For over three decades, India has experienced massive economic growth, and over the past five years, it has averaged an astounding 7% annual GDP growth rate. Conventional wisdom would say that this would have a deep impact on the everyday lives of Indian citizens, and it has. However, some of India’s population has received a far greater benefit than others. Even though India seems to be thriving on the surface, there are some deep seeded impediments to it maximizing its full potential and fully revolutionizing the lives of all its citizens. President Patil recognized the importance of making sure that growth not only occurred, but also that it benefitted the greatest amount of people in the process.
The vision of President Patil holds a sense of optimism about the power of economic growth to drive India into a utopic future. However, what India has experienced has been vastly different. Instead of inclusive growth, many Indians have been left behind, which has caused a crisis of inequality. Corbridge believes that a disconnect between the potential for growth and India’s reality has been caused by “bad inequalities”, which has left many Indians still in poverty. In this paper, I will examine Corbridge’s claims that government failures in education, healthcare, and the labor market has led to bad inequalities. I will then examine proposed solutions to eliminate these inequalities and help India maximize its full potential.
Before investigating the stymieing effects that
Imagine how would our world be if all human beings had the same opportunities, a world where equity ruled our society. In this case, poverty will be extinguished. Unfortunately, there are still some countries where the wealth is very poorly distributed, and a great portion of the population is below the poverty line. Such is the case of India, an Asian country located in south-central part of the continent. One percent of the population in India holds close to half of the country’s wealth. The book The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga, is a great novel where you can notice the things that people who are poor, must go through and how difficult it is. It is so rigid to get
However, both the Country Profile (2005) and Business Asia (2010:10) highlight that although the fundamental political keeps stable, the efficiency of political is low. The cause of this existed problem is that the national parties weakened gradually while the regional parties which influenced by the coalition government strongly (Business Asia, 2010:10). Current President is Pratibha Patil. (BBC News, 2011). As a result, India began to conduct a relatively free liberal market reform. Nonetheless, because of the interests of coalition government members are dissimilar, the speed of market reform is limited (Business Asia, 2010:10).
In India, if you are not born into privilege, you are struggling somehow. The Gatsby-like guy that he encounters produces big budget movies that no one hardly watches. He also runs a school that is not recognized by the government. He promises future students many things including a trip to Europe and a new laptop for everyone. Rahul tells Deb that in Arindam Chardhuri’s school, the students pay seven lakhs (hundred thousand), and that the operating cost of schools are low. He goes on to say “…you know how much teachers get paid in India. So, the money gets spun off into other businesses (p. 31).” This shows just how much big-business privileged people take advantage of the other working citizens of India. Teachers, who should be the heart of countries are paid such a little wage. Even though they have to have certain qualifications to be able to teach. Its far worse than America, even though it can be seen that the 1% hold
If you think about it, how does it make sense that the people that will eventually begin running your country aren’t getting proper education? Most children in India are child laborers so when it comes time for someone else to be in charge and “call the shots” they aren’t really going to know what they are doing because they either never got an education period or didn’t get a good one. It’s not fair nor is it right that children are missing out on an education because it’s so hard to provide for their families. I can understand how sometimes a family member dies and then it cost the family a lot of money and then the kids have to start working to help the remaining family to survive. These things happen, it’s part of life however a child shouldn’t have to sacrifice ALL of their education. "It is only half past seven o'clock in the morning. Boys of his age should be eating breakfast and getting ready for school," (Mr.Coal, paragraph 5.) The working hours should be a bit more flexible. By that I mean that they shouldn’t been during school hours, or maybe at least only taking a few of hours from
Katherine Boo’s book, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, portrays the “new life” the people in India live as capitalism and globalism ventures into their lives. These two systems look to promise new and improved social opportunities for all classes, not just the wealthy. However, although this makes it seem like the government of India in the 21st century is progressing towards a more fairer society for all its citizens, the reality is, they are really not progressing at all. Of course, while capitalism and globalization initially gave all citizens, especially the lower classes, hope that more opportunities would be available to them, it seems it has prevaricated it all as these opportunities have been more transformative to the elite and privileged classes than it has for the poor.
I believe that the community of India is hopeless. I believe this because by comparing their community to ours, there isn’t really much hope for recovery in their present situation. The poverty in India is different from the poverty in the United States. Between India and the U.S., homes, revenue, and jobs are drastically different. In the U.S., homes are bigger and are built by organization who help those who live in poverty. Those who are homeless are presented with food stamps as a way of currency so they can survive. Also for those who live in poverty in the U.S. are presented with more jobs and more opportunities than the people of India. These differences show how even though both India and the United States have similar economic difficulties, one almost has no hope of return.
