Arun Shrivastava - India's Urban Slums: Rising Social Inequalities, Mass Poverty and Homelessness
May 9, 2012 Former World Bank and UN official Manmohan Singh was never projected as India’s Prime Minister; he was imposed on 1.2 billion hapless Indians. Former World Bank [WB] major domo Montek Singh was never elected yet lives a lavish life in Delhi. As one insider says he is very happy in Delhi because he doesn’t have to fetch a glass of water himself. Chauffeurs, servants, cooks, and officially employed attendants make life easy for this economaniac who thought that Rs. 32 [60 cents] per day of spending power is sufficient for urban Indians to be called ‘Above Poverty Line.’ These two minions of the neo-liberal gangsters in Washington and London will do India in unless booted out soon.
A roll of good quality toilet paper that perhaps Montek uses costs more than Rs. 32. A mini McDonald’s potato burger that would barely fill a small corner of a typical American tummy costs Rs. 20 in Delhi and a 200 millilitre bottle of water Rs. 5. Perhaps that is what Montek and his cronies had in mind. The poor want to hang them; the European bankers want them at any cost.
When I shared this “32 rupee joke” with the slum-dwellers they said: “these peope should be paid Rs 32 per day to live if they want us to live on Rs 32.” Many journalists were so incensed that they called for dismantling the Planning Commission which is currently headed by Montek.
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