Monday, Feb 03, 2003
Monday, Feb 03, 2003 |
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By Our Special Correspondent
Dr. Lele, who teaches Political Studies and Sociology, said that an ideology hostile to the minorities had taken the place of original State policy of counter-hegemonic forces, imperialism and capitalism which was in force till the mid-Seventies in the country. Dr. Lele was delivering the first Anil Agarwal Memorial Public Policy lecture on "Imperatives for Public Policy in the Next Decade — Shaping Policy Universe'' under the auspices of the Centre for Research on Environment, Development Innovations, Technology and Trade, here today. He said there was a concerted attempt in the country to stifle public opinion by using the media and the market forces. The cry of "swadeshi" was being used to whitewash the real intentions and goals. Over the years, locally dominant and hegemonic castes had come to the fore dictating policy. Instead of promoting national interests, the special interests of political parties were governing the Government policy. Public opinion today was only of statistical importance and not influencing the policy, as in the U.S. or Canada. Unfortunately, the media in India had come under the control of corporate forces. The Indian State which was abandoning programmes for the uplift of the poor, still claimed to be "pro-poor.'' It was using poverty as a bargaining point before international institutions, such as the WTO and World Bank. The Government, which was abandoning programmes for the poor in the name of shortage of funds, was at the same time willing to take up grandiose projects, such as the inter-river link project which would cost a whopping Rs.5,60,000 crores. He cited the instance of how public opinion was given the short shrift while formulating the Draft Health Policy in 2001. The document was placed on the website and the people were told to respond within a month. It was done to create the impression of consulting the "public sphere.'' India needed a critical, scientific and well-informed public opinion to make the Government fulfil its commitments and accountability. Arcot Ramachandran Arcot Ramachandran, former Secretary, Science and Technology, and Padma Bhushan awardee this year, said that though it was true that K.L. Rao and M.N. Dastur proposed the plan to interlink rivers, there was an attempt today to push through the project without interacting with people. If only five per cent of the water utilised for irrigation was saved, the drinking water needs could be met with. The question of sharing of water was leading to near wars among the States. He said that bureaucrats had come to dominate the Department of Environment and Forest at the Centre. Though started as a science department, it today had only two scientists. Praising the Late Anil Agarwal, Dr. Ramachandran spoke of his concern for the environment and the common man. The country needed science journalists of his type. Dr. Ananthakrishnan, former professor of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, called Agarwal an institution. He criticised the casual manner in which the inter linking of rivers project was announced. By issuing a directive to the Centre to take up the project, the Supreme Court had laid down public policy.
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