kishor Jagirdar

Yoji Kamata from Japan with his model of Localisation Globalisation and Environment I n 1992, soon after heralding in the new economic policies constituting globalization, the then Finance Minister of India (now its Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh delivered a lecture on environmental aspects of the reforms in Delhi. His main argument was that environmental protection requires resources, which would be created by the new policies. Two decades later, has his prescription worked? Broadly, economic globalisation since 1991 has had the following impacts: Rapid growth of the economy has required a major expansion of infrastructure and resource extraction, and encouragement to wasteful consumption by the rich. The economy has tended to be demand-led, with no thought given to how much demand (and for what purpose) is to be considered legitimate and desirable, and what its impacts are.  Liberalization of trade (exports and imports) has had two consequences: r...