Developement as freedom What are the cross impacts.. 1999 Elections The importance of it NDA Manisfesto An empty document for BJP's agenda Growing Disparity Technology gaps widening says HDR

What we have witnessed over the last half of this century - the Science and Technology Revolution( STR ), and what has been responsible for today's modern world, the post industrialised society, is nothing but a phenomenal advancement in the field of technology, specially in the fields of Information Technology, Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Material Science, Energy etc. Technology by nature, is progressive. From the days of primitive production, within a span few thousand years, the present day society has emerged in which Technology played one of the most vital role. But far from continuous, this progress has been marked by ascents and descents. This has not been equally distributed - with some regions too often lagging behind others.

The first published Human Development Report said in 1990, " The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives. This simple but powerful truth is often forgotten in the pursuit of material and financial wealth." After nine long years, almost the same spirit, probably with much stress and anguish, has come out from the Human Development Report 1999 - the Tenth one. In the age of Globalization, they had no hesitation in saying, " Competitive markets may be the best guarantee of efficiency, but not necessarily of equity. Liberalization and privatization can be a step to comprtitive markets - but not a guarantee of them. And markets are niether the first nor the last world in human development. Many activities and goods that are critical to human development are provided outside the market - but tese are being squeezed by the pressures of global competition. There is a fiscal squeeze on public goods, a time squeeze on care activities and an incentive squeeze on the environment.

When the market goes too far in dominating social and political outcomes, the oppurtunities and rewards of globalization spread unequally and inequitably - cocentrating power and wealth in a select group of people, nations and corporations, marginalizing the others. When the market gets out of hand, the instabilities show up in boom and bust economies, as in the financial crisis in East Asia and its worldwide repercussions, cutting global ouput by an estimated $2 trillion in 1998-2000. When the profit motives of market players get out of hand, they challenge people's ethics - and sacrifice respect for justice and human rights."

The same report described how inequalities have increased among the nations. Infact the income gap between the richest one-fifth and the poorest one-fifth was 30:1 in 1960, rose upto 60:1 in 1990 and by another seven years, in 1997 it has crossed a ratio of 74:1. While the same group of rich people enjoy 86% of world GDP - the poor one-fifth has to be satisfied with merely 1%. The OECD countries with 19% population have 71% of global trade in goods and services, 58% of foreign direct investment and 91% of all internet users. World today is dominated by Multinational countries and large numbers of mergers and acuisitions are taking place to establish the monopoly in the world market. The 10 biggest MNCs in pesticides control 85% of a $31 billion global market - and the top 10 companies in telecommunication control 86% of $262 billion international market.

Around 1.5 billion people are not expected to survive to age 60. More than 880 million people lack access to health service, and 2.6 billion access to basic sanitation. In 1997 more than 850 adults were illiterate, about 840 million are malnourished - 25% of them are children. Nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, and close to 1 billion cannot meet their basic consumption level.

Today after more than 50 years of independence, our country is no exception from this scene of disparity. The nation as a whole is deprived, ranked 132 as per Human Development Index among 174 nations. There is no reason why a country having such a vast reserve of natural and human resource will suffer from such a state of non-development! 53% children suffer from gross malnutrition, nearly 50% people are illiterate, 2.2 million children die every year before attaing one year of age. The cocept with which we started our journey (the Tryst with Destiny) in 1947 took considerable deviation particularly in last one decade. And without being bothered to analyse the reasons for such failures suddenly our Government has taken a policy, completely contrary to the approach of self-reliance, possibly to suit the policy of globalization advocated by the developed nations and the international financial institutions like IMF or World Bank and trading forums like WTO.

The present government is also no different from the earlier ones in implementing these policies excepting that their speed of implementation is so far the fastest. They neither cared the ideas and suggestions from Indian intellectuals nor they bothered the warning given by the Human Development Report 1999. It is better that people of India should get rid of such policy makers before entering into the new century.