ABSTRACT
To generate growth or secure sustainability? That is the ‘big’ question Does economic growth necessarily translate into sustainable development? Although the divergence between the two increasingly received attention of the academicians and policymakers in the aftermath of the UN Conference on Human Development (UNCHD) in 1972 at Stockholm, the potential threats were duly highlighted by Charles Dickens long back in Chapter 5 of his 1854 epic novel, Hard Times , which provides a picturesque description of environmental repercussions in the post-industrial revolution period:
Coketown. . . . It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. . . . It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye. . . .
