ABSTRACT
Criminal elements rule the society, and women are not safe on the streets. India is at the bottom of Human Development Index prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In the past, Indian civilization has been prodigiously creative; it left footprints in numerous countries abroad in the fields of spirituality, religion, philosophy, language, literature, art, mathematics, astronomy and medicine. The foundation of Indian culture rests on an ethico-spiritual view of life. Indian culture supports humanistic values such as freedom of thought, compassion and service to fellow human beings. In Western cultural tradition earning wealth has become summum bonum of life. A materialistic culture is guided by 'economic orientation', and its approach is the 'bottom line approach'. The economic downturn faced by the US and Western European countries from 2008 onwards, the aftermath of which they are unable to recover, shows the hollowness of free market ideology.
