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On Saturday 06 November 2010 08:01 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Parminder:
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">A
bit tendentious, as usual. </span></p>
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</blockquote>
<br>
I am happy to return the compliment :). You pulled this graph from the
wikipedia site, but did not give the link to the whole page where the
picture is much more mixed. (
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India</a> )
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D70AC108D805@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">While
the overall number of poor in
India is very large, as a percentage of the total population it has
halved
since the 1970s and the slope of the downward line seems to have
increased
since economic liberalization. <br>
</span></p>
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<br>
Things have been improving no doubt slowly over long periods. But it
is hardly satisfactory. And absolute numbers do count, dont they? Some
indicators like malnutritions and other health related statistics may
even be stagnant. Indian incidently is called the hunger capital of the
world with mal-nutrition stats worse then that of Sub Saharan africa. <br>
<br>
>From the same wikipedia article you saw<br>
<br>
<blockquote>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank"
title="World Bank">World Bank</a>, citing estimates made by the <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization"
title="World Health Organization">World Health Organization</a>,
states "that about 49 per cent of the world's underweight children, 34
per cent of the world's stunted children and 46 per cent of the world's
wasted children, live in India." The World Bank also noted that
"[w]hile poverty is often the underlying cause of malnutrition in
children, the superior economic growth experienced by South Asian
countries compared to those in Sub-Saharan Africa, has not translated
into superior nutritional status for the South Asian child."<sup
id="cite_ref-56" class="reference"><a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India#cite_note-56"><span>[</span>57<span>]</span></a></sup></blockquote>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D70AC108D805@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Tell
me if this statistical graph is incorrect: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BPL_Data_GOI.png">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BPL_Data_GOI.png</a></span></p>
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</blockquote>
As mentioned above, If you read the same wikipedia entry from where
you took this graph you will see that the picture is much more complex
and contested. To see more about these contestations about India's
poverty statistics see
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.prb.org/Articles/2010/indiapoverty.aspx">http://www.prb.org/Articles/2010/indiapoverty.aspx</a> . <br>
<br>
I am not selling India's poverty, but the widespread notions about
resurgent India breaking away all barriers need to be taken with some
salt, as they say. And so is the IT revolution. There is this tendency
to see everything IT automatically and neutrally useful to all, an
argument used to keep political stuff away from this arena. It is in
this regard that the India's poverty argument was originally made. This
argument is to that extent very relevant to the present discussion
whether we need appropriate global Internet related public policies or
not. <br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D70AC108D805@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Most
sources I see, admittedly second-hand, indicate that the
bureaucratic “license Raj” in India stifled growth after the 1950s
and that poverty has decreased since the 1980s liberalizing reforms. </span></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
Yes, 'license raj' had become bad, and liberalisation has been useful.
But things are not black and white. The more recent plunges into
wholesale neoliberalism are leading to very uneven growth, and very
unsatisfactory situation vis a vis general human development levels
(see the UNDP HDR report) . Parminder <br>
<br>
<blockquote
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; color: windowtext;">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; color: windowtext;">
parminder
[<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">mailto:parminder@itforchange.net</a>] <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, November 06, 2010 9:20 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> McTim<br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.cpsr.org">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [governance] Re: SECOND DRAFT statement on
enhanced
cooperation<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">McTim<br>
<br>
Rest of your responses to my proposal are a bit of a standard exchange
between
us, and I may have not have much new to say, but I will like to make a
comment
on the following. <br>
</span><br>
On Saturday 06 November 2010 01:26 PM, McTim wrote: <o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt;">
<pre><span class="moz-txt-citetags"><span style="color: black;">></span></span><span
style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span class="moz-txt-citetags"><span style="color: black;">> </span></span><span
style="color: black;">And if we think there is a global vacuum vis a vis global IG policies, what<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span class="moz-txt-citetags"><span style="color: black;">> </span></span><span
style="color: black;">is our analysis about whose interests such a vacuum serves,<o:p></o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span style="color: black;"> <o:p></o:p></span></pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>It seems to have served innovation quite well, built economies and<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>eco-sytems. Look at your own backyard to find the<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre> <o:p></o:p></pre>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">About my backyard,
two things<br>
<br>
one, pl read this article about the recent 2010 UNDP HDR report, from
which I
quote <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">"India has failed
to make
any significant improvement in its poverty figures,with over 400
million --
more than the total in the poorest African nations -- still struck in
poverty,
the Human Development Report 2010 said today, listing India at the
119th
position on the Human Development Index." ( some more details, that may
be
startling to some, at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mydigitalfc.com/economy/indias-growth-fails-translate-poverty-alleviation-hdr-024">http://www.mydigitalfc.com/economy/indias-growth-fails-translate-poverty-alleviation-hdr-024</a>
)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">One may wonder how
in this time
of ICTs and instant news from all over the world, people seem to keep
getting
not too right a picture of where and how things really may be in India.
Any
comments on this?<br>
<br>
Second thing about my backyard, I did share with the list a few weeks
back,
mobile companies are colonizing the mobile Internet in India by the day
like
nobody's business. Mobile Internet is facebook, google and yahoo, not
the
neutral and open Internet we seem to be thinking and talking about
here. I have
no doubt that, going this way, the Internet would soon turn into an
instrument
of increased dependency of the marginalised on outside forces and
agents. Its
potential for empowering local, community based processes is being
increasingly
compromised. <br>
<br>
So, yes, I do look at my backyard, and my comments and my proposal are
informed
by it.<br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
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