And India
Social imbalances, clubbed with extreme poverty and pathetic lifestyles are weakening India
The historical words of “tryst with destiny” as elucidated by our first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru are yet to be materialised in India. Today, the concert of social sector assumes the centre-stage, but then the track record of this sector – health, education, food and shelter et al – declare the sad state of affairs loudly... It therefore comes as no surprise that India scores pathetically in almost all social sector indicators, be it the Human Development Index (HDI) or the Global Hunger Index (GHI) or the Global Gender Gap Index (GGG), where India ranks 128th (out of 177 countries), 66th (out of 88 countries) and 98th (out of 115 countries) respectively. The most noteworthy point is that unlike India, countries like Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Namibia, Guinea with considerably lower calibre of human demography and lesser spending on social improvements are climbing up the ranks with every new report. It requires no strong argument that India is a land ‘full of paradoxes’: there lies two nation in one, in the first one, more and more students are opting for foreign degrees, people are opting for better and higher lifestyle and ease, and on the other hand, another part of this country experiences a literacy rate of just 76.4%, death of 2 million children due to hunger and with millions still below the poverty line. And the paradox continues to linger on: while a fraction of rich Indians are engaged in preparations to join the information society, there are still millions who are illiterate. To elaborate on the difference further, the Gross Enrolment Ratio for age groups 6-11 years is found to be above 95%. This figure falls to 70% for age groups 11-14 years, and further hits the bottom at 40% as we consider age groups above 18 years. Beyond that, when we talk about the higher education category, the dismal figure gets worse and goes underground at a melancholic 10%! Only 10-25% of general college graduates are suitable for employment. Even in the report called ‘State of the World’s Mothers’, India rank 66th out of 71 countries, a low rank and a very poor image again. This ranking scores countries after analysing all social parameters, namely, health, education, and economic status of mothers. It is interesting, but disappointing at the same time, especially considering that despite having 20% of world’s total children, 40% of its young population is malnourished. This puts India at 3rd on malnourished kids chart but from the bottom!!!
In 2006-07, India’s mortality rate under five (per 1,000) was 76, a figure high and dangerous. And why not if a country spends merely 3-4% of its GDP on education and just 1-2% on healthcare (which is far less than pubic spending by even countries like Namibia, Bolivia, Sri Lanka et al). While talking to B&E, International Food Policy Research Institute said that, “India has very high levels of malnutrition among preschoolers (47%)... and it ranks at the bottom of the world on child malnutrition, right before Bangladesh and Nepal, and after countries such as Sudan, Cambodia, and Ethiopia!”
To sum up the social performance, one can just glimpse through India’s position in World Prosperity Index 2008 where we rank 70th amongst 104 nations. In India, a female on an average earns $1,500/year while a male earns $4,000/year. The GGG report further divulges that the female-to-male ratio for literacy rate is just 0.65! If statistics are to be trusted, an increase in India’s female labour force participation by 86% could easily push our GDP growth up by 1.08% per year! But the most hard-hitting truth is poverty. As per the World Bank, 41.6% of Indians are currently living below poverty line (BPL). The truth is that even today many Indians are deprived of an acceptable life standard. It is the society that makes the economy and not vice-versa, have we forgotten this?
In 2006-07, India’s mortality rate under five (per 1,000) was 76, a figure high and dangerous. And why not if a country spends merely 3-4% of its GDP on education and just 1-2% on healthcare (which is far less than pubic spending by even countries like Namibia, Bolivia, Sri Lanka et al). While talking to B&E, International Food Policy Research Institute said that, “India has very high levels of malnutrition among preschoolers (47%)... and it ranks at the bottom of the world on child malnutrition, right before Bangladesh and Nepal, and after countries such as Sudan, Cambodia, and Ethiopia!”
To sum up the social performance, one can just glimpse through India’s position in World Prosperity Index 2008 where we rank 70th amongst 104 nations. In India, a female on an average earns $1,500/year while a male earns $4,000/year. The GGG report further divulges that the female-to-male ratio for literacy rate is just 0.65! If statistics are to be trusted, an increase in India’s female labour force participation by 86% could easily push our GDP growth up by 1.08% per year! But the most hard-hitting truth is poverty. As per the World Bank, 41.6% of Indians are currently living below poverty line (BPL). The truth is that even today many Indians are deprived of an acceptable life standard. It is the society that makes the economy and not vice-versa, have we forgotten this?
