FACTS againest MYTHS APRIL-MAY-2004.pdf
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VIKAS ADHYAYAN KENDRA
INFORMATION BULLETIN
APRIL - MAY 2004
FEEL GOOD: About WHAT?
Myths on the '*Shining India” Campaign - II
’comment'
I n the first part of this fact sheet we examined some aspects of the economic realities of India
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today. We basically showed that growth rates and GDP figures by themselves do not at all
indicate the quality of life of the common people or prove their well being. We, in fact, argued
that only a minority of the people in the country could find any reason to Feel Good or to find
India Shining. The problems of poverty - in reality starvation, of malnutrition, of ill health, of
indebtedness, of unemployment are severe and crippling. The much flaunted grand growth is
based on serious imbalance. Agriculture and related activities that still sustain almost three
fourths of the Indian people are not registering any significant growth. There is in fact a decline
relative to other sectors of economic activity. Further the area under food grains has declined.
The production of food grains has reduced. The ‘excess’ of supply over demand, making
possible exports, is truly an indication ofdwindling purchasing power, in other words of poverty
- rather than a genuine surplus. The much advertised exports only indicate once again the
incapacity of Indians to feed themselves adequately—since the availability of food grains is not
such that the people could be well fed and grains still spared. The same is actually true of cloth
production in the country. The cloth produced in the country is not enough to adequately clothe
the entire population and yet we export prodigious amounts, and even seek to increase our
exports. This of course means that we leave a large number of our people inadequately clothed.
So much for food and clothing! The fall in production of food grains also indicates an erosion of
food sovereignty arid food security; any talks of national sovereignty and national security are
- without basic food sovereignty and security - quite hollow, whatever the number of nuclear
bombs under the Defence Minister’s thumb and whatever the depth of the strategic alliance
with the butchers of the world - Israel and USA. The crops that make good this shortfall are
basically colonial crops from tea to fruits and flowers!
We have also shown that the euphoria about corporate growth is quite unfounded. Growth of
Indian corporations in six, eight, ten other countries may hearten the small Feel Good minority
in the country that stands to gain from it or the mindless ultranationalists who see it as an
imperial conquest. In reality it only means increase in the profits of these corporations, profits
for the magnates or higher spending money for a few top executives but a big zilch for the
country - if it is seen as its people, including the toilers.
FACTS against MYTHS —April-May 2004
FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY
■
1
The ‘euphoria’ about the foreign exchange reserves,
we have shown, is a fraud perpetrated on the Indian
people. The reserves are not earnings - they are not
even a national asset. The trade balance continues to
be negative. The reserves actually mean a drain and
not a gain as far as the Indian people are concerned.
The share market boom is a speculative activity that
only proves the capacity of Indian and foreign
operators to make quick killings. It is not indicative of
corporate health leave alone the health and strength
of the Indian economy. On the contrary it is a clear
signal of the vulnerability of the Indian economy since the boom could end up as a crash any day and
bring ruination to numerous small investors as well as
a number of business houses.
The great advances in technology are similarly dubious.
The absolute numbers of technically qualified persons
are high but as a proportion of the population not
adequate at all. There have been no real
breakthroughs in technology - except perhaps in the
area of software development.
We have also emphasised that claims of creation of
millions ofjobs have been periodically raised but the
reality is very different. The jobs have not increased.
The employment opportunities have in fact declined
in all sectors.
There is thus not even enough food in the belly and
cloth on the bodies of a vast number of Indians. This
too is not enough, of course, to Feel Good and to find
India Shining.
In this part we examine the quality of life of the people
of India.
We reiterate that the statistics currently available and
continuously cited by the rulers is heavily unreliable.
It at best indicates the results of a three month period
- that seems to be suddenly quite exceptional as far
as the performance of the Indian economy is
concerned. The reasons for the sudden encouraging
results of the past one year are not at all clear. The
only reason we can unearth is that elections have been
announced and that the picture needs to look rosy
and smell sweet for the rulers in this period.
