By IANS,
Aligarh: Rising inequality was India’s fastest growing industry,award-winning journalist and rural affairs expert P. Sainath said here Saturday.
He was delivering the eighth I.G. Khan Memorial Lecture at Aligarh Muslim University.
In his lecture — ‘India in the Age of Inequality–, Sainath, an editor with The Hindu, and a winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, spoke about urban poverty and the “distorted priorities” in government and inadequate nature of programmes aimed at poverty alleviation.
He also highlighted the absence of social democracy but expressed hope the enduring nature of India’s diversity, which was its greatest strength, would not fail the people.
The lecture was followed by a session with students where they presented an audio-visual presentation on the lives of rickshaw-pullers.
A theatre group from Delhi, Jan Natya Manch, also performed a street play on dignity of labour titled ‘Hum Kyun Sahein’.
The events concluded with a screening of Bimal Roy’s classic film “Do Bigha Zameen”. Rinki Roy Bhattacharya, the director’s daughter, introduced the 1953 film.