Don’t worry; just 350 years to solve your case! It’ll be quick!!!
There’s corruption and fragility galore in the quagmire of the Indian administrative & judicial system...Corruption - which has spread its roots across all pillars across India and has now become an oft-discussed subject in India, surprisingly never fails to stir up resentment. Democracy, judiciary and governance today are at crossroads, from where every path to development seems vague and dusty.
In the Global Integrity Report, that analyses almost all ranking and indices developed world wide, India’s overall ranking is moderate, but its performance on judicial and political parameters are truly unacceptable. Even Transparency International in its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has given India the 85th slot out of 180 countries. This ranking seems to be of first-class after one finds out that around 30% of Indians, officially, below the poverty line (BPL) have to splurge Rs.9,000 million as bribes to public servants in order to get their basic work done. And the work is nothing but getting services from the Public Distribution System, health-care, school education, police, electricity, water supply, and not to forget the flagship programme of UPA government – the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Almost 50% of BPL household paid Rs.2,150 million to policemen alone for getting their work done.
What else can you expect from a country where the leaders are involved in bribery scandals and planning, even when it is aired live on almost all national TV channels. For all those who aren’t able to comprehend this, we are talking about the recent incident where a politician was bribed to support UPA government (and also the cash for votes scandal on July 22). This is just not one of its type, but India has had a series of similar incidences, be it the Bofors arms deal, the Bihar fodder scam or the High Court judge bribery case. This we guess justifies the score of 17.8 that India received on Political stability parameter from the World Bank on governance indicators. In the 2007 Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perception Index, India’s rank was 72nd amongst 179 countries and like in the past, this ranking keeps telling the tale of increasing corruption activities in India. But the final blow came from transparency international, which – like in all its previous years – fortified that India is still a very corrupt country (India’s position fell by 13 positions). Even the Bertelsmann Foundation 2008 (which ranked India 25th out of 125 countries) proves the fact that corruption has already strengthened its roots in the Indian society and can be felt across all political and bureaucratic divisions. On analysing the Freedom House 2008 report, it becomes clear that it is due to criminalisation of politics that almost all efforts by the government to eradicate corruption falls flat. The International Herald Tribune once stated that, “according to the political watchdog Social Watch India, 125 out of the 538 members of Parliament have criminal cases pending against them”. Even Global Integrity 2007 supports the above argument and goes one step ahead and states that government initiatives towards anti-corruption measures faces hurdles in veil of implementation gap and even Transparency International, since years, has been highlighting negative political will to enforce anti-corruption measures. Moreover, it got negative scores in three parameters – Control of Corruption (-0.21), Political Stability (-0.84) and Government Effectiveness (-0.04) in Global Integrity Report 2008.
And to make the scenario more bleak, The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation declared India to be 55.6% free, that made it the 104th freest economy! Even The Economist mentioned India in its list of 54 countries that have flawed democracies. India, the so-called largest democracy is ranked 35th in Global Democracy Index, scoring its lowest marks on political participation and political culture and receiving a rank of 107th out of 140 countries in Global Peace Index. Theses indices measured the state of political freedoms and civil liberties. India even scored a low score of 2 and 3 out of ten in Political Rights and Civil Liberty parameters accessed by Freedom house respectively. To make matter worse and to make the future bleaker, a survey by Transparency International, the Global Corruption Barometer 2007 stated that 90% of their sample size felt that corruption levels would surely increase over the next three years to come.
