India Is Among The World's Most Unequal Countries

[RiazHaq]

India Is Among The World's Most Unequal Countries

News, analysis and opinions about India, Pakistan, US, Canada, Europe, Mid East, South Asia, Silicon Valley, High Technology, Economy, Politics, World

www.riazhaq.com

India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. There is rising poverty and hunger. Nearly 230 million middle class Indians have slipped below the poverty line, constituting a 15 to 20% increase in poverty. India ranks 94th among 107 nations ranked by World Hunger Index in 2020. Other South Asians have fared better: Pakistan (88), Nepal (73), Bangladesh (75), Sri Lanka (64) and Myanmar (78) – and only Afghanistan has fared worse at 99th place. At the same time there is rapid growth of a few super-rich Indians. Meanwhile, the wealth of Indian billionaires jumped by 35% during the pandemic.

Income Inequality Map. Source: World Inequality Report 2022

Unemployment Crisis:

India lost 6.8 million salaried jobs and 3.5 million entrepreneurs in November alone. Many among the unemployed can no longer afford to buy food, causing a significant spike in hunger. The country's economy is finding it hard to recover from COVID waves and lockdowns, according to data from multiple sources. At the same time, the Indian government has reported an 8.4% jump in economic growth in the July-to-September period compared with a contraction of 7.4% for the same period a year earlier.

Rising Poverty:

Nearly 230 million middle class Indians have slipped below the poverty line, constituting a 15 to 20% increase in poverty since Covid-19 struck last year, according to Pew Research. Middle class consumption has been a key driver of economic growth in India. Erosion of the middle class will likely have a significant long-term impact on the country's economy. “India, at the end of the day, is a consumption story,” says Tanvee Gupta Jain, UBS chief India economist, according to Financial Times. “If you never recovered from the 2020 wave and then you go into the 2021 wave, then it’s a concern.”

Increasing Hunger:

India ranks 94th among 107 nations ranked by World Hunger Index in 2020. Other South Asians have fared better: Pakistan (88), Nepal (73), Bangladesh (75), Sri Lanka (64) and Myanmar (78) – and only Afghanistan has fared worse at 99th place. The COVID19 pandemic has worsened India's hunger and malnutrition. Tens of thousands of Indian children were forced to go to sleep on an empty stomach as the daily wage workers lost their livelihood and Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the South Asian nation. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan opted for "smart lockdown" that reduced the impact on daily wage earners. China, the place where COVID19 virus first emerged, is among 17 countries with the lowest level of hunger.

Rich Getting Richer:

The wealth of Indian billionaires increased by 35% during the lockdown and by 90 per cent since 2009 to $422.9 billion, ranking India sixth in the world after the US, China, Germany, Russia, and France, according to Oxfam.

India’s 100 top billionaires saw their fortunes increase by Rs 12,97,822 crore since March last year when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country and this amount is enough to give 138 million poorest Indians a cheque for Rs 94,045 each, according to a report in The Business Standard.

Share of Income of Richest 1% in South Asia

Inequality in Pakistan:
A United Nations report on inequality in Pakistan published in April 2021 revealed that the richest 1% Pakistanis take 9% of the national income. A quick comparison with other South Asian nations shows that the 9% income share for the top 1% in Pakistan is lower than 15.8% in Bangladesh and 21.4% in India. These inequalities result mainly from a phenomenon known as "elite capture" that allows a privileged few to take away a disproportionately large slice of public resources such as public funds and land for their benefit.

Elite Capture:
Elite capture, a global phenomenon, is a form of corruption. It describes how public resources are exploited by a few privileged individuals and groups to the detriment of the larger population.
A recently published report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has found that the elite capture in Pakistan adds up to an estimated $17.4 billion - roughly 6% of the country's economy.
Pakistan's most privileged groups include the corporate sector, feudal landlords, politicians and the military. The UN Development Program's NHDR for Pakistan, released last week, focused on issues of inequality in the country of 220 million people.
Ms. Kanni Wignaraja, assistant secretary-general and regional chief of the UNDP, told Aljazeera that Pakistani leaders have taken the findings of the report “right on” and pledged to focus on prescriptive action. “My hope is that there is strong intent to review things like the current tax and subsidy policies, to look at land and capital access", she added.

