Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Industrial infection

MNCs are hailed as national treasures but their devil-may-care attitude results in tragedies, making them global shame

globalisation is inevitable as we reside in ‘global village’. And the entities which benefit the most, perhaps, out of this phenomenon are modern day centres of affluence & influence – MNCs. As they profit and in the process, enhance employment and production, goes unnoticed is that their drive to profit, which leaves the rest in pain, is their lack of concern and efforts towards safe working of their industrial units, across the globe. While a McKinsey report has exemplified that cumulative market value of top 10 Fortune 500 companies is equal to combined GDP of India & Brazil or total forex reserve of six leading Gulf oil exporting countries in 2006, but their irresponsible, greedy & biased business policies and activities without considering people, environment & legal aspects, have brought apocalypse in form of fatal industrial accidents, environmental hazards, affecting millions in myriad other ways.

Start with Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984; which is the most horrifying industrial catastrophe in history, claiming between 3,000 and 20,000 lives, leaving thousands with serious diseases and injuries. The reaction of Dow Chemical, the global giant providing innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services and responsible for this industrial catastrophe, publicly disowns its accountability. Moreover, it tried to console affected families with mere $300-$500. And when nearly 200 women protested against Dow for its meagre liability and for not really taking any proactive mechanisms to clean up the area stacked with dangerous toxic waste which spreads many gas related diseases in the small town Bhopal, it has sued them for raising voice against the company using it’s political, monetary & muscle power.

When an explosion and fire ruined a fireworks factory belonging to Bright Sparkles Sdn. Bhd. at Sungai Buloh, Malaysia in 1991, causing 22 deaths & injuring 103, Bright Sparkles remained lukewarm in helping victims and their families and compensating the environmental damages it has caused.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

GURCHARAN DAS, MANAGEMENT GURU AND PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL

India’s economic journey from the times of the measly Hindu rate of growth is indeed incredible. Economic reform coupled with administrative reform is the way forward

Things began to change with modest liberalisation in the eighties when annual economic growth rose to 5.6%. This happy trend continued in the reform decade of the nineties when growth averaged 6.2% a year, while population slowed to 1.8%; thus, per capita income rose by a decent 4.4%.

Gaurav Datt and Martin Ravallion, both respected economists, employed a new series of consumption-based poverty measures from 1950 to 2006 and 47 rounds of National Sample Surveys, to show that slightly more than one person in two lived below the poverty line in India during the 1950s and ‘60s. By 1990 this had fallen to one person in three. By 2005, it fell again, and only one in five persons now lives below the poverty line. The authors conclude that “the post-reform process of urban economic growth has brought significant gains to the rural poor as well as the urban poor.”

An earlier study by the two economists had examined the period prior to 1991 when our economy grew more slowly. India’s per capita GDP grew at an annual rate of barely 1% in the 1960s and 1970s; it picked up to 3% in the 1980s; and accelerated to 4-5% after 1991. In the pre-1991 period, modest urban growth brought little or no benefit to the rural poor. Rural poverty decreased only through rural growth, such as the Green Revolution.

In another study comparing India, China and Brazil, Martin Ravallion shows that China (with higher growth) and Brazil (with lower growth) have done a much better job at poverty reduction. India’s failure in education and health is not a function of money alone, as the Prime Minister suggested this week when he vowed to raise spending on education to 6%. When one in four teachers is absent and one in four is not teaching, we need accountability in delivering services to the poor. Thus, administrative reforms are just as important to the lives of the poor than even economic reforms.


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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Great People, Greater Institutions

Latin American states are led by Iconic Leaders who last The Short term, while North America is led by Democratically elected leaders through strong Institutional structures, which last the long term. Time enough for South American nations to gain from institutionalising Governance Structures than depend on individuals

Only some news reports have the potential to spread like wildfire and transcend borders; and these are reports that have titanic ramifications for the world at large. A case in point was the press release from the office of Venuzuelan President Hugo Chavez, which said that he would be undergoing an operation on June 10, 2011 to remove an abscessed tumour with cancerous cells. The world was left stunned and speculations were being made on how long the 57-year-old Chavez would continue and who would be the possible successor!

This has led to a very relevant debate on Latin American leadership and its future. Interestingly, Latin American states have mostly been led by iconic leaders, statesmen and politicians. Hugo Chavez himself is one Venezuelan leader who attracted enough international attention with his Bolivarian ideology and bold leadership. From the ranks of an ordinary military officer, he went on to become the 56th President of the state and is ruling since 1999. Similarly, a press operator in an automobile parts factory, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became the 35th President of Brazil. He served Brazil for two terms from 2003 to 2010 with dignity and pride during which Brazil gained immense prosperity and prestige. He has been widely recognised as the most popular and influential Latin American political figure. He was often described as “a man with audacious ambitions to alter the balance of power among nations.” The third iconic figure who fortified Latin American politics is Cuban Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. He not only served Cuba as Prime Minister during 1959 to 1976 and later as President during 1976 to 2008 but also saved Cuba from US imperialist aggression, and he is recognised as one of the world’s greatest leaders.



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