Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee | 4.12.22
Development Dilemma
Policy makers seeking inclusive
growth frequently face the developer’s dilemma between prioritizing structural
transformation, which is potentially inequitable, and keeping a check on rising
economic inequality.
Simon Kuznets, a
Russian-American economist and statistician won the 1971 Nobel Prize in
Economics for his research on economic growth. Kuznets’ work on economic growth and income distribution led him to
hypothesize that industrializing nations experience a rise and subsequent
decline in economic inequality, characterized as an inverted "U",
which later was known as the “Kuznets curve."
He posited that the economic
inequality would increase as rural labor migrated to the cities, keeping wages
down as workers competed for jobs. However, the economic mobility increases
again once a certain level of income was reached in “modern” industrialized
economies, as the welfare state takes hold.
But this did not happen. In the last
half a century since Kuznets postulated this theory; income inequality has
increased both in advanced developed countries as well as in many developing
countries including India. As per the WID (World Inequality database),
since 1981 the share of the wealth of the top 10% and top 1% has consistently
increased, while the share of wealth of the bottom 50% has consistently
declined. For the most recent decade, the top 10% group has taken up more than
60% of the total wealth in India. This is in sharp contrast with the mere 6% of
the total wealth shared by the bottom 50% of the population, suggesting a
significant increase of wealth inequality in India over the past 40 years.
So? The bottom line
is we must rethink about our economic policies.
The Story of Madras Courier
It
was 201 years that Madras Courier,
the first newspaper to be published from Madras Presidency ceased publication.
It was published on October 12, 1785 by Richard Johnson, a former British Army
captain. Unlike Hickey’s Bengal Gazette
the first newspaper published in India
from Calcutta in 1780 it received official patronageincluding waiver of postage
for circulating the paper within the presidency and waiver of freight charges
for importuning equipment through the company’s ships. The newspaper was
careful not to offend the East India Company in any manner unlike Bengal
Gazette.
Madras Courier
continued for 36 years before it closed publication on 1821. Competition drove
it out of circulation.
Morale
of the story: official patronage is no guarantee for survival of a newspaper or
for that matter a television channel.
Resurrection
From
a broken, abandoned figurine - to the present shape- that's what is possible
and that's what my colleague Bareenath Jena, Technical Coordinator at Indian
Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Dhenkanal did. In two days flat. This
figurine is called Brundabati. It is used to plant Tulsi (basil) sapling and is usually placed near the entrance of
the house. This tradition is in vogue in Odisha, Bengal and some part of the
neighbouring states.
At
IIMC, Manvi, a young student celebrated her birthday by planting a Tulsi
sapling on it.
See
the smile on the face of the lady, rediscovered from within the broken
figurine. That's NATURE smiling.
Football Fandom
If
there could be an award or reward for fandom, India could win it hands down. We
Indians make great fans. We even have a movie titled Fan and a song in it dedicated
to the fans. Shah
Rukh Khan plays
a dual role in this film as film star Aryan Khanna and his obsessive fan Gaurav
Chandna, who looks just like him.
Our love for Cricket is legendary.
Cricket is just not a game for us. It is a religion, and the cricketers are
revered as demi-gods.
Forget Cricket,
which we play at international level, we are great fans of games which we may
not even play (or do not qualify to play) at international level; football for
example. In fact India has never played in the World Cup although they
qualified in 1950. But that does not deter us from becoming great fans of the
‘oh so beautiful game’.
Consider this: football
frenzy is sweeping Kerala and Bengal, the two states which have craziest of
fans in India. Bangladesh, probably because of its proximity to Bengal also has
this craze. Argentina and Brazil dominate the
World Cup soccer conversation in Bangladesh, a phenomenon that transcends
generations and geography.
I really think that
it is good that India is not playing the world cup football. It is good, because we have no baggage. We can
pick our own favourite and turn ourselves to be its fan. We can change
allegiance too easily without any bite on our conscience- kaunsa apna log hai!
So pick up a can of
beer, settle down on a couch, pick your favourite and be what you can be really
very good at- a cheering fan.
++
The
columnist a journalist turned media academician lives at Dhenkanal, a central
Odisha town. He also writes fiction and translates poetry.
mrinalchatterjeeiimc@gmail.com
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