Opinion View from the RIGHT

It adds: “…A concerned Kerala High Court ordered the state director general of police and the Union home department last month to file their reports on the matter after a thorough probe. Last week,the Kerala DGP Jacob Punnose filed a reply,which he later termed interim,in which he denied the presence of any organised campaign or outfit named Love Jihad. Experts termed his report politically dictated and funny because of its timing and contradictory observations. The Kerala-ruling Left Front,facing three by-elections on November 7,tried to woo the fanatic Muslims by presenting such a reply in the court. However,it backfired. The reply admitted that Muslim men had been trying to convert women to Islam through love marriages. Such Muslim youth could be getting external financial assistance for expensive clothes,motorbikes and money to attract girls,it said. The DGP’s reply further revealed that these young men could be getting legal assistance for staying out of danger from police and public. Irked by the contradictions in the reply,the high court ordered the DGP to file a fresh report”.

Global inequality

In an opinion piece titled “Policy for reducing global inequality” Bharat Jhunjhunwala writes: “Developing countries have to choose between two policies for reducing global inequality. One policy is of cooperation. Developing countries can hope for an increase in the growth rates of the developed countries. An increase in consumption by these countries will create demand for their exports just as the ancillary industry gains when sales of the parent company pick up; or as the village potter gains when the landlord reaps a good crop. The most efficient among the developing countries will gain more from such exports. The second policy is that of confrontation. Developed countries are importing the natural resources of the developing countries such as iron ore,oil rice and mangoes in large quantities. Developing countries can make cartels and jack up the prices of these exports just as was done by the oil-exporting countries in 1971 by forming OPEC”.

He concludes: “The world economy can be divided into four parts. At the lowest rung are the poorest countries like Bangladesh. At the second level are developing countries like India. At the third level are middle income countries like Brazil and Hungary. At the top are the developed countries like the United States. We have to discover the main fault line among these divisions. The main problem of the world economy in my reckoning is the high consumption by the developed countries. Therefore,ideally,the lower three rungs should make a common cause and join hands against the developed countries”.