The Great Indian Middle Class and The Great Indian Poor
The Great Indian Middle Class! The 300 million strong population had featured at the seventh spot in the list of 'Top 50 people who matter now' ahead of Bill Gates. I had never thought that the importance of the Indian middle class which I'm a apart of is something to be called as "The Great". A look into the past shows its importance. Remember, the BJP state government was thrown out in Delhi only because the onion prices were high, the IT power which we so proudly boast of was the result of the middle class and of course due to the lack of intervention by the Government.
M. Narayana Murthy, Dhirubai Ambani were a part of the same middle class which led the way of transforming India from a sleeping giant to its present position. They are now in a position to change governments and making the government hear their voices. We now have now parties having Bijli, Sadak, Paani (BSP) in their manifestos rather than emotional issues. Gone are the times where the main aim of the middle class was to imigrate to U.S, they now find their future in their own country, a case of reverse Brain Drain.
The Indian rich is doing great e.g. L.N. Mittal, Tatas, Birlas, ...., the Indian Midlle Class is being called as The Great, but what happened to our Great Indian Poor, Indian per capita income is 620$ and 35% ot Indian population lives on less than 1$ a day, i.e 45Rs a day. Let us consider the ratio of income earned by the country's richest 10% and the poorest 10%. The ratio for India is 7.3. That is, the richest 10% of the population is a little over seven times as rich as the poorest 10%. But the comforting statistics is that China has the ratio as 18.4 and the U.S has 15.7.
Its time we start looking at the plight of the Indian poor to lift up their standards. The researchers should start looking towards developing tools that would aid them e.g. Methods of saving the crops during flash floods, drought etc. Until we bring up these people we can't call our country as "Mahaan"
M. Narayana Murthy, Dhirubai Ambani were a part of the same middle class which led the way of transforming India from a sleeping giant to its present position. They are now in a position to change governments and making the government hear their voices. We now have now parties having Bijli, Sadak, Paani (BSP) in their manifestos rather than emotional issues. Gone are the times where the main aim of the middle class was to imigrate to U.S, they now find their future in their own country, a case of reverse Brain Drain.
The Indian rich is doing great e.g. L.N. Mittal, Tatas, Birlas, ...., the Indian Midlle Class is being called as The Great, but what happened to our Great Indian Poor, Indian per capita income is 620$ and 35% ot Indian population lives on less than 1$ a day, i.e 45Rs a day. Let us consider the ratio of income earned by the country's richest 10% and the poorest 10%. The ratio for India is 7.3. That is, the richest 10% of the population is a little over seven times as rich as the poorest 10%. But the comforting statistics is that China has the ratio as 18.4 and the U.S has 15.7.
Its time we start looking at the plight of the Indian poor to lift up their standards. The researchers should start looking towards developing tools that would aid them e.g. Methods of saving the crops during flash floods, drought etc. Until we bring up these people we can't call our country as "Mahaan"
posted by Shashank Bandari at 11:18 PM
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