varnam

Sandeep has fisked the article in Rediff by The Resident Idiot on the World Social Forum. In the article the Resident Idiot makes a comment that "But ordinary people there have suffered stagnation or a fall in incomes and economic security" in the past many years.

The number of jobs in India has increased tremendously in the past many years, entirely due to Globalization.

By some estimates, there are more IT engineers in Bangalore (150,000) than in Silicon Valley (120,000). Meta figures at least one-third of new IT development work for big U.S. companies is done overseas, with India the biggest site. And India could start grabbing jobs from other sectors.

By 2008, forecasts McKinsey, IT services and back-office work in India will swell fivefold, to a $57 billion annual export industry employing 4 million people and accounting for 7% of India's gross domestic product. Business Week

If we had followed the socialist ideology, this kind of growth would have never happened. So when the Resident Idiot writes that "But ordinary people there have suffered stagnation or a fall in incomes and economic security", it is an utter lie.

But then you can say, Software Engineers are not ordinary people, if they had not found jobs here, they would have migrated to other countries. For that refer to Arun Shourie's series of articles in Indian Express where he lists the achievements of Indian companies and the number of jobs created due to this global exposure. Just think about the number of people who could find a job and improve their living conditions.

The World Bank in it's report Poverty in the age of Globalization points out

For example, the incidence of poverty in India measured by the official poverty line fell from 57% in 1973 to 35% in 1998,..

There is compelling evidence that increased openness to trade and investment has played an important facilitating role in accelerating growth and poverty reduction in an increasing number of developing countries, hence in reducing overall global inequality.

Rajeev Srinivasan of Rediff had an article few days back on The Nehruvian Penalty:50 wasted years. In his article he puts numbers to show the growth wasted under the Nehruvian Socialist scheme of things. According to the numbers he quotes from a Goldman Sachs report, from 1960 - 2000, India was to grow at a rate of 7.5% (India's current growth rate is 8%), but instead grew at a rate of 4.5%.

In other words, the 3% shortfall has condemned a quarter of a billion people to grinding poverty. It is an economic crime against humanity. The blood, sweat and tears of a billion Indians, for one half century. Wasted. And what was the reason for the 3% shortfall? That, gentle reader, is the Nehruvian Penalty, the effect of the Nehru dynasty, India's Sorrow. Had it not been for the dubious and half-digested economic ideas eagerly accepted by Nehru and fellow Stalinists, India would have been far better off.

So Mr. Resident Idiot, it is under the socialist scheme that people and the nation suffered stagnation, or no income.