Globalisation in India

Impacts and Alternatives

The piece is mainly divided into 3 parts, the state of Economy, Society and
Environment, its impact and the possible alternatives. The first part is very
well detailed and fact based account of the Economy, Society and
Environment in the age of globalization. I was quite satisfied with the amount
of data presented and got to know a lot more about these areas. The impact
section presents some bleak but honest information, a lot of which I wasnt
aware of. The two most important topics for me from this section was the
fact that India imports a massive quantity of toxic waste, a lot of which is
from the computer and electronic industry. The other topic for me was the
consumption inequities, the clustering of most carbon emissions to a very
small percentage population of India, among other things. The final part,
talks about something familiar, as we have read Kotharis ideas before, that
of RED in particular. RED stands for Radical Ecological Democracy, it
proposes a democracy where the citizens have the full participation in the
decision-making in line with the principles of human equity and ecological
sustainability. It proposes a few ways to do this, for example localization,
which is a polar opposite of globalization is based on the belief that people
who have grown near a specific resource or ecosystem, are best suited to
take care of it. Even though government intervention of a couple of centuries
may have caused these communities to not have the ability to take care of
their resources, it is a step in the right direction. Coupled with that is the idea
of leading up to a national level starting from the smallest of governances
and leading up to national level. It also has ideas of holistic education and
not binding with the artificial division between studies of various disciplines.
It takes up various other aspects such as relations on an international level,
what the state can and should do, etc. The piece culminates with a question,
is this transition even possible for India, its promising that the author feels
optimistic about the question and cites some reasons why. A shift in policy
and technology, greater awareness of various issues involved regarding
economics and environment, among other things. I feel this piece covers a
lot of what is wrong with our country and the idea of globalization in general.
Because as much as we would like to think, ecological unsustainability,
immobilization of various communities in our countries etc. are not just
figments of imagination, and that people are devoting their time and
expertise to a topic that can cause a change of great magnitude is very
appreciable.