Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Gen Musharraf and
his dilemma
Men, Matters and Memories

By M L Kotru
Our clever by less-than-half Gen Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani military ruler, is faced with a genuine problem. It has nothing to do with the praise ....more

Cambay history of India'..........
Yours Randomly,

By R L Bhat
It looks that even without the neces-sary corrections for the leftists’ slants to the history, the history of India is in for a substantial revision. Only recently .....more

MEN AND MATTERS
Army's former Deputy
Chief spews fire

From B L Kak
Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Harwant Singh, is an angry man. And his anger has a basis, considering a set of instances .....more

Will the Third World
catch up?

By Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri
R.P.Hulett, a noted observer of the economies of developing countries, has said that the term ‘development aid’ tends to cloud rather than clear our .......more

EDITORIAL

Omer to succeed

If you thought that succession was something that only the formal royals of England or the tiny kingdom of Nepal alone was worried about you are simply wrong. Succession in the political families in the world’s largest democracy is just the done thing. Yes, three decades ago passing the mace in the family was frowned upon. The greatest political family of the India had suffered high criticism and invective when Sanjay and then Rajiv were 'drafted in’. ‘Son’ remained a high issue of at least one general election. And the political elite of the country could not digest it at all. Till just a few years ago, ‘fancily was the biggest criticism heaped upon the Congress. But today the politics is a legitimate family concern. Almost all the political heavy weights in the country, of all political parties, from center as well as the State levels, are bringing their sons and wards into the political fray as successors or possible successors or very active supporters. Bal Thackeray who once vexed eloquent over how the 'sons’ were ruining country is busy today brokering peace between his son and scion and nobody is saying angering. And, Priyanka is not a liability for Congress but its greatest hope.

Have we matured in politics or is it just that the offspring of politicians have grown up. When those initial ‘son' criticisms were made, the other leaders had their broods still in the school. Today the parents are ageing and the sons have left the school. And are headed straight for the parental farms. Of course, with the approval of the voters. We have Umed Singh crying foul for having been denied his wife Phoolan Devi's seat and there are people who are actually sympathizing with him over the ‘deprivation’. In this State the 'succession' was never a point of criticism. The last time the succession took place it was celebrated with the all six lakhs of Srinagar thronging the roads and streets to have a glimpse of the 'Leader, the second'. That was Farooq Abdullah's 'crowning' more than two decades ago as the leader of National Conference. There was disappointment among the leaders themselves; Afzal Beig had left a year back on the issue, and 'Gul Shah' apparently was only keeping a straight face. But the people were all endorsement. Today when Faroooq Abdullah announces the 'succession' of Omer Abdullah he has nobody to question the decision.

Over the years the National Conference has not thrown up any leader who could stand even a remote challenge to Farooq Abdullah. None, who would deem to wear the mantle and keep it without his blessings. And Omer has his credible stint at the center to back him Earlier as the Minister of State of Industry and now in the foreign ministry he has given a commendable account of himself. He has been perceptive, forthright and a doer. Nor have his concerns for the State been any less. In the industry ministry he put in some innovative schemes to give a boost to the State. In the all-important foreign ministry he has shown an articulation, which must be the every of many of his senior colleagues in there. In fact, Farooq Abdullah may not be correct in saying that he has done all that he could at the union level; his pace shoots that he could do a lot more. That experience would stand him in good stead in the State, as his fond father believes. And then he has the great 'family’ advantage of acceptability; as it is there is no alternative to Farooq within the NC and Omer shall have a smooth sailing there. Among the people he, of course, would have to fight it out. And that is the real succession. Especially with the other 'scion' in the opposition PDP going as strong if not faster.

Private Schools

Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining and every silvery sheen gets a dark tinge around it. Privatization of education has the advantage of bringing the virtues of close accountability and supervision, as well as personal attention. The one huge draw back of the Government schools is that the supervisory machinery is much too lax. At present the Government schools have the most qualified, best-trained staff. It is also much better paid than the teaching staff in the private institutions. Yet the actual performance leaves much to be desired. Many people believe it is the fixity of tenures and employment, the assurances that pay-packets would be delivered irrespective of their performance, that makes the teachers in Government school less caring. Other pointout that the lack of discrimination between a good teacher and a bad teacher, a sincere-effort making teacher and an easy going nonchalant one that discourages the former from putting in their best. The private schools correct all that. Here a teacher is respected for his/her ability and effort. That alone ensures his/her continuity in the job. And there is pointed accountability.

