt identity.In the early 1950s, Balraj Sahni as Shambhu portrayed the poignant status of the Indian farmer in a Bimal Roy movie, Do bigha zameen . Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Manoj Kumar played rural and farmer roles right up until the early 1970s. However, by the early 70s, economic development had set into motion the process of urban migration, and altered the profile of the Indian cinema-goer. Away from their homes and into the urban slums, people had no mood for the chunks of reality that sustained the reputations of Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor and K. A. Abbas. Further, perhaps with the success of the Green Revolution in the mid-60s, the plight of the Indian farmer and agriculture ceased to be interesting to the film industry. Indeed the farm sector has ceased to interest anybody, whether it was the city dweller, the businessman, or even the politician. Maybe a part of the lawlessness and social tension, particularly in the Bimaru states, has a connection with this.
You may not find DO Bigha Zameen characters nowadays. Ambanis, Salim, DOW and Tatas have taken over as you see it well in Kalingnagar, Navi Mumbai, Noida, Gurgaon, Singur and Nandigram! It is believed that HASANGARH, India The chasm between India's flourishing cities and bleak rural hinterland is narrowing.Spread across 650,000 villages, with an average population of 1,100, rural villagers were long imagined by city dwellers as primitive, impoverished and irrelevant, something to drive past on the way to something else.
That is no longer the case., the advocates of urbanisation claim!
They claim that a chemical hub or a Tata motors Plant would change the scenerio in Ruaral India! The logic is that a new prosperity is sprouting in rural India, with tens of millions entering the pressure-cooker-and-television-owning class and tens of thousands becoming sippers of Scotch, owners of premium tractors and drivers of multiple sedans.The opening of this new frontier of consumer demand from 700 million people could tip India's role in the global economy from seller to buyer, from a vendor of outsourced skills to a source of consumers for the world's wares. Multinational corporations, from Coca-Cola to Nokia, appear increasingly keen to understand Indian villagers!
Perhaps, most important, the opportunities available to the people in villages are not dramatically different from what they were many years ago. Villages in India are where you live if you have no other option Continuously widening of the gap in per capita income between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors has huge economic and social implications, especially when the non-farm sector is incapable of employing the poor from the farm sector.
Reality is quite different industrialisation and urbanisation in Jharkhand, Chhattisgragh, Maharashtra and Karnatak have not changed the scenerio in the villages. But Buddha or Narendra Modi or Deshmukh or Hudda or Patnaik Brands portray Indian villages in different colors! At the extreme of the trend are the "crorepatis," Hindi for those making the equivalent of $220,000 or more a year. Here in the northern state of Haryana, rural dwellers are now nearly twice as likely to be crorepatis as city dwellers in Bangalore, the high-technology hub, according to the National Council for Applied Economic Research, the leading collector of data on rural India.It may be a trickle, but India's urban prosperity is flowing to the countryside. And well-to-do villages like Hasangarh are early testing grounds of whether the benefits of India's economic makeover and opening to the world will flow to its villagers, many of them living in its very poorest rural nooks.The transformation of such villages will also add fuel to the debate over democracy's influence on economic development. India has been faulted for growing more lethargically than China, in part because of its democracy.
But that in turn broadens the consensus in favor of change, perhaps making liberalization more sustainable in India than in China, said Yasheng Huang, a Chinese-born scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on the two countries.
"In China in the 1990s, you have a combination of a leadership who had an urban bias and of an authoritarian system that suppressed the voices of the poor, and the end result was the rising rural-urban disparity and the high level of social tensions," Huang said in an e-mail interview.
"If you have an urban bias, then it is better to have a democracy because then the voters can rise up to correct that bias, especially, as in India, where poor people actively vote."
In China, a widening income gap between town and country is worrying officials. But in India, the gap is narrowing. In 1990, for every $100 earned by an Indian villager, an urbanite made $82 more. Today, the difference has dropped to $56.
Yet the new rural riches are far from ending poverty. In India, 390 million people still live on $1 a day or less.
The opening of this new frontier of consumer demand from 700 million people could tip India's role in the global economy from seller to buyer, from a vendor of outsourced skills to a source of consumers for the world's wares. Multinational corporations, from Coca-Cola to Nokia, appear increasingly keen to understand Indian villagers.
At the extreme of the trend are the "crorepatis," Hindi for those making the equivalent of $220,000 or more a year. Here in the northern state of Haryana, rural dwellers are now nearly twice as likely to be crorepatis as city dwellers in Bangalore, the high-technology hub, according to the National Council for Applied Economic Research, the leading collector of data on rural India.
It may be a trickle, but India's urban prosperity is flowing to the countryside. And well-to-do villages like Hasangarh are early testing grounds of whether the benefits of India's economic makeover and opening to the world will flow to its villagers, many of them living in its very poorest rural nooks.
The transformation of such villages will also add fuel to the debate over democracy's influence on economic development. India has been faulted for growing more lethargically than China, in part because of its democracy.
What we see!
Little has changed in the villages of India in the past decades. Yes, schools have been built, but many still lack teachers and appropriate teaching methods. There are phone lines in many villages, but getting a dial tone is still a challenge. Electricity supply is at best intermittent. Health care is still limited in its availability. Entertainment is limited to radio or television, if it all the electricity is there. India's solution so far has been myriad poverty alleviation programmes and employment schemes. Corruption is not the only reason they have met with limited success. The question to ask is have they changed or enhanced peo
