Differences between rich and poor creates strife in India

The other side of India’s boom is the corruption and lack of protection of rights for the poor. This story from NPR about a month long protest march for protecting the property rights of the poor gives a picture of India that you seldom see in the media.

If you have been to India, you might have passed through the roadside encampments outside the big cities, where nothing stays clean for more than half an hour, where people live, not paycheck to paycheck, but from hand to mouth. The people that live in these camps are domestic labor refugees from the poor states in India. They came to the big cities in the richer states to look for work.

These are the people that globalization, free trade, and more respect for individual rights will help.