That has given the private schools a great fillip. But all is not rosy in these 'academies’ and 'institutions’. In the very first place they are in it for money not education. That makes a lot of difference to everything. Education here is a business, not a mission. The 'business points' become more important than teaching. Tuition fee, admission fee, a long list of 'charges'... all are levied on the students to extract the maximum money. In most schools the admission fee itself comes to more than the yearly tuition fee. Together they make neat piles. Then there are the books and other expenses. A common allegation is that books are selected more for the ‘'commissions'’ than the content. Unnecessary glossies are prescribed; the expense on the UKG-set is sometimes more than the cost of a whole NCERT-set for a matriculation student. Other expenses are piled upon these with the result that primary education comes to cost more than the professional course. That is a clear misuse of education. Then the facilities, like building accommodation, playgrounds etc. are rarely up to the mark. All that needs to be monitored and regulated. Preferably double-checked. And the responsibility for that lies with the licensing authority, the School Education Department. It must see that private education does not become an ‘exploitation’.

Gen Musharraf and his dilemma
Men, Matters and Memories

By M L Kotru

Our clever by less-than-half Gen Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani military ruler, is faced with a genuine problem. It has nothing to do with the praise George Bush routinely showers on him for his "forthright" handling of the terrorist menace-inspired in the first place by Musharraf and notable for the way he turned his back on the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Gen Musharraf has indeed been accumulating numberless brownie points for his role in the campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan. And given the soldier's weakness for flaunting a breastload of medals, Musharraf might well be saving a corner for one of America's major military honours which he must by now assume to be his by right.

But given the cussedness of some Western democracies, who would rather that Musharraf delivers as promptly on restoring democracy in his country by October as he did on the Taliban, Musharraf may soon find himself faced with the dilemma of how to deal with members of an elected Government, even one over which he will continue to preside, armed no doubt with a fresh lot of amendments to the country's oft-violated Constitution safeguarding his own and the military's position.

It will take much more than the General's cunning to keep the Pakistan Muslim League or the Pakistan People's party out of power in a fair election in October. And the General's policies are anathema to either of the parties. The Muslim League, even with Nawaz Sharif at its head, has always been close to religious parties. And as the leading Pakistani columnist Khaled Ahmed has pointed out if the PML comes to power it will exploit the ideological ambivalence of Musharraf and his apparent intensification of the focus on Kashmir (as compensation for abandoning the Taliban) and cause him as a consequence to roll back on his moderate agenda. If the PPP comes to power, the PML is going to attack Musharraf policy with great vigour to gain more popularity. "This vulnerability has developed because of the strategy of counterbalance adopted by Musharraf after September 11; abandoning the Taliban policy and shifting the focus entirely on Kashmir." The obvious miscalculation by Musharraf has been his expectation that by moving vigorously closer to the Western Alliance he would find sponsors for his cause in Kashmir win the event has not materialised. Not even among the Islamic countries. But he has nevertheless clung to some favourable initial noises on Kashmir as you and I would to a lifeline in an oceanic storm.

Surrounded by a civilian Government in October he may find an economically hamstrung Government looking for alternatives to salvage the economy which may probably even mean mending fences with India. In the past such efforts by a civilian Government to seek compromises to advance its economic agenda would have been used by the military to put itself in the saddle. But with Musharraf as President, he may not have the option open to him. He could, however, always fall back on the "issue" he has adopted as the ideology of Pakistan, namely, Kashmir. He must in fact do that, if only to justify of his Taliban policy and its undeniable linkage with Kashmir.

Unfortunately for Musharraf, however, the Vajpayee Government is in no mood to make things easy for him. Under US pressure New Delhi may not exactly force Musharraf into a corner but it will certainly not to do anything to get him out of it either. The Americans for one thing would certainly not like to see anyone, least of all a country like India, with whom it is establishing a close working relationship, as distinct from a mere military tie-up, do anything that upsets its military calculations in the region. In the case of Pakistan the US has currently unlimited access to Pakistani military bases and other facilities and it is understandable, therefore, to find the US counselling restraint to New Delhi. Yet, the Vajpayee Government, for the present, has not intention to relieve the pressure on the General by ordering a pull-out of its troops from the border as well as the Line of Control. And mind you, to maintain, the kind of buildup, as is already in place on the Indian side - and consequently on the Pakistani side as well, is taxing business. India, though, has a clear advantage here in that it has the capacity to absorb the cost of the effort.

