Globalization’s effects on India
----------losers of globalization obscured by the dazzling display

The globalization of the economy refers to the increasing integration and interdependence of all realms of economic life, including trade, finance, production, and consumption. Debates about economic globalization include whether integration has helped or hindered the plight of poor people around the globe; whether jobs lost to 'outsourcing' really contribute to the health of an economy by lowering end-users' costs; whether business and accounting practices and principles developed in one social context can be transferred and utilized productively across national boundaries; and whether government policies should promote foreign direct investment in every sector of the economy or whether some sectors should be protected for the benefit of domestic companies. In this article, we will be looking at the effects of globalization on India, which has a rosy future for economy as the economists predicted.
According to the vital data from the economists, India's economic reforms have all the characteristics of a resounding success. The world's biggest democracy has succeeded in becoming the world's leading exporter of IT services. After the government cut red tape that had been hampering business expansion, average annual economic growth accelerated from 3.7 percent in the 1950s and 1960s to a remarkable 7 percent in 2005. Economic institutes never tire of saying that India's economy hasn't even reached its peak yet. Go by the forecast of Deutsche Bank Research, India's gross domestic product will double in the next 12 years. That would make India the world's third-largest economy by 2020 -- trailing only the United States and China. The confidence of foreign investors is so great that the most important Indian stock index, the Sensex, recently passed the 10,000 point mark for the first time.
However, it is the dazzling display of the nouveau riche proudly flaunting their wealth obscures the losers of the country’s economic miracle.
Many people have lost their jobs as a result of the liberalization and globalization of economy in India. They see themselves as the losers of globalization.
Ramakrishna Murthy, at the age of 52 was unemployed. His company told him that he was way “too old, too inflexible and too expensive”. With a huge and inexhaustible source of young and well-qualified workers, there's little room left for people like Ramakrishna Murthy. Murthy was forced to move out from his apartment the way he was laid off. Now he and his family are living without any kind of appreciable social safety net in an abandoned house that is falling apart on the edge of Bangalore. They struggle to make ends meet with his wife's pay. Murthy’s friend, Dhruva L. Robby, is also on job hunt recently. Unlike Murthy, he was young and had no real attachments. He found a job in Dell Computer Call Center, working 6 days a week for a small wage.
The constant news of stock market successes overshadows the social problems in India's economic wonderland. Salaries for those working in modern service jobs may have risen palpably in recent years, but wages in other sectors have grown at a much slower pace and have, in some areas, even stagnated. That's an unfortunate reality for the vast majority of workers in India, who are faced with an annual inflation rate of more than 4 percent and have to contend with a decline in purchasing power each year as a result. That's a situation that won't change quickly either. Workers in the industrial sector seldom earn more than 7,000 rupies per month, and a daily laborer is lucky to even earn 1,500 rupies in the same period. That's not enough to put a reasonable roof over one's head or to even buy decent groceries. As in the past, child labor is still commonplace and the poorest segments of the population don't have adequate access to healthcare.
The unpleasant side effects of India's push for growth are especially apparent in its booming metropolises. According to the World Bank, they are the fastest growing cities in the world. Despite a plenitude of parks and broad boulevards, the cities are increasingly choking on air and noise pollution. A few rounds in Bangalore's city center on a motorized rickshaw leaves one's shirt darkened with soot and one's eyes stinging from exhaust fumes. The evening rush hour routinely spirals into complete gridlock with countless thousands of mopeds, jitney buses and cars congesting the road. Meanwhile, poor people from the countryside continue to flood into the city of 6 million looking for work. But all too often, they wind up in the slums.
Globalization critics Shok Mitra states that a further opening of the market would result in multinational concerns acquiring the Indian subcontinent. He fears that this will only further harm the country's poorest citizens and lead to growing social and political instability.