The problem of poverty continues to be the major
problem for the country despite varied statistical
exercises to prove that it has declined. Millions still go
to bed hungry every day. Disparity is more glaring
than ever, and threatens to increase.
FACTS against MYTHS—April - May 2004
Food security of the people is seriously imperilled. The
erosion of the Public Distribution System has meant
the withdrawal of the meagre safety mechanism that
the poor toilers had.
Education is in a serious crisis. Despite the varied
announcements, in rural areas the facilities foreven
primary education are grossly inadequate. If there are
buildings there are no teachers. If there are teachers
there is no place to hold classes. For any ‘higher’
education - standard V or VII onwards - boys and
girls have to walk a few kilometres every day. This,
as can be imagined, is one of the reasons of the higher
drop-out rate for girls. Further there now seems to be
clear duality if not duplicity in the educational system.
The new dazzling temples of learning now under
private ownership and management that are supposed
to provide international quality education at different
levels are ‘reserved’ for the elite. Even the normally
lucrative technological and managerial courses are nW
available to the rural students particularly those from
the deprived and disadvantaged communities. The
degrees they can manage to get have no value in the
job markets.
A crisis looms in the field of health care. The
government provisions were always inadequate. They
now shrink further and there is a tendency to charge
the patients for the services provided. Private medical
services are expensive and in rural areas of dubious
quality. It is obvious that with the overall increase in
costs the health of poor toilers will suffer. Particular
victims will be women and girl children from these
families.
The housing schemes for the urban and rural poor
are often publicised. Even casual observers know th^|
slums and sub-standard dwellings dominate all citie?
in the country. They now have spread to the new urban
industrial (?) centres. The slum dwellers are
mercilessly evicted the moment the plot of land they
occupy acquires commercial value. Majority of the
rural toilers live in traditional hovels that they have
themselves constructed over the years. The houses
of the Dalits continue to be on the outskirts of the
villages with separate water points for them.
Romantic poetry and fanciful day dreams apart, there
is a severe stress on water in the country. No, this is
not a natural adversity bar in a few exceptional areas
of the country. The reasons are human created.
Mindless and myopic use of water to cultivate water
guzzling ‘colonial’ cash crops depletes both surface
and ground water in the rural areas. The cities draw
2
water from the hinterlands in prodigious amounts
turning the ‘hinterlands’ into deserts. The per capita
water availability in the cities is much higher than in
the villages; and within the cities to there is glaring
disparity - the residential localities of the toilers get
much less water than those of the princes of
commerce. Numerous industries use water in large
amounts and also pollute sources as well as
surrounding water tables to boot. The current fad is
commercial use of water as raw material by various
water and soft drinks bottling companies. The new
‘path breaking’ national water policy has really only
one ‘new’ chapter. This chapter advocates handing
over water supply to private corporations - indigenous
and foreign for distribution and what essentially
amounts to sale. The river linking scheme is a
collection of thirty different projects that involve intra
and inter basin transfer of waters. As yet not even
Ape pre-feasibility studies of these projects have been
completed. To cite it as an achievement is nothing
short of cynical.
The exciting adventure in electricity supply is
privatisation of generation and distribution. We already
have witnessed the scandalous behaviour of Enron
Corporation in Maharashtra. No leaps of imagination
and futuristic thinking are necessary to imagine the
situation if rural electricity supply is handed over to
private corporations — the rates they would charge
from the agricultural users and the way they would
recover the charges.
The government has concentrated its plea, particularly
for the toiling masses, on a BSP (a Freudian slip?)
appeal - viz., Bijli, Sadak aur Pani - Electricity, Roads
and Water. Lets now talk about roads.