Pakistan is the most externally dependent State in the region. And it is logical to assume that it has survived despite its ideological leanings because of its dependence on resources other than its own. Against this backdrop as some Pakistani analysts predict a logical outsider can force Pakistan to its ways more easily than he can, say, a country like India. But given Gen Musharraf's predicament he may no longer be willing to change on issues which he has adopted as ideology, such as Kashmir. Which will be a pity and which indeed is the force that drives his Government to blame India for anything going wrong with his country.

So much so that his Foreign Minister does not hesitate to make the ridiculous suggestion that he sees an Indian hand in the kidnapping in Karachi of the Wall Street Journal correspondent, Daniel Pearl. Or, that other one saying Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani is on the list of criminals wanted by Pakistan. Advani is wanted for an alleged offence which he "committed" in 1947. Not an ordinary offence is it either. For Advani is laid to have been part of a conspiracy to kill Qaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Pakistan's first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan. As a digression, I might mention that Liaquat was eventually killed in Rawalpindi some six years later and among the alleged conspirators we had men of the eminence of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the poet, and our own Syed Sajjad Zaheer, the Communist leader, who had briefly migrated to Pakistan before returning home to Lucknow. Sajjad Zaheer and his wife Razia Appa were both eminent in the world of letters. Neither Faiz nor Sajjad were found guilty and in fact the guilty went virtually free in that particular case.

Back to Foreign Minister Sattar's weird allegation. Had I not known Sattar off and on for nearly three decades I would have dismissed his statement as an abberation. But even after allowing for his pathologial hatred for India and things India, Sattar is a man of extraordinary intelligence and acumen. It surprises me therefore that he should have accused three senior Indian officials of complicity in the Pearl Kidnapping. Sattar should have known that kidnapping journalists is not at all an Indian trait. Such things happen in Bannana republics or dictatorships like Pakistan, where a duly blessed leader can be executed. It should have occurred to him that Daniel Pearl was based in Bombay and was on a short assignment in Pakistan. His wife, six months pregnant, was still in Bombay when news of the kidnapping hit her. And Daniel Pearl by all accounts was a very committed journalist, known as a good host to his numerous Bombay friends and colleagues. And as a writer on economic affairs he had no reason to have enemies in Bombay. For that he had to go Karachi to do a special story on a terrorist group.

In any case, Sattar has had the mortification of hearing his own Interior Minister saying that there was no evidence to link Indians with the kidnapping. We have since been told that the Americans have asked the Pakistanis to handover the millionaire Syed Mubarak Shah Gilani, whom Pearl had last contacted, and, who according to Sattar, made calls to three senior Indian officials. Moinuddin Haider, the Interior Minister, has said that it was not clear whom the suspect in the case, Mubarak Shah Gilani, telephoned in India. Moreover the calls had been made using a telephone card and not his mobile. That much for India - baiting, sadly, though, it's not cutting much ice anywhere. Very much like our causing ISI at the drop of a hat.

Cambay history of India'..........
Yours Randomly,

By R L Bhat

It looks that even without the neces-sary corrections for the leftists’ slants to the history, the history of India is in for a substantial revision. Only recently the historians the world over have agreed that there is need to recast some of the most pet-theories that have been the foundations of India’s history so far. Many of these theories are now clearly seen as having been put in there more with the eye on the political needs of the time, than on historical detail and accuracy. Other related theories that are based on these ‘founding’ myths would accordingly have to be revised, as many base their assumptions on these ‘foundation theories’. Thus with the Aryan revision the major theories about the evolution and origin of the Indian languages would have to be brought up-to-date to conform to the new realities. Probably, it is a fear of having to re-do the whole thing that makes the orthodoxy in Indian historical establishments so tenacious in adhering to their pet beliefs even when they are under serious question. They accordingly have opted to question the emerging findings than to retouch their beliefs.

