'Globalisation excludes millions'

"Globalisation excludes as much as it includes. There are millions left out of the process, millions who do not benefit from globalisation and millions more who are damaged by its asymmetric application of power. HT reports.

"Globalisation excludes as much as it includes. There are millions left out of the process, millions who do not benefit from globalisation and millions more who are damaged by its asymmetric application of power. The local networks that protected them no longer exist," said Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday.

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He was chairing the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies' 20th anniversary lecture- Globalisation, Justice and Rights -which was delivered by Prof Thomas Pogge of Yale University.

Citing examples, Gandhi said a worker from Kerala, who extracts oil that is the life force of a car, cannot afford to drive it home to his children. "Every time you turn your key in the ignition, you are sucking oil out of that well in Saudi Arabia. If there is no oil in that well, you don't have a car, the man who extracts the oil can no longer feed his children. A farmer in Vidarbha drinks pesticide as global cotton prices tumble. A little tribal boy walks past a housing colony built on top of his home never to set foot in it again."

He also sought to draw a distinction between India in 1947 and what it's now. "There was only one India 60 years ago and it was poor. Almost all of it lived in villages and did not have access to basic requirements of food and shelter. That India was completely unconnected, both internally and externally."