^^es, of course, roads are being built. The roads
penetrate the remote areas. Markets and corporate
agriculture requires transport facilities in the rural
areas. That is the only way the agricultural produce
can be brought to the main markets. The consumer
goods too need efficient transport facilities to reach
rural markets. These are the reasons and driving forces
- apart from the vehicle manufacturers lobby - behind
the construction of roads. The welfare of the rural
people and their convenience are only unavoidable
collateral effects.
Atrocities on Dalits are quite rampant and now quite
brutal. The details of the reasons may have changed
but the relationships have not essentially altered. The
Hindutva lobby may have held out an olive branch to
Dalits and Adivasis and recruited them at times as
FACTS against MYTHS-April-May 2004
street fighters in its programmes of communal violence
but their situation has not altered in any significant
manner.
On the front of communal violence too there is no
great improvement. There may not have been major
carnages after the Gujarat Camage of2002 but small
incidents of communal tension and violence have
occurred in many states of the country. If there is no
major conflagration the achievement is of the Indian
people who have refused to be drawn into the violence
rather than of the rulers. The rulers in fact have not
been very efficient or effective in prevention or control
of communal violence. The record on provision of
relief and rehabilitation of victims of communal
violence is dismal and discriminatory. The law and
order machinery has not been able to secure
punishments to any of the perpetrators of communal
violence.
The women in the country have no reason to Feel
Good. We have argued that their burden has increased.
Discrimination against women and girl children is on
the rise due to the economic situation amongst other
factors. The moral and cultural storm troopers of the
right wing organisation glorify arcane anti-women
practices and curtail whatever freedom they have in
public and private spheres.
There is in short no reason to realistically Feel Good
or to find India Shining.
MYTH: The current record surplus stock of
food grains is the answer to hunger and starvation
making schemes like PDS, Food for Work
unnecessary.
FACT: First and foremost this false claim emanates
from two government publications, viz., The Economic
Survey 2001-02 of the Finance Ministry and the
Annual Report 2001-2002 of the Reserve Bank of
India! Along with mainstream economists these
reports maintain that there is at present an
“overproduction” of food grain output! Their line of
reasoning is as follows:
> that Indians today including the well off are
voluntarily diversifying their eating (diet)
habits — from cereals to high value foods;
> that the minimum support prices to farmers
have been “too high”. As a result, there has
been excessive output and procurement and
the mismatch between supply and demand
as arising from rising administered acquisition
price for food grains (rice and wheat) against
the global trend of falling market prices,
leading to 'wrong’ price signals to the farmers
and hence to 'excessive’ output and procure
of these crops.
This is an absolutely an illogical argument.7 especially
in the context decreasing per capita food grains output
and sharply rising rural unemployment
MYTH: The high economic growth with the
decline in poverty levels removes levels of
inequality between the rich and poor.
FACT: Despite high economic growth, behind the feel
good factor, India however continues to have 1 /3rd of
the world’s poor! The euphoria over the feel good
factor is therefore baseless!
Measured against the international poverty line of
those living on less than $1 per day, 350 m. are
declared Poor. The Net Poverty Line measures the
amount of money required to replenish the energy
.equivalent of2,400 k. cal per day in urban areas (2,100
in rural). This is about half a kg of rice, which
translates as Rs.7-8/day/person. With this very low
cut off, 26 per cent of Indians fall below the poverty
line. Internationally, $2/-/day/person is poverty and
$l/day/person is chronic poverty. Accordingly, 70 per
cent of our people can be called poor and the BPL 26
percent will qualify as worse than chronically poor.
For instance, the UN has estimated that 70 per cent
of the world’s poor are women.
On the equation between the rich and poor the gap
has only worsened. For instance,
> Less than 0.2 per cent of Indians sport
designer wear yet per capita consumption of
textiles in 2002 was at 19 meters, way below
the world average.
> The current Sensex index is at an all time
high but 65 per cent of Indian households do
not have bank account. (In rural India, that is
70 percent according to the Census of India
household survey)
>
food grain was exported to foreign markets
at prices far lower than those we forced the
poor below the poverty line to pay. For
instance, at the height of misery in rural A.P.
in 2002, the starving were forced to buy rice
at Rs.6.40 a kilo. This, in drought-hit regions.