Prof. Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff from University of Passau and Transparency International says, “The inevitable fragmentation of a society as huge as that of India always made the fight against corruption particularly challenging. Also the economic transition of the last two decades imposed major challenges.” As per the Global Corruption Report, 77% of Indians feel that courts in India are corrupt. The Indian judicial system is, just like governance and politics, in a state of utter disaster, as at the current rate of disposal, it would take another 350 years to deal with pending court cases even if none were added in the future. There are around 30 million cases pending in India at any given time. This time frame seems justified after one lays his eyes on court cases figures: The number of cases assigned to judges’ averaged 1,294 cases per a Supreme Court judge, 4,987 per a high court judge, and 1,916 cases per a judge in the lower courts. The system should urgently frame 24x7 courts and also should close files of those cases which have no economical and social implications. Bhanoji Rao in his column wrote, “The multiple regression of growth rates on several independent variables revealed that the investment rate and the CPI were the two most significant variables impacting on growth. CPI had a coefficient of 0.33 with the following plausible implication. If India’s CPI of 2.8 in 2007 were to move up to the Singapore level of 9.3, the country will log in an extra 2.1 percentage points to the rate of economic growth. Then and perhaps then only, a 10% growth rate will be a reality”.
Well, its now the turn of godfather of all corrupt activities – politics. In 2008, government decided to pass 29 Bills, but out of their so-called busy schedule (busy in disturbing parliament) they were able to take out time to just pass 9 bills. In 2007, the Lok Sabha worked for about 281 hours of 492 scheduled hours. The tiger is under grave threat, yes, it is, and especially so when our rulers bunk parliamentary their classes! Someone, tell them!
In the Global Integrity Report, that analyses almost all ranking and indices developed world wide, India’s overall ranking is moderate, but its performance on judicial and political parameters are truly unacceptable. Even Transparency International in its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has given India the 85th slot out of 180 countries. This ranking seems to be of first-class after one finds out that around 30% of Indians, officially, below the poverty line (BPL) have to splurge Rs.9,000 million as bribes to public servants in order to get their basic work done. And the work is nothing but getting services from the Public Distribution System, health-care, school education, police, electricity, water supply, and not to forget the flagship programme of UPA government – the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Almost 50% of BPL household paid Rs.2,150 million to policemen alone for getting their work done.
What else can you expect from a country where the leaders are involved in bribery scandals and planning, even when it is aired live on almost all national TV channels. For all those who aren’t able to comprehend this, we are talking about the recent incident where a politician was bribed to support UPA government (and also the cash for votes scandal on July 22). This is just not one of its type, but India has had a series of similar incidences, be it the Bofors arms deal, the Bihar fodder scam or the High Court judge bribery case. This we guess justifies the score of 17.8 that India received on Political stability parameter from the World Bank on governance indicators. In the 2007 Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perception Index, India’s rank was 72nd amongst 179 countries and like in the past, this ranking keeps telling the tale of increasing corruption activities in India. But the final blow came from transparency international, which – like in all its previous years – fortified that India is still a very corrupt country (India’s position fell by 13 positions). Even the Bertelsmann Foundation 2008 (which ranked India 25th out of 125 countries) proves the fact that corruption has already strengthened its roots in the Indian society and can be felt across all political and bureaucratic divisions. On analysing the Freedom House 2008 report, it becomes clear that it is due to criminalisation of politics that almost all efforts by the government to eradicate corruption falls flat. The International Herald Tribune once stated that, “according to the political watchdog Social Watch India, 125 out of the 538 members of Parliament have criminal cases pending against them”. Even Global Integrity 2007 supports the above argument and goes one step ahead and states that government initiatives towards anti-corruption measures faces hurdles in veil of implementation gap and even Transparency International, since years, has been highlighting negative political will to enforce anti-corruption measures. Moreover, it got negative scores in three parameters – Control of Corruption (-0.21), Political Stability (-0.84) and Government Effectiveness (-0.04) in Global Integrity Report 2008.
And to make the scenario more bleak, The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation declared India to be 55.6% free, that made it the 104th freest economy! Even The Economist mentioned India in its list of 54 countries that have flawed democracies. India, the so-called largest democracy is ranked 35th in Global Democracy Index, scoring its lowest marks on political participation and political culture and receiving a rank of 107th out of 140 countries in Global Peace Index. Theses indices measured the state of political freedoms and civil liberties. India even scored a low score of 2 and 3 out of ten in Political Rights and Civil Liberty parameters accessed by Freedom house respectively. To make matter worse and to make the future bleaker, a survey by Transparency International, the Global Corruption Barometer 2007 stated that 90% of their sample size felt that corruption levels would surely increase over the next three years to come.
