Address source of inequality: Bangladeshi economist

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UMISARC, Pondicherry University - 16th April 2017



 

12:00 AM, April 20, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:31 AM, April 20, 2017

Address source of inequality: Bangladeshi economist

 

Left to right: Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, Chairperson, SAF-India; Mme France Marquet, Principal Trustee, MSF; Dr Anisa Basheer
Khan, Vice Chancellor, Pondicherry University ; Mr. Rahman Sobhan, SAF-Bangladesh Advisory Board Member &
Mr. N Ram, Presedent, MSF


Economist Rehman Sobhan poses at a programme on Monday while delivering the second Madanjeet Singh memorial lecture on “Structural sources of inequality in South Asia” at the Pondicherry University in India. PTI

Pondicherry, PTI

Access to rural population to tangible assets and making farm and manufacturing sector workers equity partners are key factors in addressing “growing problems of inequality,” noted Bangladeshi economist Rehman Sobhan said on April 17.

Also, establishment of a 21st century Agrarian Reforms Commission and the “need to address the sources of inequality” were important, said Sobhan, who is chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a think-tank of Bangladesh.

He was delivering the “Unesco Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh second memorial lecture on addressing the structural sources of inequality in South Asia” at Pondicherry University.

“Establishment of an agrarian reforms commission, providing access for rural population to tangible assets, ensuring better quality education in institutions run by the government and also electoral reforms” are key factors needed to address the growing problems of inequality, he said.

“Even within the prevailing inequitable social dispensation across South Asia there is no reason why we can't explore agrarian reforms which are politically feasible as well as economically sustainable.” Economic intervention programmes by the governments across South Asia such as employment guarantee schemes, welfare programmes and subsidies had helped reduced poverty, he said. "But inequality and social disparity have widened in the region.”

Suggesting mandatory offering of equity stake in the value addition process, he said, “It is actually making a farmer a business partner of the corporate entity which finally sells his produce.”

The ultimate aim should be to move towards a “common school system which provides high quality public education.”

Chairman of Kasturi and Sons Ltd and President of Madanjeet Singh Foundation N Ram outlined the need for South Asian countries to promote understanding.

Chairperson of South Asia Foundation (India chapter) Mani Shankar Aiyar, Vice-Chancellor (officiating) of Pondicherry University Anisa Basheer Khan and Representative of the South Asia Foundation to Unesco France Marquet were among those who spoke. 

Source: The Daily Star