E@zyVG’s Vichar::World Connected

(by Gulzar - Hindi)

(by Amitabh Bachchan - English)

(by Amitabh Bachchan - Hindi)

I believe in my India and I love my India. We are growing fast in world economy and even are considered to be next super power - economy, intellectual property, technology, military. I know that India has come long way in past few decades and have seen and read a lot of positive facts and figures on India and its’ future, but their is also the opposite side of the coin which we, as nation (people and government) have to fight and change, facts such as:

Poverty - A big Problem

• 47% - children under 5 are malnourished!
• About a fifth of the population is chronically hungry!
• About half of the world’s hungry live in India!
• About 300 million live in poverty! (although it is 300 million less than in previous generation)

Literacy - Not Enough

• Adult literacy = 61% (people are deemed literate who can do little more than sign their name)!
• The enrollment of 6-to-15-year-olds in school has actually declined in 2006! (although with total 108 million youths enrolled in school is second biggest next to China)
• Over 40 million children who are supposed to be in school are NOT!
• About third of teachers fail to show up on any given day!

Economy - Not good for everyone

• Only around 10% - Indian labour force works in the formal economy!
• 1 million IT jobs account for less than 0.5% of the whole working population!
• Over 60% depend on agriculture, and it only grew at less than 2% recently!
• India marks at 126th of 177 countries according to 2006 UN Human Development Report!

Health - Not a Pretty Picture

• India has probably more people with HIV than any other country!
• National Family Health Survey reveals that India no better than poorest countries like Combodia!
• 42% Indian children are under weight!
• The rural infant mortality rate is around 62% compared to 42% in the urban

Infrastructure - Long Way to Go

• Abstruse land laws and consequent lack of land titles!
• The supply of both water and power is expensive and unreliable!
• Worst transportation and roads compared to countries with same economic growth!
• India accounts for about 10% of road accident fatalities worldwide!
• 1,275,000 persons are grievously injured on the road every year!

There remains a lot to do and we need to find the underlying causes of these issues. I believe that India can - with its billion plus population, 35 states and union territories, 15 major languages and more than 6 major religions - the world’s largest democracy.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 10:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.