Unethical Development

Unethical Development N R SETH has highlighted ethics and values in management education and stressed the need "to constantly expose students and practitioners to the human and social implications of all major events and innovations in science, technology, business and industry and the consequences of attending to or ignoring the human side of these events and innovations'' (August 28). But he has missed the most important area of development policy and management where ethics and values are very much needed. The UNDP Human Development Report of 1992 brought out the stark ethical side of development when it said that the "richest 20 per cent of the developed countries are consuming 82.7 per cent of the world incomes, whereas poorest 20 per cent are just consuming 1.4 per cent of the world income'' What is the ethical basis for this development? Who is to be blamed for this type of development? Even in India, whether health, education, water or sanitation or land reforms, unethical development policies are constantly pursued and defended from plan to plan. The nation's precious resources are allocated to cure the diseases of the rich 20 per cent of the population and very little is left to cure the diseases of the poor. Heart ailments, etc, get the attention of policy-makers more than infectious diseases of the poor like diarrhoea, scabies and tuberculosis. Higher education and UTs get the larger share in educational investments than primary and vocational education which help the poor on a mass scale. Water resources are siphoned off by the rich farmers leaving little to the poor and smalt farmers.