Codi Mullen Final Exam Essay HH216 8 December 2014 The idea of inequality changed from 1750 to 2000 across the globe. In the nineteenth century, powerful empires such as Britain spread imperialist power throughout Europe and Asia, specifically in India (Bentley 732). Due to India’s vast amount of resources, Britain used India to expand their industrial needs and network (Bentley 732).
Katherine Boo, a staff writer at The New Yorker and former reporter and editor at The Washington Post, has worked for over two decades “reporting within poor communities, considering how societies distribute opportunity and how individuals get out of poverty” (Boo 257). In November 2007, she and her husband, an Indian citizen, moved from the United States to India to study a group of slum dwellers in Annawadi, Mumbai (Boo 249). While studying this group of individuals in India from 2007 to 2011, Boo’s goal was to learn why the individuals within this slum have not banded together against a common enemy in order to gain upward mobility. She illustrates several common issues of developing nations including: corruption, education, the mismanagement of foreign aid, and the possibility for social mobility in her book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. In this literary work, Boo accurately portrays the acts of corruption and as well as how corruption has entered the sphere of education, which is typically an individual’s only avenue to social mobility and success in that area. She argues that instead of rising up against a higher power, the individuals within the slum fight against one another to get a leg up on their competition, even if it keeps them in the same social class.
Gender relations and inequality is experienced through lack of educational matters and unfair treatment of women and children, thus in many cases forcing women to run households, while the men are away at work in various seasonal migration jobs at unviable wages. As defined in a classic article, income inequality is “the distribution of total income amongst the represented population” (Gehring13). In outlined studies; evidence can conclude that poor gender relations in fact can be convoluted into other issues such as overpopulation, child malnourishment, low levels of GDP, and GNI. This in fact sounds to be true for what India is experiencing today. The predominant issue of gender inequality has led many down the pathway to poverty
India became one of the first independent nations that emerged after World War II, and like many who gained their independence they were very impoverished. American President Franklin Roosevelt called for a war against poverty, and in Britain, the Beveridge Report also called for the slaying of the giant of poverty, and a creation of a welfare state. The Cold War played a major role in Western government’s efforts to help developing countries, because they were also using similar methods with Communist agenda to help poverty. The Development Economics for these emerging countries played a big part in their acceptance into successful nations. People all joined in on a crusade to confront poverty, with morality, justice, human sympathy, and idealism.
An additional justification on agreeing with Gandhi’s quote pertains to the failed economic growth and overall development caused by the tyrannical control of a country, leading to a breakdown of the regime. The term “economic growth” is defined as an increase in a country’s productive capacity as measured by comparing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the respective country per annum. A plethora of categories must be taken into account to determine the degree of economic growth, such as the increase in capital stock, advances in technology, and the improvement of literacy levels. On the other hand, in terms of the essay, the overall development is the overall degree of success, prosperity, and well-being in all aspects of living. To
The two authors argue the main issue that India is continuing to face are due to the lack of concern for citizens especially for the poor citizens and women. Dreze and Sen proceed into their work as they continue to portray the way in which the citizens of India were being oppressed by the new economic and political policies. One of the issues Dreze and Sen use as an example of how India rapid economic growth is problematic is the countries lack to foster participation for economic growth. The lack of inclusion in economic growth leads to a wealth disparity between the citizens. The authors continue on depicting several other issues another one being the lack of enhancement to the standard of living despite generating economic growth from the use of public goods. The standards of living are a huge issue with India as it signals there is a large disparity within wealth. Dreze and Sen continue to document the lack of social and living standards especially in the case of education, medical care, and physical services like clean water, electricity, drainage, and sanitation. The authors proceed to make note how without a development of a social structure within India high economic growth can harm the citizens and ultimately neglect civil, political, and social rights. Dreze and Sen then
India in its globalization era boasting about its nuclear power and information technology cannot deny the harsh realities of poverty, unemployment, over population, hunger, illiteracy etc. education is still continuing to be a luxury even for the middle class.
Abstract— In the study of history of human civilization it is found that there was a continuous trend of torturing the weak by more powerful individuals or groups, exploitation of the poor by the rich and landed people, neglect of the illiterate by the educated people, socially overpowering women by men and as such injustices. Such social injustices are a constant source of discontent giving rise to conflicts. Instead of solving those conflicts they were always suppressed. In the progress of civilization and development of humanistic attitude, people are now gradually getting more and more concerned with Human Rights that demand social justice to all sections of the society. Extreme poverty and illiteracy among a major section of the population is the greatest tragedy for India. Also, in the global context a reasonable economic order through equitable distribution of wealth among different nations and more particularly among the people of the same country is very much needed to avoid conflicts and clashes.
From the time of independence, India has been suffering from acute poverty, most of it is chronic in nature. If we look at the percentage of people below the poverty line, we do notice a sharp fall, but the absolute number remains increasing at a high rate.