Inequality in Pakistan. Source: UNDP

Income Inequality:
The richest 1% of Pakistanis take 9% of the national income, according to the UNDP report titled "The three Ps of inequality: Power, People, and Policy". It was released on April 6, 2021. Comparison of income inequality in South Asia reveals that the richest 1% in Bangladesh and India claim 15.8% and 21.4% of national income respectively.
In addition to income inequality, the UNDP report describes the inequality of opportunity in terms of access to services, work with dignity and accessibility. It is based on exhaustive statistical analysis at national and provincial levels, and includes new inequality indices for child development, youth, labor and gender. Qualitative research, through focus groups with marginalized communities, has also been undertaken, and the NHDR 2020 Inequality Perception Survey conducted. The NHDR 2020 has been guided by a diverse panel of Advisory Council members, including policy makers, development practitioners, academics, and UN representatives.
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India Is Among The World's Most Unequal Countries

News, analysis and opinions about India, Pakistan, US, Canada, Europe, Mid East, South Asia, Silicon Valley, High Technology, Economy, Politics, World

www.riazhaq.com

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

No surprise here....

India is all about safeguarding the interests of the Parsi, Marwari, Jain etc. folks....

 

[RiazHaq]

India’s Stalled Rise: As the #COVID19 #pandemic spread in 2020, #India's #economy withered, shrinking by more than seven percent, the worst performance among major developing countries. Reversing a long-term downward trend, #poverty increased substantially https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2021-12-14/indias-stalled-rise

INDIA’S LOST DECADE
To answer the question of whether India is back, it is important to first understand when and why India went away. The answer lies in plans that went badly wrong. During the boom years after the turn of the millennium, Indian firms invested heavily, on the assumption of continued rapid growth. So when the financial crisis brought the boom to an end, causing interest rates to soar and exchange rates to collapse, many large companies found it difficult to repay their debts. As companies began to default, banks were saddled with nonperforming loans, exceeding ten percent of their assets.

In response, successive governments launched initiative after initiative to address this “twin balance sheet” problem, initially asking banks to postpone repayments, later encouraging banks and firms to resolve their problems through an improved bankruptcy system. These measures gradually alleviated the debt problem, but they still left many firms too financially feeble to invest and banks reluctant to lend. And with lackluster investment and exports, the economy was unable to recover its former dynamism.



-------
As growth slowed, other indicators of social and economic progress deteriorated. Continuing a long-term decline, female participation in the labor force reached its lowest level since Indian independence in 1948. The country’s already small manufacturing sector shrank to just 13 percent of overall GDP. After decades of improvement, progress on child health goals, such as reducing stunting, diarrhea, and acute respiratory illnesses, stalled.

And then came COVID-19, bringing with it extraordinary economic and human devastation. As the pandemic spread in 2020, the economy withered, shrinking by more than seven percent, the worst performance among major developing countries. Reversing a long-term downward trend, poverty increased substantially. And although large enterprises weathered the shock, small and medium-sized businesses were ravaged, adding to difficulties they already faced following the government’s 2016 demonetization, when 86 percent of the currency was declared invalid overnight, and the 2017 introduction of a complex goods and services tax, or GST, a value-added tax that has hit smaller companies especially hard. Perhaps the most telling statistic, for an economy with an aspiring, upwardly mobile middle class, came from the automobile industry: the number of cars sold in 2020 was the same as in 2012.

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Adding to a decade of stagnation, the ravages of COVID-19 have had a severe effect on Indians’ economic outlook. In June 2021, the central bank’s consumer confidence index fell to a record low, with 75 percent of those surveyed saying they believed that economic conditions had deteriorated, the worst assessment in the history of the survey.

