India's War Budget World's 3rd Biggest Despite High Poverty

[mike2000 is back]

http://www.riazhaq.com/2016/12/indias-war-budget-to-be-worlds-3rd.html

In 2016, India surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to claim the 4th spot among the top five defense spenders globally for the first time, according to Jane's Defense. India, a country with 33% of the world's poor, is projected to surpass the United Kingdom to rise to the 3rd spot for defense spending by 2018.



Sources: FT/IHS Jane's (Defense Budgets) and World Bank (Poverty)
















India's military spending has grown rapidly from $38.17 billion in 2010 to $50.7 billion in 2016. It is projected to rise further to $56.5 billion in 2018 and $64.07 billion in 2020, according to Jane's. For comparison, India's south Asian neighbor Pakistan's defense budget for 2016 is only $8 billion.

India's rapid rise to the list of world's top defense spenders stands in sharp contrast to the reality that it remains home to the world's largest population of poor, hungry and illiterate citizens. India also leads the world for lack of hygiene, disease burdens and open defecation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rule has seen dramatic growth of wealth inequality in India. Top 1% of Indians now own 58.4% of India's wealth, up from 49% in 2014 when Mr. Modi was elected Prime Minister, according to Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2016.

Median wealth data compiled by Credit Suisse for 2016 shows that average Pakistani adult is 20% richer than an average Indian adult and the median wealth of a Pakistani adult is 120% higher than that of his or her Indian counterpart, according to Credit Suisse Wealth Report 2016. Average household wealth in Pakistan has grown 2.1% while it has declined 0.8% in India since the end of last year.

CS Wealth Report 2016 indicates that 50% of Pakistanis own more than $1,180 per adult which is 120% more than the $608 per adult owned by 50% of Indians.

The Credit-Suisse report says that the richest 1% of Indians own 58.4% of India's wealth, second only to Russia's at 74.5%. That makes India the 2nd biggest oligarchy in the world.

The CS wealth data, particularly the median wealth figures, clearly show that Pakistan has much lower levels of inequality than India.

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)'s MPI, multi-dimensional poverty index, brings together 10 indicators, with equal weighting for education, health and living standards. In South Asia region, Afghanistan has the highest level of destitution at 38%, according to OPHI's MPI index. This is followed by India at 28.5%. Bangladesh (17.2%) and Pakistan (20.7%) have much lower levels.

Rapid growth in India's defense expenditures conveys Prime Minister Modi's priorities. It seems that he believes the way for India to achieve great power status is through building a massive military regardless of the deep deprivations of the Indian people.

Mr. Modi's massive military buildup poses a serious threat to its neighbors, particularly Pakistan, a much smaller country which was invaded and split in two by the Indian military in 1971. The Indian invasion resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2016

India Massive Military Buildup

Modi's Israel Envy

India Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry & Illiterates

India Leads the World in Open Defecation

MPI Captures Depth of Deprivation in India



http://www.riazhaq.com/2016/12/indias-war-budget-to-be-worlds-3rd.html

Well. To be honest, I don't think having such high poverty rate means. Country should not spend on its deence needs, especially when they face threats and still have disputed borders with others(Pakistan and China).
In fact even in the article the OP posted, we can see China has the world's 2nd largest number of extreme poor people after India. Does that means the Chinese spending over $200bilion in defence is wrong despite many Chinese living in poverty?
Of course not, They need it since they also need to face threats in their neighbourhood and defend their interests in the region. SO WE SHOULD learn to put things into perspective. This topic is outright wrong IMO

 

[Indx-techs]

3% is a lie lol

33% for India as well is a bogus. India stands around 12.4%.

Plus other thing add,
Pakistan doesn't have record of nearly 70 millions (about 36.4%) citizens and calculates poverty ratio, GDP per capita, HDI, literacy etc. on the basis of existing record or estimates.
As usually backward people are ignored, it's Pak who's likely to have 30-35% of it's total population poor.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1278149

 

[Kyoto]

33% for India as well is a bogus. India stands around 12.4%.

Plus other thing add,
Pakistan doesn't have record of nearly 70 millions (about 36.4%) citizens and calculates poverty ratio, GDP per capita, HDI, literacy etc. on the basis of existing record or estimates.
As usually backward people are ignored, it's Pak who's likely to have 30-35% of it's total population poor.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1278149

Its 33% of the worlds poor not out of the Indian population. The 20% of India that is in extreme poverty (260 million) makes up 1/3 of the world's population in extreme poverty.

 

[dadeechi]

And only 33% population of India is poor. Just one in 3. Flabbergasted!

I agree with you that 33% may not be accurate and it would be some where in the range of 50-60% Indians who are poor.

 

[Storm Force]

Thread is clearly designed to create a poor impression of modi and India by skewing numbers and some random outright lies.

But that's fine all is good and fine .

The simple fact is Indian and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis live in continent that contains living standards that are light years away from the west and well below middle eastern counties and south East Asian counties.



