This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures.

This lecture entitled Poverty and Globalisation in the series, Respect for the Earth,

given by Vandana Shiva, was originally broadcast in the year 2000.

Good evening.

Nowhere is the challenge of reconciling progress and tradition felt more sharply than here in India.

Daily, the drive towards economic growth comes into visible conflict with the need to preserve the environment.

Living here, it must sometimes seem that the two can never add up to sustainable development,

the theme of our lectures this year.

India at this moment is having to confront problems of water shortage.

Nature's drought, combined with increased industrialization, a growing population, and the thirstiness of modern cities.

Yet all our lecturers have argued from their different perspectives

that we must somehow achieve a balance in order to preserve the world for future generations.

So far in this series we've visited Los Angeles, Edinburgh, London and Geneva.

Finally, we've arrived at the Nairu Memorial

Library in New Delhi, with a distinguished invited audience, who I hope even now are preparing

to put their questions to tonight's wreath lecturer. She is Vanda Nashiva, founder and director

of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology.

However, she's not simply an academic.

She's also an activist, a campaigner, most recently well known for her part in the Seattle

protests during the World Trade Organization talks last year.

Her topic, appropriately at the end of our global quest, is globalization and poverty.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our wreath lecturer tonight, Van Dona Shiva. Recently, I was visiting Bhattinda in Punjab because of an epidemic of farmers' suicides.

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