Bangalore: Coming down on the present form of globalisation process, Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi on January 3 said it was premised on wasteful consumption patterns of the rich and should be seen in the context of sharp inequalities among the countries of the world.

It was also a propagation of the value of unlimited consumer choice as the driving force of economic growth and a fuelling of aspirations for the life-styles of the rich, he said.

"Globalisation has to be seen in the context of sharp inequalities among the countries of the world. Inequalities of consumption, of productive wealth generation capacities, of infrastructure availability, of the availability of public goods and services," Joshi, a strong proponent of the "swadeshi" policy, told the Indian Science Congress in the presence of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Noting some of the consequences of the "uncritical acceptance of the myth of the social, political and ethical neutrality of science and technology", he said in contemporary times, the problem had been further compounded by the narrow "techno- economic vision" within which globalisation was perceived.

In a situation of disproportionate consumption on the part of the rich on the one hand and the vicious spiral of poverty-environment-problem triad on the other, the strain on natural resources of the earth had become "unbearable", Joshi said.

"A globalisation process which relies on perpetuating ever-higher levels of consumption can only mean the globalisation of poverty, inequality and ecological degradation," Joshi said.

It was the concern with the values of sustainability and the need for science and technology to be directly linked to societal needs that "we needed to re-visit our S and T (science and technology) policy", he said.

On the new Science and Technology Policy 2003 unveiled by Vajpayee, Joshi said while the commitment to science and technology had not changed, "we recognised that global change has necessitated a more closer direct link between science and technology and societal needs".

The new policy, Joshi emphasised, was "anchored in our abiding belief that for science and technology to grow, it must be green, it must be ethical, it must have a human face, it must be gender sensitive, it must be region and context-specific, reflect our enormous diversity and plurality and it must empower the community as a whole and not merely a section of it."

PTI