Summary: <img src="http://localbites.podbean.com/mf/web/vmneyt/Ashish-Kothari2.jpg" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;"><font size="2">In this extended episode, <em>Local Bites</em> interviews scholar/activist, Ashish Kothari about his book, <em><a href="http://churningtheearth.in/" target="_blank" title="">Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India</a></em>, co-authored by Aseem Shrivastava. During the first half of the interview, Kothari provides a sobering account of the social and environmental impacts of globalized development in India, arguing persuasively that the costs outweigh the benefits, and calling into questions a number of taken-for-granted assumptions about "economic growth", "progress", and the so-called inevitability of urbanization. In the second half (28:24), Kothari highlights a diverse range of localist alternatives taking place in communities throughout India, forerunners to what he calls 'radical ecological democracy', that can "take us all to higher levels of well-being, while sustaining the earth and creating greater equity."</font><br>