Yet, India exported rice at Rs.5.45 a kg.
FACTS against MYTHS — April - May 2004
> Specialty restaurants have come up in most
part of the country with children of the rich
eating out at McDonalds, Dominos, Pop Tates
- consuming on a scale even they have never
fathomed. On the other side is the situation
where the country has the largest number of
malnourished children most of whom are girls.
Further, an average Indian family is absorbing
annually nearly 100 kg of less of food grain
today than a mere five years ago.
> The latest NSS report notes that 1 in every
200 households in rural area and 1 in 1000
households in urban areas goes hungry. A
rough estimate indicates staggering figure of
500 m. undernourished in India with the
number of undernourished increased by the
biggest magnitude (nearly 230 m.) compared
to all other countries of the South between^
theperiod 1995-97 to 1999-2001.
iV
> The World Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch
and Gemini Ernst & Young puts the number
of Indians with assets of a least $1 m. at
50,000. That is, there are 50,000 millionaires
in the country! And according to the Forbes’
March 2003 List of Most Powerful
Billionaires, 9 are Indians, out of a total of
587 billionaires worldwide. That is, Indians
now constitute 1.5% of the world’s
billionaires.
> Thus, on one side is the unabashed vulgar
indulgence in conspicuous consumption by
the nouveau riche and on the other people
not only dying out of hunger but many even
committing suicide at times with wholj*
families and children together.
The FAO report, State ofFood Security in World2003,
shows that the number of undernourished people
experiencing chronic hunger has risen to 214.5 b. (i.e.
over 25% were in India alone) during the 1999-2001
period as compared to 194.7 m. during 1995-97.
> In May 2003, some areas in Hyderabad city
- the Cyber City of India - were getting
water supply once in 2 or 3 days, for a limited
number of hours. Yet, the government of
A.P. was supplying clean, processed water
to Coca Cola at around 25 p. per litre. The
same is available to the rest of the people of
India at Rs. 12 per litre in a plastic bottle.
4
Manipulation of Statistics
In the campaign to present a glowing picture of the economy all means have been used including the
manipulation of data and statistics. The National Commission on Population for instance has claimed
that there has been rapid demographic transition during the last 3 years. This is incorrect. The birth
rate for instance barely declined during this period — from 26 to 25 per thousand. This fact however
has been shown in the vertical axis, starting at 24, so that visually, the change from 26- to 25 looks like
a decline of 50 per cent. For further enhancement of this myth, the birth rate level in each year is
represented by the height of a 3 dimensional object. With the height declining by 50 per cent in the
graph, the volume of the object shrinks by much more than half, giving an impression of massive
reduction.
The next graph, showing the change in population growth rate, is even more misleading: the reduction
is only from 17.3 to 16.9 but the vertical axis starts at 16.7, giving the impression of a sudden crash in
the birth rate within 3 years!!
Next, the Khadi and Village industries Commission (KVIC) for instance, boasts that its “performance
graph is steep”. The accompanying graph, which show 'cumulative earnings’ is indeed steep. But
cumulative earnings are bound to go up, by definition, and the slope can be made arbitrarily steep by
suitable stretching of the stretching of the vertical axis or shrinking of the horizontal axis.
This is not the only way in which vacuous achievements are glorified. The Ministry of Communications,
for instance, boasts that 37.5 lakh internet connections were created during the last 5 years, compared
with ‘only’ 2.5 lakh during the preceding 50 years. It hardly matters that internet connections did not
exist during the best of the latter period. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to. ask (say)
how many posts of primary teachers were created in each period it turns out; the annual increase is
virtually same in both periods.