Prof. Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff from University of Passau and Transparency International says, “The inevitable fragmentation of a society as huge as that of India always made the fight against corruption particularly challenging. Also the economic transition of the last two decades imposed major challenges.” As per the Global Corruption Report, 77% of Indians feel that courts in India are corrupt. The Indian judicial system is, just like governance and politics, in a state of utter disaster, as at the current rate of disposal, it would take another 350 years to deal with pending court cases even if none were added in the future. There are around 30 million cases pending in India at any given time. This time frame seems justified after one lays his eyes on court cases figures: The number of cases assigned to judges’ averaged 1,294 cases per a Supreme Court judge, 4,987 per a high court judge, and 1,916 cases per a judge in the lower courts. The system should urgently frame 24x7 courts and also should close files of those cases which have no economical and social implications. Bhanoji Rao in his column wrote, “The multiple regression of growth rates on several independent variables revealed that the investment rate and the CPI were the two most significant variables impacting on growth. CPI had a coefficient of 0.33 with the following plausible implication. If India’s CPI of 2.8 in 2007 were to move up to the Singapore level of 9.3, the country will log in an extra 2.1 percentage points to the rate of economic growth. Then and perhaps then only, a 10% growth rate will be a reality”.
Well, its now the turn of godfather of all corrupt activities – politics. In 2008, government decided to pass 29 Bills, but out of their so-called busy schedule (busy in disturbing parliament) they were able to take out time to just pass 9 bills. In 2007, the Lok Sabha worked for about 281 hours of 492 scheduled hours. The tiger is under grave threat, yes, it is, and especially so when our rulers bunk parliamentary their classes! Someone, tell them!
Internet & India begin with an ‘I’...
... and that’s where it will end – ‘I’. Will policy makers ever take technology to the ‘We’? Good question!
What’s the buzz word amongst the tech-savy in India (beside the internet and the iPhone) – it’s mobiles, and not to forget the long awaited 3G technology. Ten years ago, and not in the ice age (mind you), getting a black ugly monster landline dialer would have called for a wait of several years! But who could have imagined that just a decade later, one could surf the internet on high-speed broad band from inside a running train, or use a PDA, carrying all the informations relating to your business in one smalle hand-held device. Stranger thought, India becoming one of the IT hubs was unimaginable. But, it happened! In this era of information, India’s sustained growth depends on its ability to integrate skills into the production processes and everyday lives. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is more than an essential tool to make sure that the continued level of opulence is present across societies. But the sad fact is that this progress has been highly lop-sided. As per the 2008 World Economic Forum report, and also well accepted by India’s intellect, the concept of digital divide today is one of the biggest impediments to development of India. This is reflected in the fact that India’s ICT environment and readiness rank has slipped by 4 positions during 2008 (we ranked 50th amongst 127 countries this year compared to 44th out of 122 countries last year). Really, the deteriorating quality amongst the regulatory milieu and the low level of India’s readiness to change in this regard is widely visible. Even in 2008, when the world is going from the Wi-Fi to WiMax, India is still fighting with its rural-urban divide. Imagine, even with numerous broadband service providers at one’s door-step, just a mere 4 million users gain access to it, out of which, the majority live in urban areas. To make matters worse, Computer Industry Almanac Inc.’s report revealed that Internet usage has actually dropped down by 1% since 2005. We repeatedly fail to understand, why the Information & Broadcasting Ministry is not focussing on pan-India technology development and is only perennially focussed on urban parts. On analysing the Global Economic Prospects 2008 report, it becomes clear that if domestic skills were available to efficiently use the technologies employed, then the Indian GDP could be 4.8 times the current GDP. It’s very obvious that rural telephony and Internet penetration could phenomenally improve the reach of market initiatives and generate further employment in multi-variate sectors. The top performers were able to spread the advantages of IT across their respective countries. But in case of India, the impact of the regional progress of IT was not equally distributed amongst the masses. In spite of campaigns focussing on RTI and e-Governance, the digital-divide can be still felt between the subjects and the government. India stands at 113th position with its e-government readiness dropping by a rattling 26 positions during the last three years. And again, economies like Iran, Maldives and Sri Lanka overtook us. What’s more, India succeeded to find the 54th place out of 69 slots available in The Economist Intelligence Unit e-readiness ranking 2007 – pathetic again! Dr. Mark Dutz, Sr. Economist, The World Bank, while talking to B&E suggests that India should promote all the exciting innovations by grassroots entrepreneurs that are bubbling up from bottom of the pyramid. “A specific suggestion is to build on the National Innovation Foundation repository of more than 70,000 innovations and traditional knowledge practices from many districts across India by encouraging private entrepreneurs to commercialise the most promising ideas,” says Dutz.
