India’s most striking feature is its diversity. The country’s population of about 1.2 billion people is composed of several ethnic groups, speaking more than 1,000 languages and following six major religions. With an annual population growth rate of 1.4 per cent, India is projected to become the most populous country in the world by 2035.
With 33 per cent of the world’s poor people, 41.6 per cent of India’s population lives on less than US$1.25 a day. Based on the country’s new official poverty lines, 42 per cent of people in rural areas and 26 per cent of people in urban areas lived below the poverty line in 2004/05. Official poverty estimates for 2009/10 are not yet available, but preliminary estimates suggest that the combined all-India poverty rate was 32 per cent, compared with 37 per cent in 2004/05.
India ranks 134 out of 187 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s 2011 Human Development Index – a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide.
A total of 72 per cent of India’s population lives in rural areas, and 10 per cent of rural households are reported to be landless. Agricultural wage earners, smallholder farmers and casual workers in the non-farm sector constitute the bulk of poor rural people. Within these categories, women and tribal communities are the most deprived. About 300 million young people ages 13 to 35 live in rural areas, and most of them are forced to migrate seasonally or permanently, without the skills and competencies required by the modern economy that India is rapidly becoming.
Poverty is deepest among members of scheduled castes and tribes in the country's rural areas. On the map of poverty in India, the poorest areas are in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chattisgarh and West Bengal.
Large numbers of India's poorest people live in the country's semi-arid tropical region. In this area, shortages of water and recurrent droughts impede the transformation of agriculture that the Green Revolution achieved elsewhere. There is also a high incidence of poverty in flood-prone areas, such as those extending from eastern Uttar Pradesh to the Assam plains, and especially in northern Bihar. Poverty affects tribal people in forest areas, where loss of entitlement to resources has made them even poorer. In coastal fishing communities, people’s living conditions are deteriorating because of environmental degradation, stock depletion and vulnerability to natural disasters.
Despite recent economic growth, poverty levels have not been reduced at the same pace. Poor rural people continue to live with inadequate physical and social infrastructure, poor access to services, and a highly stratified and hierarchical social structure, characterized by inequalities in assets, status and power.
