Regarding the Aug. 10 story “India faces lost generation as virus pushes children to work,” a long time ago, Swami Vivekananda wrote, "Forget not, that thou art born as a sacrifice upon the altar of the Motherland."
That was when India was bound by the shackles of imperialism. But, how many more sacrifices at the altar will India need, when we are almost on the eve of celebrating 73 years of independence from that yolk? Will India eternally remain the land of paradox, almost nurturing the burdens of inequality, poverty, child abuse and the bondage of child labor, while aiming to be a $5 trillion economy in just another four or so years?
Did Kuznets, the father of modern GDP, not warn us before that the GDP is a bad measure of a country's well-being? Isn't merely chasing GDP growth a chimera? As another article, "As extreme poverty rises, a generation sees a future slip away," claimed, crises have been aggravated in many developing countries due to the COVID-19 situation. Jason Hickel of the London School of Economics has already warned us of "The Divide" between the haves and have-nots, a dark schism that has been growing since the book was published. When will we sit up and take notice? I wonder.
Rajdeep Seth
Gamagori, Aichi Prefecture
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