Now those beliefs are visited by more discomfiting news that the history of India would have to be rewritten irrespective of the ‘beliefs’. For the last six months or so, discoveries made in the depths of Gulf of Cambay off the Gujarat Coast have thrown up entirely new perspectives on the history not only of the subcontinent but the whole world history. A whole city, apparently as complex as the Indus Valley civilization or the Sindhu- Shara-vasti civilization as its being re-christened, has been found to lie on the ocean bed. It is an elaborate city there, complete with dams and acropolises. And a quite extensive spread over an area of nine kilometers. It also shows high sophistication of development. If the dates assigned so far to this find are correct, it is the most ancient of all the civilizations of the world. At 7500 B.C. it predates the most ancient civilizations of the world. With this antiquity in its kitty India’s claim as the most ancient civilization on the earth becomes a fact not a nation’s feel-good fancy.

Interestingly, those fact and figures have an echo in the extent Indian literature. The sinking of Dwarka is not a foreign myth but as documented an Indian fact as any of that era. Its association with Krishna and Mahabharata would clearly call for a renewed examination of the epic history. Also the placement of the epic age, the age of epic literature and consequently the whole of the postulations upon which the Indian history has so far been based shall have to undergo a revision. The 'thousands of years' mentioned in the traditional Indian literature and lore leave their mythic robes and begin to become reliable clues to that true history of India that is yet to be written. Two points about that unwritten history of India must be noted. One, that the history is still uncertain, still unknown. The history of India is only now beginning to be unfolded. There are facets that may still lie hidden. And they may over turn hasty conclusions drawn on the basis of extent knowledge. Thus, for example, the later findings that have been unearthed over the last few decades have altered the character of the Indus Valley Civilization to the extent of having its name changed.

For, its reach and extent, going east to the limits of Bihar and beyond, certainly warrant its renaming as the Sindhu-Sharavasti civilization. What is even more important here is that all the assumptions that had been made on the initial findings at Mohenjodaro and Harrapa excepting the place-descriptions have been shown to be in-exact? Especially the politico-religious theories that had been built about the ancient India there. So there is not much point in being stubborn with the so-called 'historical facts'. If the things are stil getting uncovered, it just is not fair to stick to the hazy sketches that have been drawn about the ancient India. It may be an agenda of a nation to cherish fond hopes of its history, but it can be nobody's agenda to belittle those hopes because there is no evidence for that either. In fact, whatever evidence we have gives substance to those hopes, while the 'secular'detractors actually depend on speculations to substantiate their beliefs. That brings us to the second point.

Are we correct in teaching our youth a history that is based on conjectures, that is getting disproved with each find, and has little basis apart from the political beliefs of a section of historians who have had the privilege to write these books? As it is historians of a particular hue have rewritten the history of India in a most unscientific manner. They have suppressed clear facts where evidence to the contrary was available. On the other hand they have given wild and vile interpretations where the evidence was sketchy and unclear. They may have made history a tool for their particular ideologies but that is not the reliable history of India. It may be good history for some, but its accuracy is under serious question. Are we justified in forcing that history upon young and formative minds? Are we not distoring everything here? Especially when we are still discovering our past. If the Cambay findings turn out correct in depth and dates, as they most certainly would, we would have been guilty of having fed false notions to a whole nation. Notions that have been crafted to be unflattering to this nation. The nation has a right.. nay, a duty to reject those hypothesis as well as the agendas that led to them.

MEN AND MATTERS
Army's former Deputy Chief spews fire

From B L Kak

Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Harwant Singh, is an angry man. And his anger has a basis, considering a set of instances he has cited. He has voiced anger against many, including a set of politicians and ''raw'' journalists.

Lt. Gen Harwant Singh has sought to convey that things would have been different altogether if the Prime Minister's Man Friday and Communications Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan, had no issued far-from satisfactory statement vis-a-vis the Indian military build-up following the December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament House.

Arguing that mobilisation of Indian Armed Forces and deployment of the offensive formations as well was all part of coercive diplomacy, former Deputy Chief of Army staff insists that the Vajpayee Government wanted to throw up clear signals that India had the will and the resolve to apply the ''full potential of its military power'' to dissuade Pakistan from continuing with cross-border terrorism.

