[Assam] Robert Clive of Bath, England; taught corruption to Indians being nurtured in Assam to rot the moral fibres of the Assamese to the core to give India perverted colonial advantage in ruling the region.

[Bartta Bistar]

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Conflict in Assam works in nexus with weak economy: World Bank report
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071022/48/6m9n4.html


<http://in.rd.yahoo.com/expressnews/SIG=11738n0j1/**http%3A%2F%2Fwww.expressindia.com%2F>


 By IE

*Tuesday October 23, 01:45 AM*

The on-going conflict in Assam, that claimed over 4,400 lives between 1992
and 2001, has a "direct nexus" with a weak economy, making it easier for
militant groups to find "young recruits", a study carried out under the
aegis of World Bank has confirmed.

The study titled "Who benefits from Civil Wars? Some evidence from Assam",
pointed out that unemployment, especially among the youth, showed disturbing
trends in the 1990s, which in turn had adverse implications for the
persistence of conflict.

"The number of unemployed youths in Assam registered sharpest rise among 15
major states, between 1983 and 1993," the report said, pointing out that by
1993-94 (when Army operations against militants were in full swing), "the
number of unemployed youths in Assam was about three times higher than the
rest of India".

The argument of "easy recruitment" of potential rebels is indirectly
supported by this data, the study said. The study was carried for the World
Bank by Deepa Narayan, Binayak Sen and Ashutosh Varshney.

The study also pointed out that though there were several historic reasons
behind the on-going conflict in the state, the employment situation severely
deteriorated, particularly in the rural areas, during the course of the
conflict. "Though the level of rural unemployment had been lower than that
in urban areas during the year of conflict, it is in the rural areas that
the sharpest increase in unemployment was recorded," the study revealed.

The rural population was more affected during the intensified phase of
conflict between 1983 and 1993, the report said, with statistics showing
that the number of rural poor increased sharply from 73.53 lakh in 1987-88
to 94.33 lakh in 1993-94.

There have been some signs of improvement in the overall employment scenario
from 2000 onwards, but the situation is yet to reach any turn-around, the
study said.

On the "nexus" between weak economy and conflict, the study revealed that
nearly 75 per cent of the respondents in conflict-affected areas reported
that their village had a "weak" to "very weak" local economy.

But what is more alarming is the increasing level of corruption that itself
could be a factor responsible for the underdevelopment or slow pace of
development in the state. "Corruption in local government offices marked a
turn for the worse. Respondents in more than 65 per cent of the communities
surveyed agreed that government officials in their village and neighbourhood
were corrupt," the study said.
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