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New Delhi:
Congress president Sonia Gandhi Friday promised a "new
architecture of social provisioning" for India and emphasised the
need to address some paradoxes where businesses and economy were
thriving but graft and greed were also on the rise.
"We are right to celebrate our high rate of economic growth. We
must do all that we can to sustain it. However, let us not forget
that growth is not an end in itself," Gandhi said at the start of
the 10th Indira Gandhi Conference evocatively titled An Indian
Social Democracy: Integrating Markets, Democracy and Social
Justice.
"Our economy may increasingly be dynamic, but our moral universe
seems to be shrinking. Prosperity has increased, but so has social
conflict. Intolerance of various kinds is growing. Graft and greed
are on the rise," she said in her address to a select audience on
the verdant lawns of Teen Murti House, that is now the Nehru
Museum and had been the residence of the nation's first prime
minister.
Gandhi, who was speaking for the first time at a public function
along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh since the Supreme Court
remarks on the spectrum allocation corruption scandal, lamented at
the deterioration of values at every walk of life.
"The principles on which independent India was founded, for which
a generation of great leaders fought and sacrificed their all, are
in danger of being negated," she said at the event, coinciding
with the 93rd birth anniversary of late prime minister Indira
Gandhi, her mother-in-law.
Gandhi, accordingly, called for a coherent social democratic
agenda based on rights and entitlements, and not charity.
"The Right to Information, The Right to Work, the Right to
Education, and the proposed Right to Food Security, represent a
landmark shift in our approach to issues of welfare and human
development. A new architecture of social provisioning is being
put in place (by the government)."
Gandhi said no social democracy was possible without a thriving
and dynamic business sector generating wealth and hoped the
swelling ranks of India's wealthy will inspire others to follow
their example.
"There is a new spirit of entrepreneurship, a new awakening of
enterprise in India, it needs to be encouraged. But surely, it is
in the interest of business to be a major partner in promoting
social objectives and caring for the environment," she said.
"Some corporate leaders stand out for their dedicated engagement
in purposeful and meaningful philanthropy," she said and urged the
increasing rank of India's millionaires to try and follow their
example to bridge the country's social inequity.
Gandhi, who is also chairperson of the ruling United Progressive
Alliance (UPA), said the issue of fairness was equally important
in any democratic society, with equal opportunities in education,
health care and skills.
"This is not a matter of choice. It is a known fact that unequal
societies cannot achieve their full potential or even sustain a
high level of growth indefinitely. In other words, islands of
prosperity in a sea of deprivation can only give rise to storms of
conflict and instability," she said.
"But the story of India's contrasts is well known: Ability,
aspiration and achievement coexist with injustice, inequity and
inequality. We have more millionaires than ever before, alongside
millions who struggle for two square meals a day."
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