'India's growth at the cost of environment'

New Delhi, May 20 (IANS) The making of global India is at the cost of the environment, authors Ashish Kothari and Aseem Shrivastava say in their new work "Churning The Earth: Making of Global India".

The current model of development was unstable and had to be fundamentally changed as the dream offered by globalisation was dystopic, said Kothari, founder of the environmental group Kalpavriksh, at the book's release here Tuesday.

The book's co-author Srivastava is an environmental economist.

"The development is coming at the cost of weakening of environmental regulation and and it is globalisation that has increased destruction," said Kothari.

"India, which suffered from colonisation, has become a coloniser in Africa and latin America. In fact this is evident internally as how the super-rich are acquiring the land of the poor in India," he said.

The book challenges mainstream economic thinking on its own terms and marshals the comparative account of ecological destruction, said Amita Bavisar, a professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, at the release function.

"The book proves how globalisation undermines the sovereignty of nations," Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary in the Ministry of Water Resources, said.

The book has been published by Penguin.