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Disaffection is also manifest in politics. The national government in New Delhi has been bickering with the country’s state governments for more than a year over the sharing of revenue from the GST. Several states have imposed new residency requirements on job seekers over the past two years, thus directly challenging the principle of a common national labor market. There has also been a revival of the policy of “reservation,” India’s version of affirmative action, in which some jobs are reserved for people from traditionally disadvantaged social groups.

 

[Black Tornado]

Gigantic increase in tax collection punctures all this non-sense, yes it did affect a lot of people in 2020 but much of the country has come back to pre-pandemic levels.

the number of cars sold in 2020 was the same as in 2012.

2020 was when we were in lockdown, whole global economy and supply chains as well as demands were frozen, and your point is?

 

[Suriya]

India ranks 94th among 107 nations ranked by World Hunger Index in 2020. Other South Asians have fared better: Pakistan (88), Nepal (73), Bangladesh (75), Sri Lanka (64) and Myanmar (78) – and only Afghanistan has fared worse at 99th place. The COVID19 pandemic has worsened India's hunger and malnutrition.

@RiazHaq World Hunger Index's India ranking has been rubbished and rejected by Indian govt.

Also people must know, UN conducted World Food Security index which is much more reliable gives India top rank among SA countries.

Global Food Security Index (GFSI)

The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) is an annual assessment measuring food security through affordability, availability, and quality and safety metrics worldwide.

impact.economist.com

 

[RangeMaster]

Indian middle class is not growing.

Most of Indians think they belong to middle class. But actually they aren't.

Everyone in India thinks they are 'middle class' and almost no one actually is

Only 2% of Indians are actually middle income, according to a Pew survey.

scroll.in

Manufacturing employment nearly half of what it was five years ago

Manufacturing employment nearly half of what it was five years ago

Manufacturing accounts for nearly 17% of India's GDP, but the sector has seen employment decline sharply in last 5 years - from employing 51 million Indians in 2016-17 to reach 27.3 million in 2020-21

wap.business-standard.com

 

[RangeMaster]

Pakistani Bike sales grew from 700000 in 2010 to 2.4 million in 2021.
Pakistani auto sales grew from 137000 in 2010 to 298000 in 2019.

Both are showing a 300% increases in production and sales indicating that Pakistani middle class is growing.

 

[RiazHaq]

India’s Stalled Rise
How the State Has Stifled Growth
By Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman
January/February 2022

India’s Stalled Rise

How the state has stifled growth.

www.foreignaffairs.com

For the Indian economy to achieve its potential, however, the government will need a sweeping new approach to policy—a reboot of the country’s software. Its industrial policy must be reoriented toward lower trade barriers and greater integration into global supply chains. The national champions strategy should be abandoned in favor of an approach that treats all firms equally. Above all, the policymaking process itself needs to be improved, so that the government can establish and maintain a stable economic environment in which manufacturing and exports can flourish.

But there is little indication that any of this will occur. More likely, as India continues to make steady improvements in its hardware—its physical and digital infrastructure, its New Welfarism—it will be held back by the defects in its software. And the software is likely to prove decisive. Unless the government can fundamentally improve its economic management and instill confidence in its policymaking process, domestic entrepreneurs and foreign firms will be reluctant to make the bold investments necessary to alter the country’s economic course.

There are further risks. The government’s growing recourse to majoritarian and illiberal policies could affect social stability and peace, as well as the integrity of institutions such as the judiciary, the media, and regulatory agencies. By undermining democratic norms and practices, such tendencies could have economic costs, too, eroding the trust of citizens and investors in the government and creating new tensions between the federal administration and the states. And India’s security challenges on both its eastern and its western border have been dramatically heightened by China’s expansionist activity in the Himalayas and the takeover of Afghanistan by the Pakistani-supported Taliban.

If these dynamics come to dominate, the Indian economy could experience another disappointing decade. Of course, there would still be modest growth, with some sectors and some segments of the population doing particularly well. But a broader boom that transforms and improves the lives of millions of Indians and convinces the world that India is back would be out of reach. In that case, the current government’s aspirations to global economic leadership may prove as elusive as those of its predecessors.