Some real facts about India good and bad.

They have largest concentration of poor in the world
They will have largest population the world by 2025
India needs better sanitation for its masses
India needs to spend hundreds of billions on infrastructure which is poor in the main.
India is located next to nation that is considered by many in the world to be tthe epicenter of terrorism and a neighbor that threatens nuclear war on a daily basis. It's where they found the bigges terroridt the western world has known in 2011

India has war inflicted on it three times 62 65 and 99

India is the fastest growing economy in the world with the sixth largest GDP in the world.

THAT GDP gives India the muscle to spend to protect itself from rrogue sates and hostile terror groups.

India only spends 2percent of its GDP on military.

India has the biggest middles class population in the world and the most millionaires in Asia

 

[Srinivas]

This guy has some fetish with the poor people reason why he mentions poor more in his article !

 

[DrPuff]

Pakistanis are taught to be ignorant about Pakistan..

 

[Centurion2016]

They like changing the truth

Pakistanis are taught to be ignorant about Pakistan..

 

[COLDHEARTED AVIATOR]

Consider this as headlines for all the years till your death.

So deal with it.

 

[Indx-techs]

Its 33% of the worlds poor not out of the Indian population. The 20% of India that is in extreme poverty (260 million) makes up 1/3 of the world's population in extreme poverty.

India is world's cheapest country to live in. You must account in PPP.
Where the poverty in number stands 169 millions (around 12%) as per WB and 98 millions (7.7%) as per IMF. Further,.this stats is from Jan 2011 and 5-6 years have passed since then.
India ranks better from HDI to literacy, quality of life index, education index, average years of schooling, internet penetration, Hunger Index etc. which says everything.

Enough of trolls from Pakistan over Indian slums, once I got frustrated and searched about percentage of urban population living in slums. And look what I got!
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/seriesdetail.aspx?srid=710
Percentage of urban population living in slums, India: 24%
Pak: 45%
Though, Pakistan was better in 1990. Same story is there with GDP per capita, HDI etc. where Pakistan led but was always pipped in end.
Over that, record of 70 millions, means more than 36% population of Pakistan is unavailable, so it's impossible to get actual poverty and gdp stats about Pakistan. Leave alone comparing with India.
Anybody may or may not agree, social progress in India has taken place much faster than Pakistan.

 

[jung41]

Yup India is Planning big to disintegrate the monster so big spending is needed.

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

Here's a blast from the past... Nehru once famously remarked - “India doesn't need any military, only police forces. India has no natural enemies."

Well.... We all know what happened next...

Yeah, Nehru invaded China when China was in famine.

Which indirectly leads to the Indian obsession with China today.

 

[faithfulguy]

India is world's cheapest country to live in. You must account in PPP.
Where the poverty in number stands 169 millions (around 12%) as per WB and 98 millions (7.7%) as per IMF. Further,.this stats is from Jan 2011 and 5-6 years have passed since then.
India ranks better from HDI to literacy, quality of life index, education index, average years of schooling, internet penetration, Hunger Index etc. which says everything.

Enough of trolls from Pakistan over Indian slums, once I got frustrated and searched about percentage of urban population living in slums. And look what I got!
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/seriesdetail.aspx?srid=710
Percentage of urban population living in slums, India: 24%
Pak: 45%
Though, Pakistan was better in 1990. Same story is there with GDP per capita, HDI etc. where Pakistan led but was always pipped in end.
Over that, record of 70 millions, means more than 36% population of Pakistan is unavailable, so it's impossible to get actual poverty and gdp stats about Pakistan. Leave alone comparing with India.
Anybody may or may not agree, social progress in India has taken place much faster than Pakistan.

PPP is to determine standard of living, not national power. So PPP per capital make sense in determine the life style of its citizens. But PPP number itself make no sense as you cannot measure the wealth of a country by PPP itself. As of now, average Chinese is about 1/5 as wealthy as an average America as China's PPP GDP per capital is one fifth of an America. But to calculate aggregate financial power, you pretty much need to use nominal GDP. So PPP GDP is useless in calculating the financial power of a country.

 

[my2cents]

3% poverty in Pakistan vs 33% poverty in India.
8 Billions vs 58 Billions of defense budget.

Who's denying its countrymen more?

IF what you state is true that you have only 3% poverty rate then I am happy for you. Here in India we have super rich and super poor and yet people call us powerful because of our military budget. For India's size 2.25%of GDP is spent on defence budget is not big. Saudi spends about 13% of its GDP on defence and they may have increased it many fold after ISIS take over of Syria. Pakistan spends about 3.5% of its GDP on defence.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

So PPP GDP is useless in calculating the financial power of a country.

True, because you cannot discount the buying power of currencies, the strength of the dollar is a pillar of America's economic power. That's why nominal GDP matters more.

Maybe on the day when you can buy 1 USD for 1 Rupee that might change. Interesting fact, the original conversion rate was actually 1:1 when the Rupee was created.