63 Years On, India is Home to World's Biggest Population of Poor, Hungry, Illiterate

[desiman]

Hey DM.. You made it to this thread...Where are Karan and Ramu.. ??

LOL i should msg them also ahh the old days lol

 

[Justin Joseph]

What action is being taken?

Can you please explain?

Yes, why not..........if ur really and genuinely interested.

Here you go:


1. Hunger/Malnutrition:

a.) Right to Food Act: It will soon become fundamental right in India.

India considering Right to Food Act | 19 April 2010 | www.commodityonline.com

About 450 million people will benefit from it, as govt will provide 35 kgs of wheat/rice at Rs. 3 to each family per month .

b.) Mid Day Meal: The largest scheme in the world under implementation in all the schools of India, more than 170 million children in 610 districts get hot cooked meal free of cost.

Calories
Primary student 450, Upper Primary student 700

Protein
12 gms, 20 gms

Micro-nutrients*

Adequate quantities of micro nutrients like Iron, Folic acid and Vitamin-A

About Rs. 10,000 crore or US$ 2 billion is allocated to this scheme for this year.

2. Education:

Right to education, Education is now a fundamental right.

The Act promises to ensure education for all children between 6 and 14, a whopping 22 crore children, out of which nearly 1.1 crore are out of school.

Education is now a fundamental right

KOLKATA: Union finance ministerPranab Mukherjee on Sunday said the human resource development ministry would be allocated `231,000 crore over the next three years to set up infrastructure for implementing the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

That means Govt. of India is going to spend US $ 50 Billions in next 3 years to build schools, hire teachers and build other infrastacture.

Read more: `231000 cr for right to education - Kolkata - City - The Times of India `231000 cr for right to education - Kolkata - City - The Times of India


3. Poverty/Unemployment:

a.) Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme

- About 108.50 lakh persons for the on-going schemes of Khadi and Village Industries including the recently launched Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) upto 31.3.2010.

- Under the PMEGP, urban and rural entrepreneurs in the general category can avail a subsidy of 15 per cent and 25 per cent on the project cost. In the case of weaker sections of society, a 25 per cent and 35 per cent subsidy is provided to urban and rural businessmen.

- Loans upto 10 Lacs. No Guarantor Required or collateral security.

b.) Govt. of India has made a act and providing jobs to people in rural India.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: Under this scheme govt. provides guaranteed job of 100 days per year to the rural people, if govt. can't provide the job then govt. gives the full salary while sitting at home.

This is very flexible scheme as a person can avail this scheme at any point of time like if in a month of 30 days you don't have job for 10 days in that case you can ask govt. to provide it. And if you are free/jobless after any point of time suppose after 2 months you can avail this scheme to get remaining of 90 days of job.

Under this scheme the wage in rural area is fixed at minimum wage of Rs.100 per day.

The Central government outlay for scheme is Rs. 40,100 crores in FY 2010-11. That comes around US $ 10 billions.


4. Illiteracy:

Saakshar Bharat in five years: PM

Over 300 million Indians are still illiterate and about half of India's women cannot read or write but that would change in five years, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said while launching the Rs 65 billion literacy mission 'Saakshar Bharat' on International Literacy Day.

Saakshar Bharat in five years: PM

 

[toppys]

In today's Times of India piece titled "Our freedom was born with hunger, we're still not free", one of India's Green Revolution leaders Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan says, "Our freedom was born with hunger. It was born in the backdrop of the Bengal famine. If you read the newspapers dated August 15, 1947, one part was about freedom, the other was food shortage".

As India celebrates its 63rd independence anniversary today, it is very unfortunate that economically resurgent India still remains home to the world's largest population of poor, hungry and illiterate people. Tragically, hunger remains India's biggest problem, with an estimated 7000 Indians dying of hunger every single day. Over 200 million Indians will go to bed hungry tonight, as they do every night, according to Bhookh.com. Along with chronic hunger, poverty and illiteracy also continue to blight the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians on a daily basis.

India ranks 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index of 88 countries while Pakistan is slightly better at 61 and Bangladesh slightly worse at 70. Though the problems of poverty and hunger in Pakistan are a bit less serious than in India, Pakistan also suffers from high illiteracy and low levels of human development that pose a serious threat to its future.

India has the dubious distinction of being among the top ten on two very different lists: It ranks at the top of the nations of the world with its 270 million illiterate adults, the largest in the world, as detailed by a just released UNESCO report on education; India also shows up at number four in military spending in terms of purchasing power parity, behind United States, China and Russia.

Not only is India the lowest among BRIC nations in terms of human development, India is also the only country among the top ten military spenders which, at 134 on a list of 182 nations, ranks near the bottom of the UNDP's human development rankings. Pakistan, at 141, ranks even lower than India.

India also fares badly on the 2009 World Hunger Index, ranking at 65 along with several sub-Saharan nations. Pakistan ranks at 58 on the same index.

A recent Oxford study on multi-dimensional poverty confirmed that Indians are far more deprived than Pakistanis and the poorest of the poor Africans. The study reveals that there are more "MPI poor" people in eight Indian states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh , Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million).

Developed at Oxford University, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) goes beyond income poverty based on $1.25 or $2 a day income levels. It measures a range of "deprivations" at household levels, such as schooling, nutrition, and access to health, clean water, electricity and sanitation. According to Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) country briefings 2010, 55% of Indians and 51% of Pakistanis are poor.

Access to healhcare in South Asia, particularly due to the wide gender gap, presents a huge challenge, and it requires greater focus to ensure improvement in human resources. Though the life expectancy has increased to 66.2 years in Pakistan and 63.4 years in India, it is still low relative to the rest of the world. The infant mortality rate remains stubbornly high, particular in Pakistan, though it has come down down from 76 per 1000 live births in 2003 to 65 in 2009. With 320 mothers dying per 100,000 live births in Pakistan and 450 in India, the maternal mortality rate in South Asia is very high, according to UNICEF.

The health problems in India are compounded by serious lack of sanitation. According to a joint study conducted by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, 665 million Indians, or nearly two-thirds of them defecate in the open. While a mere 14 percent of people in rural areas of the country - that account for 65 percent of its 1.1 billion population - had access to toilets in 1990, the number had gone up to 28 percent in 2006. In comparison, 33 percent rural Pakistanis had access to toilets in 1990 and it went up to an impressive 58 percent in 2006, according to UNICEF officials.

The reality of grinding poverty in resurgent India was recently summed up well by a BBC commentator Soutik Biswas as follows:

A sobering thought to keep in mind though. Impressive growth figures are unlikely to stun the poor into mindless optimism about their future. India has long been used to illustrate how extensive poverty coexists with growth. It has a shabby record in pulling people out of poverty - in the last two decades the number of absolutely poor in India has declined by 17 percentage points compared to China, which brought down its absolutely poor by some 45 percentage points. The number of Indian billionaires rose from nine in 2004 to 40 in 2007, says Forbes magazine. That's higher than Japan which had 24, while France and Italy had 14 billionaires each. When one of the world's highest number of billionaires coexist with what one economist calls the world's "largest number of homeless, ill-fed illiterates", something is gravely wrong. This is what rankles many in this happy season of positive thinking.

As India and Pakistan celebrate their 63rd independence day, it is time for both major South Asian nations to reflect and act on the urgent need for careful balancing of their genuine defense requirements against the need to spend more to solve the very serious problems of food, education, health care and human resource development for securing a better future of their peoples.

Haq's Musings: 63 Years After Independence, India Remains Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates

Happiness index of india and pakistan is better that us and russia
Global HPI | Global HPI | Explore | Happy Planet Index

 

[nForce]

Hey DM.. You made it to this thread...Where are Karan and Ramu.. ??

Desperately miss Karan and Ramu..At one point of time I thought we are loosing Xinix as well....

 

[nForce]

btw cant this Haq guy post anything other than poverty and toilet??I mean it has been ages since he is posting these??Why bother to open a new thread each and every time,just to serve the old wine in a new bottle??

 

[ek_indian]

Are we seriously discussing Haq's article....again??

P.S. --> Those who say, this poverty is a real issue. I never said it is not. Government is taking steps for that. True, there are some lapses in our "system" but atleast we are trying. We all know we are on right track.

Offtopic but I never saw any article about Pakistan's (or any other nation's) issues. We are not selfish for nothing.

 

[RiazHaq]

for ur kind information, the most bimaru state..bihar is growing at a rate of 11 % for last 5 years. results will starting to show in next 7-8 yrs.

Economic growth is no guarantee of improvement in social indicators.

IN spite of rapid economic growth in recent years, India now has 100 million more people living below the poverty line than in 2004, according to Indian government estimates.

100 million more Indians now living in poverty | Reuters

Gujarat has been growing economically for many years, and yet Gujarat has a serious hunger problem, according to India state hunger index (ISHI) report.

The first India State Hunger Index (Ishi) report in 2008 found that Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger in India, comparable to Chad and Ethiopia. Four states — Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Assam — fell in the 'serious' category. Gujarat, 13th on the Indian list is below Haiti, ranked 69. The authors said India's poor performance was primarily due to its relatively high levels of child malnutrition and under-nourishment resulting from calorie deficient diets.

Haq's Musings: Right to Food in India, Pakistan and China

 

[fallstuff]

It appears Mr. Haq has a bleeding heart when it comes to poor folks in India. Wondering how Mr. Haq sleeps at night with this on his shoulder.

 

[RiazHaq]

Instead of us wasting bandwidth on the Indian move primarily motivated by its PR value to India, my suggestion to the Indian government is as follows:

I think India has far more needy people at home who deserve this emergency aid of this $5m. In fact, they need billions to be properly fed, clothed and made literate.

Why don't you in India help the world's largest population of poo r, hungry ad illiterate people who call India home?

Why don't you try and save the 7000 Indians who die of hunger every day? Why don't you feed some of the 200 million Indians who will go to bed hungry tonight, as they do every night?

And while you are it, why don't you refuse $500 million a year in British aid and another $600 million from the Japanese government? After all, it's only a fraction of your massive military budget of over $35 billion a year.

Haq's Musings: 63 Years After Independence, India Remains Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

It appears Mr. Haq has a bleeding heart when it comes to poor folks in India. Wondering how Mr. Haq sleeps at night with this on his shoulder.

I wish the politicians of our country had the same spirit

 

[muse]

justin

Thank you for your post - indeed, the numbers allocated for various programs "schemes" (to transfer public funds) seem impressive - yet, this problem, it seems to me, is not ammenable to government tranfer of public funds - to my thinking, this will increase bureaucracy and the opportunity for corruption to continue.

I say this thinking that in areas where economic development has begun to make a dent in poverty, it has been the generation of wealth, business, that has brought about fundamental change - am I wrong in thinking this?

 

[Agnostic_Indian]

justin

Thank you for your post - indeed, the numbers allocated for various programs "schemes" (to transfer public funds) seem impressive - yet, this problem, it seems to me, is not ammenable to government tranfer of public funds - to my thinking, this will increase bureaucracy and the opportunity for corruption to continue.

I say this thinking that in areas where economic development has begun to make a dent in poverty, it has been the generation of wealth, business, that has brought about fundamental change - am I wrong in thinking this?

Yes corruption will be there..but RIGHT TO INFORMATION LAW, MEDIA, etc will be there to fight it.And if half of the amount reaches ground level it is a success.

 

[Justin Joseph]

justin

Thank you for your post - indeed, the numbers allocated for various programs "schemes" (to transfer public funds) seem impressive - yet, this problem, it seems to me, is not ammenable to government tranfer of public funds - to my thinking, this will increase bureaucracy and the opportunity for corruption to continue.

I say this thinking that in areas where economic development has begun to make a dent in poverty, it has been the generation of wealth, business, that has brought about fundamental change - am I wrong in thinking this?

To tackle the problem of corruption govt. has already made Right to Information Act in 2005.

But the biggest change that is going to happen within few years is still unnoticed in the outside world specially pakistan.

Govt. of India have started a "Unique ID programme" in which every person will get a "Unique ID" namely "Aadhar" that ID card will contain the info of card holder like:

- Name of the card holder, His Father's/Mother's Name
- Address
- Sex
- Age
- Fingerprints of all the 10 fingers
- Iris scan (Eye scan)
etc.

All of these information will be verified by multilayer process and police.

These and other details will be available on a central server 24X7X365 for verification and to stop the duplicasy.

Now, suppose a worker have to get the payment of his/her wages, Govt. will create a bank account for that person and simply transfer the wage amount in that account.

So that only he/she can withdraw it.

This is done to stop the leakage and corruption where most of the money is eaten by politicians or officials.

The govt. has already allotted Rs. 3,000 crore (US$ 651 million) for it in this year.

The first card will be out by next year that is 2011.


For more details plz refer to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Identification_Authority_of_India

 

[Skeptic]

Instead of us wasting bandwidth on the Indian move primarily motivated by its PR value to India, my suggestion to the Indian government is as follows:

I think India has far more needy people at home who deserve this emergency aid of this $5m. In fact, they need billions to be properly fed, clothed and made literate.

Why don't you in India help the world's largest population of poo r, hungry ad illiterate people who call India home?

Why don't you try and save the 7000 Indians who die of hunger every day? Why don't you feed some of the 200 million Indians who will go to bed hungry tonight, as they do every night?

And while you are it, why don't you refuse $500 million a year in British aid and another $600 million from the Japanese government? After all, it's only a fraction of your massive military budget of over $35 billion a year.

Haq's Musings: 63 Years After Independence, India Remains Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates

Same old !! Same Old!!

Missing the plot completely. There is no correlation between defence budget and social schemes. There never was and will be. I am sure you will quote retired Col. Nair which you have already done several times over and has been refuted. The objectives diversion of defence budget to social schemes will

a) Put a break on long needed reforms in the armed forces
b) Make India an easier target than otherwise
c) Make corrupt bureaucrat and politician richer.
d) Lower the morale of armed forces.

In per capita terms defence spendings are lowest at the moment for any country having a hostile border. While there are several schemes by GoI suggested to tackle the issue, results are hardly reflecting.


The total combined expenditure of central and state governments on social services in 2008-09 was 6.72% of GDP at current prices.

Though the central government expenditure on social services and rural development has gone up consistently over the years, it has hardly had much impact on overall poverty reduction and improvement in the social security net.

The share of money spent on social services, including rural development, in the total expenditure (plan and non-plan) has increased from 11% in 2002-03 to 19% in 2008-09. Central support for social programmes has also continued to expand in various forms although most social sector subjects fall within the purview of the states.

For instance, expenditure on education as a proportion of total expenditure has increased from 9.5% in 2003-04 to 10.8% in 2008-09. Share of health in the total expenditure has also increased from 4% in 2003-04 to 5% in 2008-09.

However, despite improvement in central allocation, there are still leakages in the system which are preventing the benefits from reaching the intended target group.

justin

I say this thinking that in areas where economic development has begun to make a dent in poverty, it has been the generation of wealth, business, that has brought about fundamental change - am I wrong in thinking this?

Most important issue is to reformthe PDS (Publich Distribution System) and I hope UIDs will assist in that.

