Close on the heels of G8 Summit at Huntsville, Canada, attended by most developed nations , the G20 Summit was held at Toronto, Canada participated by developed and emerging developing countries which was attended by our PM and his entourage on 26-6-2010 to 27-6-2010. The previous G-20 summit was organised at Pittsburg in September 2009.The one held at Toronto was in the backdrop of the threat of recession beginning to stare in the faces of nations across the world after the initial recovery witnessed y the world after the Global meltdown, the genesis of which was at America. The Gobal meltdown hit US the most followed by other countries the world over. India too came under its harmful effect was not hit that badly because of a regulated economy unlike in USA where free market policies of George Bush administration was let loose ostensibly with no strings attached. The Sub-prime mortgage crisis and the housing bubble burst entirely upset the apple-cart with investment institutions, banks and corporations came crashing down. All nations across the world were watching with admiration, a developed country bathing in the sunshine of prosperity and even mulled emulating it till then. It was actually a cosmetic sunshine, not at all natural. The whole picture began to darken begining with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an investment banking corporation and then what followed was like a collpase of a pack of cards.With the emergence of a new govt. under the Democratic party under the leadership of Barack Obama, a fiscal stimulus amounting to US $789 billion was declared to bail out the crashing firms, thus partially lifting the pathetic situation out of the abyss That worked to a certain extent and the picture was slowly starting to be rosy, but it was only for a while.In came the European fiscal turmoil, starting from Greece and the entire attention of the world turned to Europe. Greek Prime Minister George Pappandreau decided to undertake a whirlwind tour of his European friends, Germany, France, Italy and global financial institutions IMF and World Bank. With "generous" aid doled out by his friendly countries and the financial institutions, austerity measures, raising taxes, cutting expenditure, he seems to be nursing a feeling of a way out of the impasse has finally found. The G20 countries and the emerging economies like India were divided in their opinions regarding the fiscal stimulus with European nations like Germany insisting an immediate exit and US maintaining a stance that it is premature still to withdraw the fiscal stimulus at a critical juncture like this. Indian Prime Minister, a renowned economist that he is also of the opinion that the time has not yet arrived for the withdrawal of stimulus package. He reminded in the forum that deflation is worse than inflation and stressed the need for depending upon exports and each nation needs to promote investment especially in the field of infrastructure for creating increasing demand power of the people by adopting the aforesaid measures.An early escape route from the stimulus package will be counter-productive, he reminded.The Euro-zone crisis and its after effects are formidable.
According to Juvan Somavia, the Chairman of the ILO(International Labour Organisation) on the sidelines of G20 meeting pointed to the alarming situation of unemployment shooting upto 210 million and in the next ten years it is going to mount to the staggering level of 470 million, the world over. He was speaking at a conference of International Labour Conference organised under the auspices of ILO (International Labour Organisation) attended by more than 4000 delegates from countries around the world and the representatives of NGOs. He referred to the Pittsburg summit of G20 nations held in September last and the just concluded Toronto Summit at Canada. He dwelt strongly on the need for creating skilled jobs for the unempoyed and for the socail uplift of the employees pointing towards the social aspect.Social justice, be it anywhere is a much needed panancea and if the leaders of the nations whether developed, developing or underdeveloped nations which most leaders even our renowned economist PM selectively forgets to implement in India. Mouthing platitudes quite often won't solve the hardships and suffering of teeming millions. I am returning to Juvan Somavia's words here 'the efforts' to reduce the number of those earning US $1.25 a day each remember in our country it is 77 percent, are being reversed, thus increasing the numbers of the downtrodden.At one of the previous G8 Summits which promised US$ 50 bn for the empowerment of women and for welfare measures in the under-developed countries especially the most neglected African nations at the lower rung of the social ladder has been reduced to US $ 5bn citing the devastating financial turmoil continuing across the world at the G8 meeting at Huntsville. After all mere deletion of a zero is negligible,they must be feeling. What value a zero has?
Once again I am coming to the words of Juvan Somavia who points out that the global growth at present is 4% and unfortunately the benefits have not percolated down to socially depressed classes.
At Toronoto, while the G20 Summit was going on a crowd of approximately 10000 went on a rampage destroying police vehicles even setting them ablaze, forcing the businesses down shutters shouting slogans against globalization. Summits will come and go in future also, but what people around the world are expecting and hoping for something positive to emerge at the end of each summit.
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