The Hindu : New Delhi News : Globalisation helps India attack poverty: Patten

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 03, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Globalisation helps India attack poverty: Patten

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Lord Chris Patten, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and former Governor of Hong Kong, on Thursday said globalisation that triggered the flow of investments and growth in the developing nations brought millions out of poverty, particularly in India and China.

After the Indian economy opened up, the level of poverty in the country declined, and had the reforms been pursued further and faster, the results would have been better. The untapped potential of the economy remained and there was immense scope for improvement in the bureaucracy and labour reforms in order to sustain the economic reforms.

Lord Patten was delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture on “Globalisation — Friend or Foe?” here.

Rise in inequality

It was proved that nations with better mass educated and trained workforce benefited more from globalisation. It also led to a rise in inequality between the urban and rural populations and between the haves and have-nots. The need was to ensure that the benefits of globalisation also helped in improving social parameters and states should be more accountable to their people. If the economic process of globalisation continued to alienate people and increase social disparity, problems across the globe would grow further.

Shared leadership with China and India along with Europe was what the world needed to find solutions to its problems. Nations should exercise sovereignty more cooperatively, he said.

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