THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan has said that though the Right To Information (RTI) Act is expected to help root out corruption, it is being misused like most other Acts.

"We thought it would help to root out corruption, but only a negligible portion of the Right To Information Act has helped," Mr. Balakrishnan said while inaugurating a national seminar on `Indian Economy: Historical Roots and Contemporary Development Experience,' organised by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) here on Saturday. Information continues to be inaccessible

despite the RTI Act, the Chief Justice added.

Mr. Balakrishnan said massive inequality created scepticism about the ability of globalisation to solve the country's problems. He cited Nandigram as the best example. Pointing out that "ours is a world of dreadful poverty and appalling deprivation," he said that unless the common man was brought into the agenda, it would lead to widespread protests as had been seen in Seattle, Quebec, Singapore and elsewhere where global trade talks took place. "We have to initiate an enlightening enquiry into what needs to be done ... raising serious questions about globalisation can raise serious thinking about the scepticism," he added.

He regretted the country's failure to wipe out child labour despite the guarantees for compulsory education at the primary level and pointed out that though the situation in Kerala was better, the drop out rate at the national level was 40 to 50 per cent overall and 60 to 65 per cent in the case of girls. "Unless we enforce compulsory education, we will not be able to wipe out child labour," he said.

Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics at the University of Cornell, delivering the Seventh Joan Robinson Lecture and fielding questions thereafter, cautioned that despite the robust growth rates being seen over the last few years, the country could be in for serious trouble if the question of poverty is not addressed with due seriousness because even by conservative estimates some 230 million people are feeling left out of the economic progress. Since India has entered the league of high saving nations, it would continue to grow, but if poverty persists and inequalities between the rich and the poor accentuate, there could be a political turmoil that can destabilise such growth. The Government, he said, must focus on better distribution of income and better management of poverty.

Prof. Basu said part of the poverty seen in the country was a concomitant of globalisation. There was a need for international coordination to deal with poverty. While on the theme of `jobless growth' he said that though the first decade of economic reforms till 1999 witnessed "jobless growth," there was an improvement later. The story of India's economic growth was interesting because the country moved from primary sector to the service sector to fuel its growth and bypassed the manufacturing sector. But India was going to see a revival of the manufacturing sector in the next 10 to 15 years and the Government must pay much more attention to this than was the case today. Simultaneously, there would also be a shrinking of the wage bills and people were going to depend more and more on their shares and intellectual property rights to compensate them for their labour, he said.

Drawing a thumbnail sketch of India's economic history, Prof. Basu said that nobody would agree with Milton Freidman, who had taken the position that India's woes had to do with the practice of socialism in the country. In reality, it was a case of the country indulging in a lot of rhetoric of socialism and practicing capitalism.

The Chief Justice released a collection of essays in honour of K.N. Raj brought out by Oxford University Press, at the function. A. Vaidyanathan and K.L. Krishna, editors of the book, spoke. Centre for Development Studies governing council chairman N.R. Madhava Menon chaired the meeting. The Centre's director, K. Narayanan Nair, welcomed the gathering. Among those present was Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail