The World Bank in India: Undermining Sovereignty, Distorting Development

Contents: Preface.  About the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank/Deepika D’Souza. Introduction. I: The World Bank’s Role and Functioning: 1. The Economic Aspects of World Bank Activities in India/Arun Kumar. 2. The Midwives of Corporate Totalitarianism? The Political Economy of the World Bank in Historical Perspective/Aseem Shrivastava. 3. The World Bank as a Knowledge Creator; How the Bank Uses Flawed Processes to Generate Unsound; Knowledge for Promoting Disastrous Policies/Shripad Dharmadhikary. 4. The Revolving Door of the World Bank; Suborning Policy and Decision-makers by its Pocketbook/Prashant Bhushan. 5. The Changing Role of the World Bank in India/Prabhat Patnaik. II: Poverty and Employment: 6. Poverty; Persistence, Entry and Escape/Aasha Kapur Mehta. 7. Employment in the Time of Liberalisation/Praveen Jha. 8. The World Bank and Labour in India/J. John and R. S. Tiwari .9. Microcredit; Magic Bullet or Poison Pill?/Kalyani Menon-Sen and Kalpana Kannabiran. III: Undermining India’s Sovereignty and Democratic Processes: 10. Partners in the Erosion of Sovereignty/Smitu Kothari and Benny Kuruvilla. 11. Food Security, Good Governance and the Role of the State/Harsh Mander. 12. Governance and the Growth of the Black Economy/Saumen Chattopadhyay. 13. Delhi’s Water Privatisation Plans/Arvind Kejrival. 14. How Transparent is the World Bank?/Nikhil Dey. 15. Mining and the World Bank Inspection Panel/Tony Herbert. 16. The Impacts of Hydropower and Failures of Redress/Himanshu Thakkar. IV: India’s Agrarian and Food Security Crises: 17. The World Bank and Indian Agriculture/Bhaskar Goswani. 18. The World Bank and its Impact on Food Security/Utsa Patnaik. 19. Financial Liberalisation and the Agrarian Crisis/C. P. Chandrasekhar. 20. The Exit from Agriculture/Devinder Sharma. 21. Targeting, Exclusion and Food/BirajPatnaik. 22. The Genetic Engineering of Crops/Suman Sahai. 23. The Privatisation of Seeds/Afsar Jafri. V: Corporate Greed and Common Goods: 24. Electricity Sector Reform/Sreekumar N. 25. The Privatisation of Water/Shripad Dharmadhikary. 26. The Neo-liberal Assault on India’s Education System/Anil Sadgopal. 27. The World Bank and Health/Imrana Qadeer, Sundari Ravindran.and Bijoya Roy. 28. Structural Adjustment in Karnataka State/Vinay Baindur. VI: Land Grabs and Displacement Struggles: 29. The World Bank and Forests/Ashok Chowdhary. 30. History Repeating Itself: The World Bank’s Role in Global Tourism Development/Ranjan Solomon and Vidya Rangan. 31. Investment In, People Out; The Renewal of Indian Cities/Michele Kelley. 32. The World Bank and Disaster Relief/Vanessa Petersand R. M. Alvino. VII: The World Bank and the Environment: 33. The World Bank and Environmental Policy Reform/Manju Menon and Kanchi Kohli. 34. Poisoned Future/Nityanand Jayaraman and Madhumita Dutta. 35. The Carbon Trade and the Marketisation of Global Warming/Praful Bidwai. Conclusion. The Findings of the Jury. Appendices. Glossary of terms. Index.

"Bringing together academic discussions on public policy and the experiences of the common people of India, this collection of essays by a range of eminent scholars across disciplines tackles the problems of contemporary development policy and contributes to the ongoing debate.

The current financial crisis has clearly demonstrated the inability of international financial institutions to maintain a stable global economic order. However, few challenges to this order have been taken seriously due to the nearly complete dominance of the ideology of free markets. This volume contributes to the emerging critique of the present economic order and attempts to find alternatives.

The essays originate from testimonies given at the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank held in New Delhi. The book discusses the ways in which the World Bank has used undue leverage to impact key sectors of India’s economy and shows that the Bank’s policies of extreme marketisation, trade liberalisation and reduced public spending have created a shocking trend of jobless growth and increased poverty for the majority of people in India. It also covers the negative impacts of the World Bank on local democratic processes and their negative ramifications on the environment. This work is a timely contribution to the debate over pro-poor versus pro-corporate development policy in India and across the globe."