In a write-up, copies of which have reached men of consequence, namely, the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Defence Minister, the External Affairs Minister, chiefs of three Services and other top echelons in the South Block and North Block, Lt Gen Harwant Singh says : ''All this had to be backed by an unmistakable and demonstrative resolve of the Indian political leadership that it was serious about mounting an offensive in the event Pakistan failed to mend its ways''.

Lt. Gen. Harwant Singh's equally pertinent, plausible argument: Unless India envinced Pakistan that it was determined to tighten the screws, the exercise of mobilising troops and bringing offensive formations in their concentration areas was futile. At a time when the military build-up did seem to create the desired effect, the Minister for Communications and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Pramod Mahajan, Lt. Gen Harwant has lamented sent out a wrong signal.

Lt. Gen Harwant Singh, in fact, has taken strong exception to Mr Mahajan's statement that the Indian deployment was ''two hundred per cent defensive''. In view of his deeper knowledge of combat philosophy and practice, Lt. Gen Harwant cannot be faulted for his finding: Mr Pramod Mahajan's message unhesitatingly neutralised the coercive and deterrent value of the forward concentration of the country's strike formations by exposing the Indian defensive mindset and the inability to appear firm.

Was Mr Mahajan's message meant to placate Pakistan and tell the British Premier, Mr Tony Blair, that the Indian deployment was purely defensive in character? And Lt. Gen. Harwant has regretted: Instead of Pakistan calling India's bluff, this country (India) seems to have done it itself.

Lt. Gen. Harwant is also known for his ''sufficient'' knowledge of men and matters of Pakistan. No wonder, his forthright analysis of a set of events before and after Gen. Parvez Musharraf's ''famous speech'' of January 12. Gen. Musharraf's new course was, to quote Lt Gen Harwant, ''yet another U-turn'' by the Pak military ruler, this time within Pakistan, away from religious fundamentalism and terrorism.

Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff has also spewed fire against two more events. First, of course, pertained to the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes' decision to publicly denigrate the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. S Padmanabhan, after the latter conveyed to Pakistan through a press conference in New Delhi India's unequivocal and firm position on the nuclear issue.

Second development related to the unceremonious removal of the GOC of 2 Corps. Lt. Gen. Harwant Singh's paper has noted :''The Government utterly failed to come clear on this issue and, therefore, the rumour mill did roaring business'' Many people seem to share Lt. Gen. Harwant's yet another finding: The statement by the Defence Minister, as part of damage control exercise, that the move of the GOC of 2 Corps ''is a normal posting'' came a bit too late, and did not seem to wash.

The two incidents pointed to serious faultlines in the politico-military set-up in India, says Lt Gen Harwant. He has argued that strike formations are held well back and there is no possibility of their moving close to the border unless they are actually on their way to mounting an offensive, consequent to the start of a war. His finding number three:''So, the story of the elements of this corps moving too close to the border simply does not jell. If some movement had taken place in the rear, for whatever reasons, the act of sacking the corps commander, besides its debilitating effect on the morale of the Army, amounts to an apology to Pakistan for the mistake of an erring corps commander''.

Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, in a war situation, would give his right arm to know which strike formations of the Indian Army would be launched where. The Indian Press Lt Gen Harwant Singh has sarcastically remarked, will tell him all. His anger against what he has described as ''young and raw'' journalists can be gauged by his finding : These scribes have been let loose and are constantly snapping at the heals of the Army with little, or no idea as to what is defence news and what could mean a breach of security.

Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff has also ridiculed the NDA Government for trying to depend more and more on the United States to put pressure on Pakistan to stop cross border terrorism. His warning: America will directly or indirectly get increasingly involved with the Kashmir problem.

Will the Third World catch up?

By Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri

R.P.Hulett, a noted observer of the economies of developing countries, has said that the term ‘development aid’ tends to cloud rather than clear our vision of the realities confronting the,Third World.

However, he adds that there is no point in trying to eliminate an internationally accepted term, but we should at least know that we use it even though it is more. than questionable. For, with most developing countries it is simply not a matter of supporting or accelerating a natural process of development but of seeking a new dynamic equilibrium to replace the social, economic, and demographic balance that has been destroyed forever.

It is frequently claimed that the aim of 'development aid’ should be to enable the developing countries to ‘catch up’, to reduce the gap between their and the industrial countries’ per capita income. Is this realistic?

