Kusum Choppra

the sep. 12 issue of India Today has a long article on the new rural employment scheme. some well known economists have argued against the scheme; oneof the primary accusations is that the earlier record on poverty alleviation is woeful and that the best scheme can only reach 25 per cent. it would be extremely interesting to know what is the record on schemes to aid the industrial lobbies, big and small, their record of completion of projects, employment generation and income generation, of excise and other tax evasions which are depriving the national kitty of funds and what our premier economists feel should be done by the government towards ' garibi hatao'. or is it merely 'garib hatao'?

A few weeks ago, I read a piece in a newspaper in which a vague research organization in the USA claimed that the entire homeopathic system of medications was nothing but an elaborate hoax on patients, as the medicines had no healing value whatsoever. Now this is real news. For one, most people are painfully aware of the creditability of research institutions in the United States. For those who came in late, research in the US is done to prove a proposition propounded by pharmaceutical interests. It is the pharmaceutical interests which fund research which is aimed at proving their products’ efficacy and enhancing their marketability. For those who are really interested, it would be very educative to read up the history of homeopathy in the United States, where at the turn of the previous century, allopathic pharmaceutical interests ran a virulent campaign to hound out homeopaths whose formulations for individual patients were not allowing their cheap manufacture and expensively ma...

A friend who has just returned from South China made some interesting revelations about how China manages to outprice everyone else in the market. “It could put Hitler’s labour camps to shame. The girls live on the premises, two-three dozen to a room in rows of four tiered beds. Up before dawn, they are at work by 5.30 and work through to midnight, or until they finish their daily quota, with three short breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner, provided by the factory owner. It is worse than slave labour as the payment is minimal.” “What,” I asked, “about the U.S. Human and Labour rights concerns? It is very simple. There are a number of showcase units which are shown off whenever the Americans come, while work carries on apace elsewhere in the vast hinterlands of China. The show cases can be those of factories, tourist spots, administrative excellence, cooperative farms or whatever. Now, I find, we in India are following the China example. To attract foreign investment, we show off our...