The UN report on the various conditions leading to global poverty in the developing countries put India much below in the table and even below our friendly neighbor Pakistan. The facts revealed in the astounding report need India Inc to revamp its infrastructure from the grass root level if it has to really shine. We have heard over the period politicians talking about such things before the elections and after they forget and are on a different hunt all the time. Well the point highlighted in most media is that India below Pakistan is the concern whereas the actual concern is that we need to pull up our socks and try to eliminate the broad margins between the three classes of the country, the elite, the middle, the below poverty. Unless we do this we cannot call ourselves true Indians.
According to the report, released Wednesday, multidimensional poverty index (MPI) assesses acute poverty levels and examines factors such as health services, access to clean water and cooking fuels, basic household goods and home construction standards, which together offer a fuller portrait of poverty than income measurements alone.
The report reveals various issues which need immediate attention for this second fastest growing economy. The report also finds more 'gender equality' in conservative Pakistan than in 'tolerant' India. The Human Development Report reveals that while India ranks slightly above Pakistan in its level of 'human development' – based on life expectancy, schooling and per capita income – its wider poverty level is worse than Pakistan's. In absolute terms, 41.6 per cent of India's 1.1 billion people earned less than 78 pence per day compared with 22.6 per cent of Pakistan's 173 million. The report quotes its 'multi-dimensional poverty index' which includes measures of schooling, child mortality, nutrition, access to electricity, toilets, drinking water, and hygienic living conditions, and reveals India is poorer. It found 53.7 per cent of Indians suffering from this broader kind of poverty, compared with 49 per cent of Pakistanis.
Its findings amount to a wake-up call for a nation which has taken great pride in its rapid economic growth and the increasing clout of its billionaire business leaders but has failed to share the spoils with its poor. Britain's Department for International Development has pointed to this chequered progress to justify its continuing aid to India. The report said the world's most disadvantaged people carry a "double burden" as they are more vulnerable to environmental degradation, they must also cope with immediate environmental threats from indoor air pollution, dirty water and unimproved sanitation.