 

[RiazHaq]

#India Facing a #Population Implosion. Urban India's fertility rate is1.6, below replacement. India has "a baby factory in the north (#Bihar, #UP, #MP, #Rajasthan) and a jobs factory in the south (#TN, #Kerala, #Andhra, #Karnataka) " @dhume https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-...ghxhon7lk8x77&reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter via @WSJOpinion

After it gained independence in 1947, India’s soaring population—made possible by advances in medicine and disease control—seemed to doom it to poverty and hunger. Droughts in the mid-1960s raised the specter of famine. In 1966 the U.S. shipped one-fourth of its wheat output to India to avert mass starvation. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best-seller, “The Population Bomb,” predicted that hundreds of millions would starve and that by 1977 India could fall apart “into a large number of starving, warring minor states.”

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As in many countries, urbanization, rising income and female literacy, and increased contraception have led to plummeting fertility. But the biggest reason for the decline, according to Mr. Eberstadt, is hard to measure: Indian women want fewer babies.

In 1960 the average Indian woman would bear six children during her lifetime. By 2005 this had fallen to three. Urban India now has a fertility rate of 1.6, comparable to the European Union. And unlike China, whose government enforced a draconian one-child policy, India has achieved this largely without coercion. A harsh sterilization drive by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the mid-1970s led to her crushing electoral defeat in 1977. No Indian government tried to force the matter again.


Though India may have dodged mass famine, its massive population still poses challenges. Optimists claim the country’s skew toward youth provides a demographic dividend: a large working-age cohort to support relatively few retirees.

But such sunny prognostications present only half the picture. Thanks to uneven development, in the coming decades India will house an unprecedented experiment: hundreds of millions of college graduates living among hundreds of millions of illiterates. “The education gap in India could generate an income distribution that will make Manhattan look like Sweden,” says Mr. Eberstadt.

Regional disparities complicate things further. The relatively well-educated coastal states of the south already have fertility rates well below replacement levels. Birthrates in the poor and populous Hindi heartland have fallen too, but not nearly as sharply. Three of them—Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand—remain above replacement levels.

“To oversimplify, you have a baby factory in the north and a jobs factory in the south,” says Mr. Eberstadt. “But there’s a mismatch in educational attainment between a rising cohort in the north and the needs of the economy emerging in the south.” Kerala, in the south, has a literacy rate of 96%. Bihar, in the north, is 71%.

Then there’s the most sensitive question: political representation. In the relative weight of its states, India’s Parliament has remained frozen since the 1971 census. The average parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh represents three million people, while a counterpart from Tamil Nadu represents 1.8 million. A 2019 report by Carnegie Endowment scholars Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson calculated that if Parliament were reapportioned according to the likely population in 2026, the five southern states would send 26 fewer representatives to the 545-seat Parliament. The four most populous Hindi heartland states would add 31 seats.

If India is lucky, it will defuse these problems as successfully as it dealt with food shortages a generation ago. But though the population bomb failed to explode, it doesn’t mean India is safe from other ticking time bombs.

 

[Maira La]

@RiazHaq World Hunger Index's India ranking has been rubbished and rejected by Indian govt.

Congrats mate!! It's been officially rejected so now India no longer has hunger problem.

 

[RiazHaq]

#India's #Modi adds the Mercedes-Maybach S650 armored vehicle to his convoy of the Range Rover Vogue and Toyota Land Cruiser. Modi had a bulletproof Mahindra Scorpio as Gujarat chief minister, then moved up to the BMW 7 Series High-Security Edition as PM https://www.firstpost.com/india/nar...n-survive-blast-rain-of-bullets-10240551.html

https://twitter.com/x/status/1475997402733547521

The prime minister has got new wheels!

Narendra Modi has added the Mercedes-Maybach S650 armoured vehicle to his convoy of the Range Rover Vogue and Toyota Land Cruiser.

Modi was spotted in the new Maybach 650 armoured car at Hyderabad House while welcoming President Putin of Russia. The vehicle was spotted again in the convoy of Modi recently.