Imagine the outcome of an IT united India. If all Kendriya Vidhyalayas have IT education and almost all SSIs and SMEs are linked to a central digital portal which allows online international business, India will not longer remain digitally disconnected. One must understand that technology is just not about Internet and satellites, but encompasses every sector, be it health, society, education, corruption, governance et al. Why ITC’s e-choupal model can’t be replicated to help the farmers or why can’t mobile technology be taken to the length and breadth of the country are questions that the policy makers can answer...
Technology means progressiveness, and we’re not even talking of the Asimo robot yet! Will India be ready for it?!
Imagine the outcome of an IT united India. If all Kendriya Vidhyalayas have IT education and almost all SSIs and SMEs are linked to a central digital portal which allows online international business, India will not longer remain digitally disconnected. One must understand that technology is just not about Internet and satellites, but encompasses every sector, be it health, society, education, corruption, governance et al. Why ITC’s e-choupal model can’t be replicated to help the farmers or why can’t mobile technology be taken to the length and breadth of the country are questions that the policy makers can answer...
Technology means progressiveness, and we’re not even talking of the Asimo robot yet! Will India be ready for it?!
Mirror Mirror on the wall, why’re we the worst amongst them all?
Why discrete development of just a few sectors will prove futile. And why collective is the way to go...
After analysing every sector, we decide to write about one that is really pulling India down. And after hours of heated discussion and analysis of myriad reports, the editorial board came to a very interesting conclusion – we found that each sector had an impact on the other, something which is more grave than it sounds... ‘negative synergy’ for India is what we called it. In spite of such growth and development, the country is yet to initiate some basic transformations or changes.
A nation is generally considered successful when it achieves three significant milestones – free politics (which implies freedom of peoples’ choices), economic freedom (bringing prosperity and equality coupled-with social freedom) and finally, achieving peace and social cohesiveness. The world, during the last sixty years has fought to achieve these three ingredients of a healthy nation. Even when we speak about the Western countries, they have all achieved democracy and prosperity, but whether they’ve successfully been able to bring about ‘social cohesiveness and integration’ is really a question. Though India scored high in both political freedom and social integration, it is yet to witness that dream economic growth (that of 10%). Fortunately, with the initiation of economic liberalisation during the 1990s, India has brought revolution which Gurcharan Das in his book, The Elephant Paradigm, has explained vividly. The world can easily remember 1789 for French revolution and/or 1917 for the Russian revolution because of their pro-active nature. But the revolution in India has been like silent water flowing peacefully downhill... it’s happening but the rate of flow and change cannot be imagined or justified, or even quantified!
While expressing his view Parag Khanna, Director, Global Governance Initiative, New America Foundation comments, “I am impressed with the sustained growth in the economy and taken by surprise at how quickly and broadly manufacturing has boomed. This will be the secret to employment-generating-growth which can tackle one of the largest social deficiencies of the economy to date. There are still worrying signs at the top level like slow investment in infrastructure, and also deregulation. Many investors from America complain ceaselessly of the still opaque business environment in India...”
