Indian Realities

1.Fourth rank in Dollar Billionaires: India in 2007 has the fourth highest number of dollar- billionaires in the planet. India is ahead of all countries in the number of billionaires except the United States, Germany and Russia. Incidentally, our billionaires are richer than those of Germany and Russia in terms of net asset worth.

2.126th in Human Development: India has the second richest billionaires in the world in dollars and has the fourth largest number of billionaires in the planet but is 126th in human development. The same nation that has ranks fourth in billionaires is 126th in human development. What does it mean to be 126th? It means that it is better to be a poor person in Bolivia (the poorest nation in South America) or Guatemala or Gabon. They are ahead of us in the UN’s Human Development Index.

3.836 million live on less than Rs. 20 a day : India is the emerging ‘tiger economy.’ But life expectancy in our nation is lower than it is in Bolivia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. We have 100,000 dollar millionaires, out of whom 25,000 reside in the city of Mumbai. Yet, 836 million people in our nation exist on less than Rs. 20/- a day according to the Government of India. There is no such thing as Indian reality. There are Indian realities. There is a multiplicity of realities.

4.Slowing down of infant death rate decline: The growth rate of the country is indeed the envy of many. But the rate of decline of infant mortality actually slowed down in this country in the last 15 years. The largest number of infant deaths 2.5 million takes place in this country, followed by China.

5.CEO’s salaries set all time records : Chief Executive Officer ‘packages’ grew like never before in the last ten years. Indeed, the Prime Minister of this country felt constrained to make some remarks about the salaries of CEOs. But while CEOs salaries have gone through the roof, farm incomes have collapsed.

6.Rising hunger at the bottom : India added more newly hungry millions than the rest of the world taken together, according to the report of FAO from 1995-97 to 1999-2001. Hunger grew at a time when it declined in Ethiopia. A new restaurant opens everyday in some city of this country.

7.Two-nation theory passé. Its Two Planets now : Today, for the top 5 per cent of the Indian population, the benchmarks are Western Europe, the USA, Japan and Australia. For the bottom 40 per cent, the benchmarks are the Sub-Saharan Africa (some of whose nations) are ahead of us in literacy.

8.Indebtedness has doubled in the past decade : The NSSO’s 59round tells us that while 26 per cent of farm households were in debt in 1991, that figure went up to over 48 per cent – almost double by 2003.

We really need to understand the framework of inequality. And we are getting further and further into the divide.

Consider these points and ponder -

-over 1 lakh farmer suicides.

-corporatization of farming.

-hugh indebtedness in rural areas, no other profession available

-discriminating SEZ policy

-no farm income, when inputs high

-authority of seed companies