Feeling enamored by the free net facility and watching my friends dawdling their time orkuting, blogging, chatting, googling around, here I am after many contrived attempts presenting my first blog, though it is a desultory attempt and topic seems quite boring (though highly debated) I do hope you will appreciate it.
India though not a unified state as it is now was a rich one both in terms of money and culture. It was only with the advent of the Britishers that concomitants poverty in India. Poorness of any place of South East Asia commensurate with the amount of time spend by the Europeans (Dutch, French, English) in that place. According to stats in India in 1830, 17.6% of the industrial production was contributed by India while 9.5% belonged to the Englishmen. After a few decades the draconian plan of the Britishers and purposeful deindustrialization resulted in the situation worse then if you reverse the stats above: 1.7% to India and 18.5% belonged to the gooras. I would not be a heckler and blame only the Europeans but exacerbated weather conditions and famines, over population, lack of knowledge, property right played its part also.
Since then,200 years ahead looking at the sensex boom which is as a result of boom in sectors such as outsourcing, engineering, infrastructure, property which would not only accompany a deluge of job opportunities but will also attract international investors. But what effect will it have on the poor???? By poor I don’t include those people who just make it in the range of the middle class and their kids land up in government schools, but those who whose kids don’t even make it to school, who below the poverty line and are burdened with child labor, child marriage and all other kind of social atrocities. A Boom in sensex might affect a house owner in a good way both for his driver it is only a trifle in the upliftment in the way of his living. Why would he care about employment opportunities, as his only concern is to earn 2 meals a day.
Were does the problem lies?? Delving deeper into details we find that the growth is only in the tertiary sector (the skilled sector) and is around 20%. However the primary sector (the agricultural sector) remains untouched .The growth of the agricultural sector has decreased from 3.2% in 1980-81 to 1.9% in 1995-96.The situation is so bad that the agricultural sector does not even achieve even the expected growth rate of 4%, and because of the excessive dependence on the monsoon, which are quiet unpredictable, a famine can worsen the situation. This has the direct effect on the farmer, many commit suicide, many run to the city abandoning the agrarian profession and hence degrading the situation.
Look at the health sector The infant mortality rate of India is 57, while it is less then half in China around 25 and that of developed nations like America, France, etc it is around 5%.
I read a report stating that
“A recent World Bank report supported the previously documented inverse relationship between per capita income and infant mortality rate in India. However, even though increases in income have reduced the infant mortality rate, the income effect is stronger on total fertility rates; and non-income factors play an even more significant role than income in lowering the infant mortality rate. For example, the effect of technological progress on the decline in infant mortality rate was estimated at 20% over the period 1975-90, the greatest effect occurring in 1985-90. However, public health expenditures did not significantly lower the rate. The World Bank report noted that although the poorest states in India performed worst in terms of both infant mortality and total fertility rates, the richest states did not perform best. The best state performers in India had relatively low per capita income levels, but achieved relatively good results for those levels.”
So even though economy is flourishing in India the rate of decrease of infant mortality has declined.
Peeking into the Gini coefficient which is the measure of economic inequality of any country for India it is around 0.30-0.34 while for china it is 0.40-0.44 (the lesser the better). But looking at the economic policies of China which is mainly to curtail the economic gap between the urban dwellers and the people living in the country side it is not long that the figure will come down. Rather then giving more emphasis on creating job opportunities (…like the “rural Development guarantee bill”…which is launched by the congress which guarantees100 days of employment to many districts of India) India’s economic policies should be more like china in bridging the gap between the poor and the rich.
It is the general consensus of the public that growth will bring India out of poverty, though true only growth should not be the ultimate aim. What India must desire for is improvement in the quality of life of people-which means providing better health, education, infrastructure to both rich and poor and this is not only the job of the government but also the right of its people who elect them.
