The Hindu Business Line : For them `Another World is Possible'

THE irony could not be missed. While a poll-savvy BJP-led Government announced economic measures pandering to the corporate model of development, from around the world people opposed to big business began arriving here to search in a motley milieu, alternatives to what they call "unjust patterns of globalisation."

It is ironic but yet a tribute to an increasingly vulnerable democracy that such a gig is being held in Mumbai - iconic of the pomp and power of big business as well as the accompanying misery and anguish of this vast country.

World Social Forum 2004, designed to be a bubbling cauldron of debate, cultural activities and artistic expression, will be held at the sprawling NESCO grounds near here from January 16 to 21. It will bring together more than 75,000 people, including intellectuals, artists, economists, students, politicians and just ordinary people to rally around the theme "Another World is Possible".

The forum tries to string together progressive movements across the world to mount pressure to reverse processes of globalisation that have eroded living conditions of millions of people across the world and made material life more volatile and insecure for large population.

Among others, a conference on globalisation, economic and social security to be led by Nobel laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist, Mr Joseph Stiglitz, will focus on the economic, political and social mechanisms that have increased insecurity of livelihood and living conditions of people across the world, and consider ways of transforming or doing away with such mechanisms.

It will also examine employment volatility generated by internationally mobile capital in both production and finance. The focus will be on feasible alternatives in terms of overall paradigm and basic policies.

Perhaps the biggest show of strength of anti-globalisation forces from across the world, the forum has attracted people such as French farmer-activist Mr Jose Bove, British Labour Party MP, Mr Jeremy Corbin, who campaigned to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and Nobel Peace Laureate, Iranian lawyer Ms Shirin Ebadi.

The six-day socio-political jamboree is likely to be opened by former Prime Minister, Mr V.P. Singh. The former President, Mr K.R. Narayanan, will preside over the closing ceremonies.

WSF was formed by Brazilian anti-globalisation activists inspired by the solidarity in cause among several movements that gathered in Seattle 1999 to protest the Bretton Woods institutions (WTO and IMF) and the model of human development sponsored by them.

The initiative continued to gather strength over the years as annual gatherings at Porto Alegre in Brazil shaped it into a permanent process of dissent against the globalisation spurred by multinational corporations and backed by national Governments.

The forum's Charter of Principles describes it as an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationship among humankind and the earth.