this blog has been tracking the lopsided development of india for past several months.

the development policies of indian government egged on by new urban upper middle class and select sections of industrial captains have been going more focussed on enabling the rich to become more rich.

this extra richness is achieved by abuse of environmental laws, forced acquisition of farmers land, absolute neglect of agriculture sector - wherein the agriculture minister sees it fit to travel international for cricket meetings but does not see it fit to travel and understand agricultural issues -, dangerous and skewed policies such as SEZ, maniac mining policies and don't care attitude on massive illegal mining affecting our forests, river and our very culture, mega projects being bulldozed with proper environmental impact assessment, stakeholder public hearings, etc, the list is virtually endless.

sainath is eloquent when he says that it is better to be a poor person in Botswana than in India. and he very validly questions why over 1 lakh farmers killed themselves. does it not point to something really bad in terms of policy, planning, execution and monitoring.

when nearly 800 million people live on less than 20 rupees a day whereas rest 20% and within this top 10% live a royal life (note that this life is not only due to their hard work - a la capitalistic way, but also due to massive skewed up help from the government as listed in the 3rd para in this blog posting) does it not point something that india needs to adjust in terms of how we view development. not something but many things need to be viewed/adjusted to make sure these 800 million also have an inclusive growth.

and the icing on the cake of how bad the polices are is the sad and grim reality that the government can push SEZ brutally in just 6 months but land reforms (which can be vital for rural development lifting many millions out of poverty) and ecological security is left in limbo for past several decades.

development for the urban elite is SEZ and other goodies. for the rest 800 million real development is still to come.