Elsewhere, failures are turned into successes. For instance, an ad of the food ministry congratulates
“our farmers who have created surplus stocks of food grains ensuring no death from hunger”. There
is no reference here to the trail of hunger deaths that took place in recent years in the shadow of huge
food stocks. Similarly, the decimation of handloom weaving all over India in recent years does not
prevent the P.M. from “weaving a bright future for handloom weavers” in an ad prepared by the
Ministry of Textiles. Reading the fine print, one finds that the 'bright future’ of millions of impoverished
weavers hinges on a measly scheme for “reimbursement of rebate on sale of handloom cloth”
Another way around the lack of evidence is to focus on ‘targets’ rather than achievements. For
instance, the Planning Commission highlights “the reduction in infant mortality rate to 45 per 1000 live
births”. Careful reading reveals that this is not an achievement but a target for 2007. Considering that
India’s infant mortality rate today is still around 70, one is curious to learn what kind of revolutionary
changes in public policy are expected to trigger this steep decline within 3 years. But there is no
mention of policy changes in the ad - only ‘targets’.
In terms of income also there is great inequality. Using
NSS (National Sample Survey) data, researcher Abhijit
Sen8shows that the gap in per capita consumption by
various groups in rural and urban India since the late
80s is very wide. There has been a remarkable
improvement in consumption of those who were
already the richest people in India i.e. the top 20 per
cent of the urban population. Their per capita
consumption has risen by around 40 per cent since
1989-90, and is the highest and most rapid rise in the
consumption of the rich that has ever been recorded
Q FACTS against MYTHS - April ■ May 2004
in India. It is likely to have been even higher in actuality
since the NSS usually underestimates the consumption
of the rich . Next, is the group of the top 20 per cent
of the rural population — the rural rich -whose per
capita consumption rose by over 20 per cent since
1989-90. This was similar to the rise in consumption
among the next 40 per cent of the urban population.
By complete contrast, for the bottom 40 per cent of
the urban population there has been relatively little
rise in per capita consumption compared to these other
groups — at only about 14 per cent since 1989-90.
However, the most dramatic evidence is for the bottom
80 per cent of the rural population i.e. numbering nearly
600 m. whose per capita consumption has actually
declined since 1989-90. In order words, even the
official statistics of the government still show that over
half of India has lower consumption per person than
more than 10 years ago, after a decade when national
income were supposed to be growing at around 6 per
cent.8
MYTH: The current boom in the economy has
led to a phenomenal rise in GDP and in turn to
the general well being.
FACT: Undoubtedly the Indian economy is booming
with high GDP. However, ifjust one section of Indian
society is considered e.g. the urban poor living below
the poverty line in slums, constituting almost 2/5lh of
India’s total population, this claim gets exposed for
what it is—False!
Citing the latest survey of the National Sample Survey
Organisation (NSSO) carried out during JulyDecember 2002 on status of urban poor.T.K. Mahanti
in the Economic Times9 revealed the appalling picture
of living conditions in the country’s slums. These
number 52,000 slums in the urban areas and about 8
m. households live in these slums. They accounted
for 14% of the total urban households in the countiy.
The highest number of slums is in Maharashtra, 32%,
West Bengal, 16% and A.P. 15%.
A similar survey held by NSSO in 1993 had located
56,000 urban slums. The number of households living
in those slums was estimated at 6 m. That is, although
the number of slums had declined during the period,
the number of households living in them has risen.
Over half of the non-notified slums, which account
for the larger part of the slums, did not have any toilet
facilities. Underground drainage system existed injust
9% of these slums and underground sewerage was
available to only 15% of them. And although living
conditions in notified slums were comparatively better,
almost a S'*1 of them still have no toilet facilities.
Underground drainage system existed in just 17% of
them and underground sewerage was available to only
30% of them.
Although the latest survey claims improvement in living
conditions it has nothing to do with the State being
responsible for this. On the contrary its role has been
poor (Mahanti). The amount of funds it has provided
under the National Slum Up-gradation Scheme
FACTS against MYTHS-April-May 2004
(NSUS) has declined during the last 5 years by 5.5%
from the already low Rs.327.44 crore in 1998-99 to
Rs.308.50 crore in 2002-03. In 2000-01 only Rs.222.34
crore was released under this scheme.
