The rich and the powerful, who meet every year at the World Economic Forum (WEF), were in a gloomy mood this time. Not only because the day they met close to eight trillion dollars has been wiped off global equity markets by a "correction". But because no leader could be in a buoyant mood.
The idea of creating Inter Press Service (IPS) arose in the early 1960s in response to awareness that a vacuum existed in the world of journalism, which had two basic aspects.
India’s decisive stand last week not to adopt the protocol of amendment of the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) unless credible rules were in place for the development issues of the South was met with "astonishment" and "dismay" by trade diplomats from the North, who described New Delhi’s as "hostage-taking" and "suicidal".
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said “The rich are different from you or me”, yet in his days, in the early years of the 20
th century, the rich were not subject to public scrutiny, and were generally an object of envy, not resentment.
It is now generally accepted that the North-South divide created at the end of the colonial era and the coalition of New Countries against the powerful North of the world ended with the arrival of globalisation. There are now areas of the Third World inside the North, and areas of the North inside the South.