Till last year the “World Social Forum”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002106.html was funded by the Ford Foundation and this year they have been kept away. The Economic Times even had a headline which said “This communist war brought to you by Ford Foundation, Oxfam”:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/421483.cms
bq. With war against globalisation on their mind, top Indian left leaders are reaching Mumbai this week for the World Social Forum which ironically is associated with champions of globalisation such as the Ford Foundation and Oxfam.
But then why was Ford Foundation asked to keep away from this years Forum ? The answer to that is given by “Lisa Jordan of Ford”:http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-6-91-1678.jsp in an interview with Casper Henderson
bq. We are not supporting this year?s forum because the Indian Organising Committee (IOC), which represents a comprehensive attempt to bring together a large cross-section of Indian society, includes some groups who have objected to Ford?s activities in India since 1953 ? especially support for the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. They feel that contributions made by the Ford Foundation helped to prevent India from undergoing communist revolution.
So what happened during the “Green Revolution”:http://www.indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm and why are the communists so opposed to that ?
An estimated 4 million people died in what is known as the Bengal Famine in 1943. So when India became independent Food security was high on the agenda. This resulted in the Green Revolution which resulted in the continued expansion of farming areas, double-cropping existing farm lands, and using seeds with superior genetics.
bq. The Green Revolution resulted in a record grain output of 131 million tons in 1978-79. This established India as one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers. No other country in the world which attempted the Green Revolution recorded such level of success. India also became an exporter of food grains around that time. [“India One Stop”:http://www.indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm]
bq. India paid back all loans it had taken from the World Bank and its affiliates for the purpose of the Green Revolution. This improved India’s creditworthiness in the eyes of the lending agencies.
So India became self sufficient, people had food to eat. The Ford foundation helped in achieving this, and for this they have been asked to keep away.

“The World Social Forum 2004”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002106.html, currently being held in Mumbai, India is turning out to be just a place where people can vent their frustrations against Globalization, Americans, War, and everything else. In particular, the anger is against Globalization.
bq. “The WSF, which believes in the possibility of another world, aims at bringing together organisations and social movements to build alliances to create a just world and to oppose imperialist globalisation that leaves the rich richer and the poor even more impoverished,” he said. [“Rediff”:http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/12wsf.htm]
But then I got “this article”:http://www.reason.com/0312/fe.ng.poor.shtml by Johan Norberg by via “Abhi nahin to kabhi?”:http://manyu.blogspot.com/. Some exerpts
bq. The contrast is especially clear on the Korean peninsula. It�s the same population, with the same culture, just having two very different political and economic systems. In 50 years, one of them went from hunger and poverty to Southern European living standards. The other one is still starving.
bq. Take the discussion that�s going on now in Saudi Arabia about whether women should be allowed to drive, which they can�t legally do now. While it�s unlikely the situation there will change anytime soon, it�s progress just to have the discussion. People are saying it�s extremely costly to hire drivers, often from other countries, to drive women around. You can see how basic economics, basic capitalism, creates the incentive to give women more rights.
I think WSF should announce what their plan would be to generate employment, uplift people from poverty, create prosperity and the like. Just shouting anti-Bush slogans and assuming that the world will change is basically living in a fool’s paradise.

bq. Within a week of each other, two earthquakes struck on opposite sides of the world — an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale in California and a 6.6 earthquake in Iran. But, however similar the earthquakes, the human costs were enormously different.
bq. The deaths in Iran have been counted in the tens of thousands. In California, the deaths did not reach double digits. Why the difference? In one word, wealth.
bq. Wealth enables homes, buildings and other structures to be built to withstand greater stresses. Wealth permits the creation of modern transportation that can quickly carry people to medical facilities. It enables those facilities to be equipped with more advanced medical apparatus and supplies, and amply staffed with highly trained doctors and support staff.
bq. Those who disdain wealth as crass materialism need to understand that wealth is one of the biggest life-saving factors in the world. As an economist in India has pointed out, “95 percent of deaths from natural hazards occur in poor countries.”
From an article by “Thomas Sowell”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20031230.shtml, via “AnarCapLib”:http://www.yazadjal.com/mt/archives/000199.html

The “Resident Idiot”:http://www.tni.org/fellows/bidwai.htm, “a liar”:http://www.madhoo.com/archives/002358.php and “supporter of murderers”:https://varnam.org/archives/000300.html, gave the “following advice”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002090.html to Congress(I) for winning the elections
bq. What the party needs is a major realignment with India’s social reality after more than a decade of rightward drift. The central aspect of that reality is the state of underdevelopment, deprivation, poverty and ignorance in which the bulk of the population lives even as it aspires to a life with freedom and dignity. This locates India’s “natural” political centre of gravity on the Left. Only a left-wing programme charged by egalitarianism and progressive social policies can address the needs of the mass of the population.
And at the same time what is happening in the “mothership”:http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_526031,00020008.htm ?
bq. China plans to lay off some three million workers every year until 2006 as to streamline the bloated public sector units in the country, the state media reported on Friday.
China is also closing down loss making state owned enterprise. China has learned that for that country to survive in this era of Globalization, it has to stop wasting money and concentrate on wealth creation which in turn drives job creation. They are smart folks, who do not want to go the Soviet Union way and are accepting the Darwinian brutality of free-market capitalism.
China is now wearing what Thomas Friedman calls the “Golden Straitjacket”:https://varnam.org/archives/000132.html.