At the individual State level just 3 States Maharashtra, West Bengal and A.P. — together
accounted for more than 2/5lh of the funds in 200203. The decline has also been in Bihar whose share
in total funds released under NSUS has declined from
7.4% in 1998-99 to 5.4% in 2002-03.( In Patna over
63% of people live in slums, the highest in any
metropolitan city in India).
MYTH: Globalisation has improved the living
standards of women.
FACT: According to the UN, 70 per cent of the
world’s poor are estimated to be women. But when
gender is disaggregated as development issue, poverty _
issue, etc. the reality is a lot more realistic than the . e
figures provided by the NSSO which limits its findings
within just the four walls of the household. Yet, when
the household is examined closely, what will be found
is that the collective income, the distribution of health,
food equation, transport, decision-making, etc., are
heavily weighted against women. This is particularly
so in the BPL population10. This has severe
implications for human growth and development For,
on applying the male-female gap in access to the total
population in India, at least 50 m. of the below poverty
260 m. (26 per cent) will go out of poverty10. There
after, 70 per cent of those left will be women.
Globalisation has also raised disparities among women.
The benefits of economic reforms have been unduly
tilted towards men. Increment in wage rates among
males has been higher relative to females. Nor has j (
employment among women increased. Rather, there
is evidence of increased casualisation and irregularity
of work among women following reforms10. In terms
of health women face a great deal of denials
MYTH: The high growth rate has also led to a
boom in women’s employment.
FACT: Indeed, there has been a boom in the
employment of women — in the in the textile and
food processing industry — but they still face
discrimination on wage rates and have to work under
unhealthy working conditions. This is in spite of the
fact that both these industries have achieved
substantial export-led growth.11
6
Women, in a male-defined society like India, generally
earn far lower wages than their counterparts carrying
out the same work. In no State do women and men
earn equal wages in agriculture. A majority of the
women work in the informal sector. Two trends have
led to the growth of such workers in this sector. First,
in the rural areas the migration of men to urban centres
or abroad has provided opportunities for more female
involvement in small enterprises. Second, in urban
areas, the demand for cheap, low-skilled labour has
risen over the years owing to export-oriented
manufacturing. This trend has been instrumental in
providing employment to an increasing number of
women. However, women are often hired on
exploitative terms. They often work in difficult
conditions for long periods with low wages. There
are no labour laws or social security measures for
these workers. Moreover, she has to work longer
fe tf^iours without proper rest and work harder for the
same benefits. In many places where a large number
of women work there are no separate toilets for them.
Increasing mechanisation and technological
innovations are an ever constant threat to workers.
In such situations women are the first to be fired.
Again, new sectors are indeed opening up
opportunities for women’s employment like electronics,
garments and in the free and export processing zones
(EPZs). However, women workers here also are
underpaid even if in comparison they are paid higher
than women workers in the domestic tariff areas (i.e.
outside these export-processing zones) with improper
working conditions. A large majority of these workers
are young girls. They work under a piece rate system;
as casual workers and contract labour although they
a (gPpay he working in these units for years. On the other
hand these new sectors (EPZs & FTZs) are provided
with all the concessions and facilities to promote
exports with low wages and no union rights. Even
the ILO has condemned the exploitation of women
workers in these Zones.
MYTH: The economic reforms have also
contributed to growth of employment
FACT: However, the National Sample .Survey on
Employment and Unemployment , of which the 55'h
Round was held in 1999-2000, indicates a dramatic
decline in the rate of employment generation in the
latest period. The rate of growth of employment,
defined in terms of the Current Daily Status (which is
a flow measure of the extent ofjobs available) decline
from 2.7 per cent per year in the period 1983-94 to
( FACTS against MYTHS - April - May 2004
only 1.07 per cent per year in 1994-2000 for all of
India. This refers to all forms of employment —
casual, part-time, self-employment, etc. For permanent
and secure jobs, the rate of increase was close to 0".
