Everyone, we are told, is ‘feeling good’ in the country today. So our government invited President Lula of Brasil to share in these 'goody times' and be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day Parade where the Indian State struts it's military and economic might. But how much do we know about him and his country? And what does he have to do with the recently concluded World Social Forum in Mumbai? Is the WSF just bunch of radical 'anti-globalisation' and anti-everything shouting brigade, as the mainstream media would have us believe?

No doubt a globalising economy has increased the GDP of many developing countries. But so have fundamentalism, military conflicts, ethnic strife, terrorism and environmental degradation increased at an unprecedented scale across the globe. At the fourth WSF in Mumbai last month over 100,000 people from all over the world gathered to ask questions about what’s wrong with the world. They were searching for answers to problems that plague the planet and the people who live on it. Globally, we have a system where a minority, with their military and economic might, control the lives of the majority. Locally, we have problems of communalism, caste, feudalism, patriarchy, gender discrimination... nothing to feel good about. Is another World Possible?

– Pandit Gobar Ganesh
E-mail: panditji@cseindia.org