The Mercedes-Maybach S650 Guard offers the highest level of armoured protection available on a car. According to reports, the vehicle can withstand bullets thanks to the upgraded windows and body shell and can take an assault from AK-47 rifles.

As per reported information, the car's windows are coated with polycarbonate and can withstand hardened steel core bullets. The car also boasts of an Explosive Resistant Vehicle (ERV) 2010 rating and the occupants of the vehicle are protected from a 15kg TNT explosion from a distance of only 2 metres.

The cabin also receives a separate air supply in case of a gas attack.

The car is fitted with a 6.0-litre twin-turbo V12 engine that develops 516 bhp and about 900 Nm of peak torque. The top speed is restricted to 160 kmph.

Another report stated that the fuel tank of the Mercedes-Maybach S650 Guard is coated with a special material that seals the holes automatically after a hit. It is made up of the same material that Boeing uses for its AH-64 Apache tank attack helicopters.

The car has a luxurious interior and offers all the comforts that the standard Maybach S-Class can provide.

As the car has been modified for the prime minister, the cost of the vehicle is unknown. However, Mercedes-Maybach launched the S600 Guard in India last year for Rs 10.5 crore and the S650 can cost more than Rs 12 crore.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had a few cars over the years. As Gujarat chief minister, he had a
bulletproof Mahindra Scorpio. When he became prime minister in 2014, he moved up to the BMW 7 Series High-Security Edition. He then added the Land Rover Range Rover Vogue and the Toyota Land Cruiser.

 

[N.Siddiqui]

India amongst the most unequal countries in the world, says report

As per the 'World Inequality Report 2022', India is among the most unequal countries in the world, with rising poverty and an 'affluent elite'.

economictimes.indiatimes.com

The architectue of social divide...

 

[peagle]

Then there’s the most sensitive question: political representation. In the relative weight of its states, India’s Parliament has remained frozen since the 1971 census. The average parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh represents three million people, while a counterpart from Tamil Nadu represents 1.8 million. A 2019 report by Carnegie Endowment scholars Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson calculated that if Parliament were reapportioned according to the likely population in 2026, the five southern states would send 26 fewer representatives to the 545-seat Parliament. The four most populous Hindi heartland states would add 31 seats.

This one paragraph highlights the reality of India.
It is a nation born out of a massive compromise, and held together by a thread. Any external actor if it truly desired can cut such cords without too much difficulty by feeding the existing fault lines.

Similar to the above compromise, India's National Finance Commission has also been on hold for decades, and disproportionally weighted, because the population ratio between North and South India has changed.
The South shall rise, if pushed.

Even after 74 years of independence, India still does not have a national language, because people refuse to recognise there is one India.

 

[Indos]

This data is better to see Inequality, Indonesia is better than most emerging countries

Indonesia Economic Snapshot - OECD

www.oecd.org

Indonesia

India

India Economic Snapshot - OECD

www.oecd.org

Definition of Emerging countries

Emerging market​

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards.[1] This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were in the past.[2] The term "frontier market" is used for developing countries with smaller, riskier, or more illiquid capital markets than "emerging".[3] As of 2006, the economies of China and India are considered to be the largest emerging markets.[4] According to The Economist, many people find the term outdated, but no new term has gained traction.[5] Emerging market hedge fund capital reached a record new level in the first quarter of 2011 of $121 billion.[6] The 10 largest emerging and developing economies by either nominal or PPP-adjusted GDP are 4 of the 5 BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) along with Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Turkey.

Emerging market - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Suriya]

Inequality is due to badly administered but most populous eastern state like Bihar, Bengal, UP, Odisha and Assam for decades but this is changing in recent times.

Congrats mate!! It's been officially rejected so now India no longer has hunger problem.

Not just what India says, its evident from UN conducted World Food Security index which is much more reliable that gives India top rank among SA countries.

Global Food Security Index (GFSI)

The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) is an annual assessment measuring food security through affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation metrics worldwide.

impact.economist.com