The fact that in 1999 the real growth alone of per capita income in Germany was greater than the full per capita income of half of the world's population may sound like toying with figures. But facts do not lie.

According to an estimate of the world Bank, per capita income in Europe in 1985 was about ten times greater than in Africa. In 1990, it was over twelve times greater, in 1995 fourteen times and in 2010 it is likely to be nearly twenty times.

There is good reason to treat such estimates with caution. One may start from the assumption that economic growth rates in the industrial-countries will decrease to the same degree that people come to realize what Gustav Heinmann expressed as follows: ‘’The mere increase in economic growth rates is not a worthwhile objective if it is achieved at the expense of our physical and spiritual health.’’

As regards the developing countries, quite a number of uncertain factors remain, such an population growth. All the same, up to now only a few of them can be said to have made some leeway or capability of doing so in the near future.

In the Third World, too, the biggest growth rates are in the areas with the highest level of industrialization. The largest and most important developing countries, including all -the countries of South Asia, nearly the whole of Africa and the largest part of Latin America, are not among them. Even it proves possible to achieve the growth rates of 6 per cent of the gross national product (GNP) as set out in the United Nations Strategy Documents, where there is a population growth of about 2.7 per cent, actual per capita income will be left at little more than 3 per cent.

According to an estimate of the World Bank, the per capita income in the industrial countries during the first ten years of this century is expected to increase faster than in the developing countries.

But if around Sao Paulo of Mexico City it is possible to achieve the enormous growth rates that push the average up so high it will be of little use to the peasants of India and Morocco, or in North East Brazil.

AP.Thirwall has tried to calculate on the basis of fairly realistic assumptions and data when the countries of the Third World will have made up the leeway. The results are grotesque: Peru would be able to draw alongside the EEC in terms of per capita income in 359 years, whereas India would need 1,356 years.

Whether India will still exist in the year 3,355 or so is an open question, but it seems certain that by that time progress will no longer be measured in terms of economic growth.

If there are then still historians who dig up such calculations, they will be amused to discover how the people of one epoch quite projected Into the distant future standards which have long forgotten by then.

The idea of ‘catching up' is a logical consequence of ‘development aid’. If it is merely a question of accelerating a more or less rational development towards a goal we have already achieved, then it is a matter of catching up, of closing the gap.

Then there is the analogy to the Marshall Plan. In reality, the funds provided under the Plan were used to speed up a process which would in any case have been set in motion and in the same direction and, thus, development aid in the strict sense of the term.

If it were clear from the outset that the task to be accomplished in the Third World was basically a different one, then the industrialized countries, the major aid givers, would have been spared many of the disappointments reflected in their foreign aid programme.

Those who make closing the gap the aim of their development aid policy will constantly have their lack of success totted up for them. Hare, too, we are faced with the puzzling fact that figures show us how apparently the most simple, the most plausible, and the most pragmatic objectives can also be the most illusory.

Then, is the concept of ‘self-sustaining growth, more realistic? The concept implies that every country must at some time reach the paint from where its economic growth can sustain itself, can continue on its own momentum, without needing any other means than the usual commercial and financial facilities.

What speaks in favour of this objective is that we know from experience that a tangible and continuous improvement in their own living conditions can mean no more to the poor than the gap between their own and the standard of living of their rich.This is all the more so if the progress is the result of their own efforts.

The flaws in this concept are apparent. Small countries and part of large countries (eg Panama and the state of Sao Paulo) in many cases show high rates of growth owing to the fact that their position, when they started out, was more favourable, and they became so attrative that even today they draw capital and skilled labour from the poorer regions.

But there is no machinery to ensure that other regions can follow suit (eg North East Brazil). And the situation of those who lag behind is all the more difficult the later they begin. The world does not stand still for them and they miss the connecting trains.’’

After the initial success, the process of industrialization is again held up by the rough wake of technological advance and competition in world markets. This is more or less what happened to Argentina, whose situation after World War II ought to have been adequate to ensure rapid growth under its own steam.

The decreasing share of world accruing to the developing countries, the concentration of their modest growth in a few regions, and their ever mounting indebtedness, are not an indication that many of them will soon have reached the point of take-off.

In fact, the point receds into the distance, and the arid stretch they have to make up is lengthening all the time. Thus, the concept of 'catching up' remains a wishing thinking.

PTI Feature