Where are the Indian Poor: Tendulkar report

Perspectives on India’s riches

By Jyoti Mukhia
India is the country of two Indias: Shining India and Suffering India.
The Shining India:
India was positioned at 12th among the wealthiest nations by World Bank in 2005 based on the GDP, wealthier than Mexico, Russia and Australia but lagging behind China which was at 4th position.
According to recent Forbe’s list (2009) of Wealthiest people in the world, there are 23 billionaires in India with combined net worth of $99bn, surpassing former Asian leader Japan’s 27 billionaires with their total worth of $67bn. Out of top 100 billionaires India’s contribution is 6 billionaires whereas US has 36 top 100 billionaires. India ranks 7th in the number of dollar-billionaires, after America, Mexico, Sweden and Germany. Yet, we rank 134th in human development.
The news of the newly-minted Indian billionaires and the obscenity of riches of IPL are bringing sharper focus on the growing rich-poor gap in India. The list appearing in public domain through media regarding top 10 highest paid salaries CEOs, suggests that the number has increased both in size and numbers.[1] The list is being added by new debuts every year meaning thereby that more and more people of fat and vulgar salaries are being born in India.
On the one hand, 23 Indian billionaires constituted 25% of India’s GDP while on the other, 70% of Indians had to do with Rs 20 a day and a farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes, husband sells his wife in lieu of debt waiver from landlord.
The top 10 per cent of the richest Indians are 7.3 times richer than the poorest 10 per cent.[2] India, according to data from the CIA World Fact Book has a PPP of $3700, while countries like the US are way ahead with $43,500 and the UK at 31,400. Brazil is also higher than us at $8,600. So even if the top ten percent of people in the US are obscenely rich, the poor there aren’t as poor as the poor in India.[3] On the basis of the prosperity Index India is at 45th position out of 104 countries.[4]

India’s poverty Estimates:
Estimates for India indicate a continuing decline in poverty. The estimates suggest that the percentage of people living below $1.25 a day in 2005 (based on India’s PPP rate, works out to Rs 21.6 a day in urban areas and Rs 14.3 in rural areas in 2005) decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005. Even at a dollar a day (Rs 17.2 in urban areas and Rs 11.4 in rural areas in 2005)[5] poverty declined from 42% to 24% over the same period. Our poverty line has decreased and a sizeable chunk of our poor have moved up the economic scale to become middle-class (300 million today).
Although India has had significant success in reducing the number of the poorest of its poor - those living on less than a dollar a day – there are still a huge number of people living just above this line of deprivation. This is most evident when we study absolute numbers. The number of people living below a dollar a day is down from 296 million in 1981 to 267 million people in 2005. However, the number of poor below $1.25 a day has increased from 421 million in 1981 to 456 million in 2005. This the biggest challenge facing India today. This indicates that there are a large number of people living just above this line of deprivation (a dollar a day) and their numbers are not falling.[6]
Paradox: the suffering India
Despite the facts that there has been a decline in the incidence of poverty over the past two decades, and annual growth rates that cross eight percent, one in four persons in India still lives below the income poverty line. The health indicators and socio-economic indicators do not speak eulogy for us.
According to World Health Organization, about 49% of the World’s underweight children and 34% of the World’s stunted children and 46% of World’s wasted children live in India. India has the largest number of working children in the world, and accounts for 20% of the world’s out of school children. Girls’ life chances, in particular, are often severely limited, so much so that in some areas the number of girls has fallen to less than 800 per 1,000 boys. On contrary to this, about 83, 000 Indians have liquid assets more than 1 Million dollars. There are millions of people who own more than 5 palatial buildings whereas there are hundreds of thousands of people who sleep under sky.
There are still hundreds of villages and towns which are not electrified and connected with good roads. We use mineral waters in cities whereas; people in many rural areas do not have access to safe drinking water. There are millions of homeless people and Indira Awas Yojna, a flagship scheme for providing homes to BPL families is still to provide even the minimum space required homes to all eligible BPL families. On the other hand there are people who spend 700 crore on one building to live in.
Amartya Sen has rightly said that growth without democratic distribution brings no prosperity in the country, after all the ongoing financial crisis and global recession has been caused due to ‘privatizing profits and socializing losses’ and if we want to create sustainable social and economic order, we will have to distribute the profits also and not only losses.

[1] Persons like Mukesh Ambani who tops the list gets more than 44 crore (440 million) as annual salary, whereas as Pawan Kant Munjal of hero Honda gets more than Rs/-150 million per annum.
[2] The rich in countries like Brazil are 57.8 times richer than the poor, and the ratio for the United Kingdom is 13.8 times, the United States almost 15.9 times, China 18.4 times and Russia 12.7 times. More horrifying – the top ten per cent of Bolivia’s population is 168 times richer than its poorest 10 percent! The ratio for Namibia is 129 times and Lesotho 129 times.
[3] Being poor by American standards didn’t mean insufficient food. It didn’t mean starvation. It meant not having a car and depending on social security. Perhaps being homeless and falling back on government shelters.
[4] Poor but rich - dnaindia.com A survey by Legatum Institute. The index looked at variable like democratic institutions, personal freedom and social capital.
[5] Economic and political weekly, October 2008
[6] ibid

Statement by World Vision India on the situation in Orissa and Comments made by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Spokesperson on ‘Face the Nation’ on 26 Au

Statement by World Vision India on the situation in Orissa and Comments made by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Spokesperson on ‘Face the Nation’ on 26 August, 2008 at 10 pm on CNN-IBN
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 -- (Business Wire India)We are deeply shocked by the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswathi and others. We strongly condemn this dastardly act of taking life and law into ones own hands and the violence surrounding this. Violence of any kind is never justifiable and only serves to protract the suffering and misery of common people. World Vision India and its staff have been falsely accused of being party to these the incidents and the following statement is being issued by World Vision India to state the facts of our position;-- The allegations by Mr. Ram Madhav, spokesperson for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who appeared on ‘Face the Nation’ on CNN-IBN at 10 pm on 26 August, 2008 are totally false and baseless. World Vision or their staffs is not a party to or participants in the recent violence in Kandhamal district. -- Here are the facts of the situation;- Two of our staff from the Daringbadi programme were apprehended by a mob on the night of the 23rd August, 2008 when they were on their way to Bhubaneshwar attempting to get out of the area in fear for their lives, as there were rumours of impending violence as in December 2007. - The police who were patrolling in the area rescued them. In due course, the police verified their identity and purposes with due diligence, before they let them go. -- The above situation has been deliberately twisted and rumours are being spread that these people were apprehended while escaping the scene of the murder. This has been reported in some media and Mr. Ram Madhav made this allegation without a shred of evidence or proof. It is a lie.World Vision India has been serving the poor in India over the last five decades through relief and development programmes in close cooperation with communities, the government and other NGOs. In Orissa, World Vision has been working in seven districts. As relief and development agency World Vision works closely with several non-governmental organisations, other aid agencies, global institutions and specialised agencies of the United Nations. Our aid workers work closely with the government, NGOs and the community on education, economic development and health. Wherever, World Vision has been involved we have taken special effort to build local capacities for peace building and communal harmony. World Vision does not engage in proselytising or using aid and development to tamper with people’s faith. World Vision policy expressly prohibits this. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, caste, race, ethnicity or gender. We call for everyone concerned, especially the elected leaders of our country and leaders of civil society to come together and seek peace and restore normalcy as quickly as possible. Divisive rumouring does not contribute to healing our land and is not in the best interest of the poor of our country.
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Media contact details
Jayanth Vincent,World Vision India,+91 98400-64165,jayanth_vincent@wvi.org