One horrific implication of India-type growth is inequality. Ironically, 3-5% of richest Indians’ welath is growing so fast that the disparity between them and the bottom 80% is increasing by the hour, creating an even more imbalanced India. According to the UN report, India’s Gini coefficient is (statistical tool to measure economic inequality where 0 being perfect in-equal and 100 being the perfectly equal) is 36.8, certainly clarifying the social imbalance scenario. Here, we would like to present what the renowned journalist and author Akash Kapur said to B&E on the mother of all indicators, “India’s low HDI rank is indeed a cause for concern. It is a particular cause for concern given the rapid economic progress that has been made. When a poor country ranks low on the HDI, we are not surprised. But when a country with among the world’s highest growth rates ranks low – indeed, when its ranking declines despite rapid economic growth – we need to ask what is going on.” Why are the fruits of economic progress not being translated into general well-being (as measured by the various components of the HDI)? Surely, there are undoubtedly a variety of reasons why this is so – particularly to do with governance and with age-old patterns of inequity – but the incongruity of declining HDI alongside rapid economic growth should make us sit up and ask some serious questions. Inspite of being a trillion dollar economy, India performs poorly on some of the basic measures. From the West Bengal politico vs Nano conflict, which eventually forced Tata’s car project to find a new home for itself, to the murder of the Cerlikon-Graziano’s CEO by angry ex-employees in Noida, everything which could shatter India’s image in the global forum has taken place in the recent past. And if these were not enough, religious conflicts took-off in Orissa, (where fanatics launched their concentrated attack on Orissan Christians, thereby killing thousands of innocent people &raping nuns), Jammu & Kashmir (which was experiencing a new wave of conflicts altogether). Avinash Dixit, Professor of Economics, Princeton University while writing to B&E on the issue adds, “What about physical infrastructure? Transportation, communication, and power supply networks seem clear examples of public capital that the government should provide.” In advanced countries, private enterprises can, and does provide these. There, property developers build residential, commercial, office, and even manufacturing complexes as complete packages with all the roads and utilities installed. “They profit from doing so, as buyers or renters are willing to pay for the quality and ambience they want. In economics jargon, the developers profit by internalising what would otherwise be an externality,” adds Dixit.
It’s become imperative to launch a programme for holistic development as all sectors are directly or indirectly dependent on each other. Restructuring the economy in order to ease regulation as well as tax burdens would boost trade and economic development. Global trade openness will integrate India with rest of the world, and obviously enhance India’s prestige globally. Similarly, more money will give people increased purchasing power. With more available money to spend, Indian households can proactively invest on health, education and other development-oriented activities. And gradually, educated, intellectual and comparatively clever Indians will raise their voice against corruption, tyranny and poor governance. Then perhaps, average Indians will pro-actively get involved in politics and work for national interest, keeping aside caste, creed and colour. This may lead to another revolution that would catapult the nation into the big league.
There exists no logic to expect miracles from a single sectoral development and when many important factors are overlooked at and compromised with. What India needs to do is to strive towards achieving ‘positive synergy’ by working on all possible sectors at the same time. It is an all-time tested hypothesis that mere and sporadic economic reforms will widen social inequality (that is highly unequal in case of India) and negatively impact the social sector’s development. Economies like India face multi-dimensional problems of poverty, inequality and democracy. It’s the only country in the world where economic reforms do not support social development, and where the poorest pay bribes for getting, where heat and rain still kills people, and where everything happens which ought not to happen. And this is not the end of our cover story, for you should carry it in your minds. Ask yourself: Mirror Mirror on the wall, why are we the worst amongst them all? Think, and act!
A nation is generally considered successful when it achieves three significant milestones – free politics (which implies freedom of peoples’ choices), economic freedom (bringing prosperity and equality coupled-with social freedom) and finally, achieving peace and social cohesiveness. The world, during the last sixty years has fought to achieve these three ingredients of a healthy nation. Even when we speak about the Western countries, they have all achieved democracy and prosperity, but whether they’ve successfully been able to bring about ‘social cohesiveness and integration’ is really a question. Though India scored high in both political freedom and social integration, it is yet to witness that dream economic growth (that of 10%). Fortunately, with the initiation of economic liberalisation during the 1990s, India has brought revolution which Gurcharan Das in his book, The Elephant Paradigm, has explained vividly. The world can easily remember 1789 for French revolution and/or 1917 for the Russian revolution because of their pro-active nature. But the revolution in India has been like silent water flowing peacefully downhill... it’s happening but the rate of flow and change cannot be imagined or justified, or even quantified!