In rural areas, the decline in all employment growth
was even sharper, from 2.4 per cent in the previous
period to less than 0.67 per cent over 1994-2000. This
was well below the rate of growth of population. In
both rural and urban areas, the absolute number of
unemployed increased substantially, and the rate of
unemployment went up as well. But in addition to
this, there was a sharp decline in the rate of growth
of the labour force.
A significant part of the collapse in employment
occurred in agriculture, where the employment
elasticity of output growth (the extent to which
additional output creates additional demands forjobs)
declined from 0.7 in 1983-94 to only 0.01 in 19942000. Aggregate employment elasticity of output fell
from 0.52 to 0.16 over the same periods. Organised
employment also has been extremely sluggish.
According to latest report in the Human Development
in South Asia2003: The Employment Challenge, cited
in Frontline12the Unemployment Rates in India during
1999-2001 stood at 7.3 per cent. The female and
male unemployment rates during 1990-2000 were 10.0
and 7.0 for female and male respectively, with a 1.4
F/M ratio. Corroborating on this the New Age13 notes
that during the last 15 years (1985-2000),
unemployment has been rising continuously but in the
last 5 years, it has been rising rapidly. There has been
a jobless growth. And during the last one and half
decades, the total employment opportunities were
created to the extent of 940 lakh (40 lakh in the
organized sector and 900 lakh in the unorganized
sector). Even during the last 6 years, the rate of
increase under both these sectors has gone down. It
may be recalled that the organised sector employing
merely 7 per cent of the total employed is the hub of
the economy and contributes to the GDP per head of
Rs. 2,00,00. On the other hand, the unorganized sector
sharing the lion’s share (93 per cent) of the
employment contributes Rs.27,000 only. This is the
vital difference.
In addition, the pattern of employment during the last
15 years, the share of self-employment in the total
employment has shrunk while that of the casual labour
has risen. Regular wage-employment has, more or
less, remained stagnant.
7
References:
8.
People’s Democracy, February 9-15, 2004
1.
“The State of India’s Economy”, Aspects of
India’s Economy, #36-37, RUPE, Mumbai,
2004
9.
Mahantai, T.K.’’Higher GDP Growth
Bypasses Slumdwellers...”, Indian Express,
March 29,2004
2.
Indian Express, April 4,2004
10.
3.
Times of India, November 19,2003
Shariff, A. “Poverty Prescriptions, Times of
India, January 7,2004
4.
George Regi P. “Lies, Damned Lies &
Statistics - Infrastructure, Power”,
11.
Menon, S. “Images of Women Workers in
2003”, Labour File, #1, Delhi, 2004
indiathinkersnet@yahoogroups.com
12.
Frontline, April 9,2004
Indian Express, January 1,2004
13.
New Age, March 28, 2004
Gyan Pathak, Forex Reserve: GovernmentInduced Euphoria is Illusion., New Age,
March 14-20,2004.
14.
5.
6.
G8SO
GSM
Sainath, P. “The Feel Good Factory”,
Frontline, March 12,2004
*
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I Facts Against Myths is a bi-monthly bulletin offactual I
I information on a number ofdevelopment myths and
etc, including information against alien
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I fallacies,
development models, paradigms and false concepts
I on caste, creed and gender.
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Produced and Published by:
I \/ Vikas Adhyayan Kendra
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D-l Shivdham, 62 Link Road,
Mai ad West, Mumbai 400 064, INDIA I
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S : 2882 2850 & 2889 8662
Fax:28898941
I Email
: vak@bom3.vsnl.net.in
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Design & Layout: Kartiki Desai
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by: Ujwal Arts, 185, Ganesh Krupa, S. G.
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I Printed
Barve Marg, Kurla West, Mumbai 400 070
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PRINTED MA^
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