Another important measure should be MINIMUM WAGES. The importance for the same can not be undermined. This is something which will not only go a long way in eradicating poverty but also calm down the situation with naxalites. There is a strong lobby against the implementation of minimum wages and they surely do not represent the masses.

RTI is a great tool but still general public is unaware and resists using it fearing wrath of the employees concerned.

Another issue: Spendings have to be targeted at agricultural research since 65% of the population is directly or indirectly associated with it. During the Green Revolution it was a major success. Currently only the most mediocre students opt for agricultural research - it should be made attractive to invite better talent.

Finally very important are labour laws - Not exactly communist in nature but providing better structure. Hardly 5% of entire workforce is in organized form (Union et all) they have no means of getting their voice heard. Heck even I have faced issues where my employers have denied me my share of income. When I consulted a lawyer, I was told the cost for the entire exercise will be much much more than what I was expecting in return and It might hamper my career in the longer run.

My 2 cents...

 

[samv]

Yes, why not..........if ur really and genuinely interested.

Here you go:


1. Hunger/Malnutrition:

a.) Right to Food Act: It will soon become fundamental right in India.

India considering Right to Food Act | 19 April 2010 | www.commodityonline.com

About 450 million people will benefit from it, as govt will provide 35 kgs of wheat/rice at Rs. 3 to each family per month .

b.) Mid Day Meal: The largest scheme in the world under implementation in all the schools of India, more than 170 million children in 610 districts get hot cooked meal free of cost.

Calories
Primary student 450, Upper Primary student 700

Protein
12 gms, 20 gms

Micro-nutrients*

Adequate quantities of micro nutrients like Iron, Folic acid and Vitamin-A

About Rs. 10,000 crore or US$ 2 billion is allocated to this scheme for this year.

2. Education:

Right to education, Education is now a fundamental right.

The Act promises to ensure education for all children between 6 and 14, a whopping 22 crore children, out of which nearly 1.1 crore are out of school.

Education is now a fundamental right

KOLKATA: Union finance ministerPranab Mukherjee on Sunday said the human resource development ministry would be allocated `231,000 crore over the next three years to set up infrastructure for implementing the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

That means Govt. of India is going to spend US $ 50 Billions in next 3 years to build schools, hire teachers and build other infrastacture.

Read more: `231000 cr for right to education - Kolkata - City - The Times of India `231000 cr for right to education - Kolkata - City - The Times of India


3. Poverty/Unemployment:

a.) Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme

- About 108.50 lakh persons for the on-going schemes of Khadi and Village Industries including the recently launched Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) upto 31.3.2010.

- Under the PMEGP, urban and rural entrepreneurs in the general category can avail a subsidy of 15 per cent and 25 per cent on the project cost. In the case of weaker sections of society, a 25 per cent and 35 per cent subsidy is provided to urban and rural businessmen.

- Loans upto 10 Lacs. No Guarantor Required or collateral security.

b.) Govt. of India has made a act and providing jobs to people in rural India.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: Under this scheme govt. provides guaranteed job of 100 days per year to the rural people, if govt. can't provide the job then govt. gives the full salary while sitting at home.

This is very flexible scheme as a person can avail this scheme at any point of time like if in a month of 30 days you don't have job for 10 days in that case you can ask govt. to provide it. And if you are free/jobless after any point of time suppose after 2 months you can avail this scheme to get remaining of 90 days of job.

Under this scheme the wage in rural area is fixed at minimum wage of Rs.100 per day.

The Central government outlay for scheme is Rs. 40,100 crores in FY 2010-11. That comes around US $ 10 billions.


4. Illiteracy:

Saakshar Bharat in five years: PM

Over 300 million Indians are still illiterate and about half of India's women cannot read or write but that would change in five years, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said while launching the Rs 65 billion literacy mission 'Saakshar Bharat' on International Literacy Day.

Saakshar Bharat in five years: PM

There is a great difference between what politicians say and what actually gets done.