While expressing his view Parag Khanna, Director, Global Governance Initiative, New America Foundation comments, “I am impressed with the sustained growth in the economy and taken by surprise at how quickly and broadly manufacturing has boomed. This will be the secret to employment-generating-growth which can tackle one of the largest social deficiencies of the economy to date. There are still worrying signs at the top level like slow investment in infrastructure, and also deregulation. Many investors from America complain ceaselessly of the still opaque business environment in India...”
One horrific implication of India-type growth is inequality. Ironically, 3-5% of richest Indians’ welath is growing so fast that the disparity between them and the bottom 80% is increasing by the hour, creating an even more imbalanced India. According to the UN report, India’s Gini coefficient is (statistical tool to measure economic inequality where 0 being perfect in-equal and 100 being the perfectly equal) is 36.8, certainly clarifying the social imbalance scenario. Here, we would like to present what the renowned journalist and author Akash Kapur said to B&E on the mother of all indicators, “India’s low HDI rank is indeed a cause for concern. It is a particular cause for concern given the rapid economic progress that has been made. When a poor country ranks low on the HDI, we are not surprised. But when a country with among the world’s highest growth rates ranks low – indeed, when its ranking declines despite rapid economic growth – we need to ask what is going on.” Why are the fruits of economic progress not being translated into general well-being (as measured by the various components of the HDI)? Surely, there are undoubtedly a variety of reasons why this is so – particularly to do with governance and with age-old patterns of inequity – but the incongruity of declining HDI alongside rapid economic growth should make us sit up and ask some serious questions. Inspite of being a trillion dollar economy, India performs poorly on some of the basic measures. From the West Bengal politico vs Nano conflict, which eventually forced Tata’s car project to find a new home for itself, to the murder of the Cerlikon-Graziano’s CEO by angry ex-employees in Noida, everything which could shatter India’s image in the global forum has taken place in the recent past. And if these were not enough, religious conflicts took-off in Orissa, (where fanatics launched their concentrated attack on Orissan Christians, thereby killing thousands of innocent people &raping nuns), Jammu & Kashmir (which was experiencing a new wave of conflicts altogether). Avinash Dixit, Professor of Economics, Princeton University while writing to B&E on the issue adds, “What about physical infrastructure? Transportation, communication, and power supply networks seem clear examples of public capital that the government should provide.” In advanced countries, private enterprises can, and does provide these. There, property developers build residential, commercial, office, and even manufacturing complexes as complete packages with all the roads and utilities installed. “They profit from doing so, as buyers or renters are willing to pay for the quality and ambience they want. In economics jargon, the developers profit by internalising what would otherwise be an externality,” adds Dixit.
It’s become imperative to launch a programme for holistic development as all sectors are directly or indirectly dependent on each other. Restructuring the economy in order to ease regulation as well as tax burdens would boost trade and economic development. Global trade openness will integrate India with rest of the world, and obviously enhance India’s prestige globally. Similarly, more money will give people increased purchasing power. With more available money to spend, Indian households can proactively invest on health, education and other development-oriented activities. And gradually, educated, intellectual and comparatively clever Indians will raise their voice against corruption, tyranny and poor governance. Then perhaps, average Indians will pro-actively get involved in politics and work for national interest, keeping aside caste, creed and colour. This may lead to another revolution that would catapult the nation into the big league.
There exists no logic to expect miracles from a single sectoral development and when many important factors are overlooked at and compromised with. What India needs to do is to strive towards achieving ‘positive synergy’ by working on all possible sectors at the same time. It is an all-time tested hypothesis that mere and sporadic economic reforms will widen social inequality (that is highly unequal in case of India) and negatively impact the social sector’s development. Economies like India face multi-dimensional problems of poverty, inequality and democracy. It’s the only country in the world where economic reforms do not support social development, and where the poorest pay bribes for getting, where heat and rain still kills people, and where everything happens which ought not to happen. And this is not the end of our cover story, for you should carry it in your minds. Ask yourself: Mirror Mirror on the wall, why are we the worst amongst them all? Think, and act!
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