Yabby,

I appreciate your views and you make some valid points.
My main problem with the mentality of organizations such as the world bank is its agenda to gain access to third world markets and then to put profit before human need.
In many countries this has had disastrous consequences, with the poorest in host nations experiencing minimal improvements to conditions (if any) and in some cases experiencing detrimental effects. The countries involved are often left with debt payments that take up up more than one third of their annual domestic incomes.
The fundamentals of these problems sometimes become skewed and lead to false assumptions - this makes it difficult to get to the heart of the matter.
For instance, it is accepted belief that countries like India need more dams for irrigation because it has so many people it cannot provide food for all - but hunger arises, not because they cannot grow enough food, but because many millions of people are too poor to buy it.
It is interesting to note that in the year 2001-2002, India stockpiled 62 million tonnes of surplus grain, most of which was stored in the open at the mercy of the weather.. In 2003, India boasted another huge surplus in food grains - it held one quarter of the world's food stocks. (This was achieved through new systems of unsustainable farming which employ GM crops, overuse of pesticides and over watering by large farms leading to increased soil depletion).
It is obvious that those who pull the economic strings would rather stockpile the surplus than release it into the marketplace.
The poor of India cannot afford to pay the market price for food, so must rely on growing their own - and here again, access to water for irrigation for peasant farmers is not the Indian Government's first priority.

Poirot, if you read the FAQ about the World bank, it hardly sets out
to rip off poor countries:

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTSITETOOLS/0,,contentMDK:20147466~menuPK:344189~pagePK:98400~piPK:98424~theSitePK:95474,00.html#13

Hopefully that link will come through ok, its pretty long.

As to individual issues in India, it would be easy to sit on the
sidelines and form an uninformed opinion. At the end of the day,
India is a democracy, so people can influence Govt and the decisions
that Govts make. If it was up to me, the first thing that I would
do in India, is make the caste system illegal!

I watch quite a bit of BBC tv, they venture into some of the poorest
regions of the world and interview people, so I watch and learn.
What is common is that couples who have 5-10 children, complain that
they can't feed them! Well I could not feed them either!

So I campaign very loudly for the rights of third world people to
have access to modern day family planning, so that they can choose
the size of their families. But frankly for those who have this
option and still pop them out like rabbits, they are going to have
to start addresing the fact that they themselves are to blame,
if some of them go hungry. All very sad but that's the reality of it.

Now to correct the misinformation that you have injected into an otherwise worthless piece.
You were no doubt the first to congratulate Obama for his elections to the presidency, which by the way is democracy not that tide off of human rights to convenience you, call a democracy.
The Chinese should stop; along with the Indians driving the economy is that what you’re saying??
Why? Because they’re getting drier? Or consuming too much water? What a joke your logic is!
The global economic meltdown now you’re an economics expert I suppose?
The GEM, which of course ad nothing to do with the Indian or Chinese demand for goods and services, or the banks corrupt management policy.
The only company btw to achieve any sort of real financial reversal is the Fomoco; explain that one in your weeties economic degree terms!
The only USA Company that didn’t take a bail out from the government.

The USA (G.E. ) Has its headquarters run on solar derived energy, where’s the equivalent Australian company doing that?
Oh that’s right Australia’s biggest employers the government. Duh!! How remiss of me. This is the Australian government that a refused to sign Kyoto 1 & 2 and Copenhagen, yet will soon introduce taxation on the pretext of GW/ETS that is predicted to triple the costs of power. And guess what you can t complain because you think your part if the GW issue, and therefore must be guilty of unsustainable development in the coal, oil and gas arenas. What a load of BS.
Get off the grass your nothing but another tossel basher.
To accept without knowledge is ignorance to justify without knowledge is stupidity.
So go back to the weeties Packet University you received your pretend degree at , and enroll in a science course, you might learn something. Here’s a; link in case you can find one
http://www.anu.edu.au/index.html

Yabby,

I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree on the agenda of the World Bank.
I do, however, agree with your opinion on the population problem.
I read your last link - here's mine.

http://www.celsias.com/article/the-food-crisis-misery-is-profitable/

... is a democracy, so people can influence Govt and the decisions
that Govts make.
Yabby,
your words describe the workflow of the real problem. People are so sucked in by the hype of the fairness of democracy & the consumerism it offers & that their vote can influence Government decision making. It most certainly gives the authorities a mandate for for getting more & more control over our lives under the guise of democracy & as Government gains more & more control the more contend the masses appear to become. In my days this was called brainwashing & social engineering. India is the world's largest Democracy & look at the present chaos there & they haven't really started educating the masses yet. Just you wait till they start to really aspire to reach the western level of consumerism & subsequent manufacturing industry. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting smaller !