'Our farmers can face the world' : HindustanTimes.com

via HindustanTimes.com: "Bhagwati's recipe for success in this is a cocktail of democracy and free market policies, and pragmatic policies to address poverty without policy-makers being bogged down in academic measurements in defining who the poor are. 'Poverty is like pornography. When you see it, you know it.'

Bhagwati is not quite a radical poster boy like his Columbia colleague Joseph Stiglitz, who has questioned globalisation. In his own words, he is a real-world economist who uses what he calls Gujarati pragmatism to inform his science.

He is not sure if India can sustain the nine per cent GDP it is showing in the current year. 'It doesn't seem supportable to me. I think it will need substantial opening up on the infrastructure side.'

If his views on India are tempered, Bhagwati's tone on China is downright critical. He said China's growth was on shaky ground as it was at a heavy environmental cost, with no NGOs, judiciary or political opposition, as in India, to countervail communist commissars, who, he said, were effectively involved in a state-run land grab — while infrastructure remained poor. That may be heartening to India, as would be the fact that he considers New Delhi's leaders more prone to independent thinking and multilateraism than counterparts in stronger economies like South Korea."