Whats wrong with india...why our fundamentals are ....
They say the Roman
emperor,Nero,fiddled while Rome
burned.In 2012,the Indian parliament
fiddles around with cheap party
politics while India burns.Take a look
at the real India behind all the
shopping malls,the high growth rates
(now disappearing),the sexy
information technology
revolution,and the democracy we
boast about.This is an India that sits
rock bottom,or near rock bottom,of
the world development rankings.
Lets begin with the most basic:
nutrition and hunger.Malnutrition in
India has worsened during the years
of high economic growth.Today,India
has the second worst record in the
world,with 43% of its children
suffering from malnutrition.Who is
doing better than India
Bangladesh,Nepal,Niger,Burundi,Ethiopia,Somalia,La os,Sudan,and
Cambodia,amongst others! The 2011
Global Hunger Index lists India in 67th
position.Indians look down their
noses at Pakistan,but Pakistan ranks
59th and Sri Lanka,despite a civil
war,ranks 36th.We patronize
Africans.Only ten African countries
rank worse than India,and Africa has
54 countries.In other words,India is
worse off than four-fifths of
Africa.And this when India is
supposedly self-sufficient in
food,indeed exports foodgrains.
How does India do on infant
mortality,another rather basic
indicator of development The United
Nations Population Division lists
India,in 2011,as 150th out of 194
countries.In our region,the only
country below India in the rankings is
Pakistan.Sri Lanka is streets ahead and
is ranked 70th,Nepal is ranked
138th,and Bhutan 139th.Bangladesh
comes in at 148th.
Indians are supposed to value
education or at least President Obama
thinks so.We marvel at our middle
class kids who go on to
Harvard,Princeton,Oxford,and
Cambridge.But we forget about the
millions of Indians who are
illiterate.The UNDP suggests that
Indias male literacy rate is 82 per cent
and the female rate is about 65 per
cent.This is almost certainly an
exaggeration,but in any case India still
lags behind most of the world except
parts of Africa and South Asia.In
South Asia,Sri Lanka and the Maldives
do better.In the PISA school test,which
is a standardized test given to students
across various countries,Indian
students (taken from Himachal
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) on average
ranked second last,just above
Kyrgyztan.Now our Ministry of
Human Resource Development,in
typical excuse-mongering fashion,has
argued that the test was unfair to
India!
Speaking of education,Indias
problems are not just illiteracy and
disastrous school education;they
include an abysmal university
system.The latest world university
rankings do not have a single Indian
university in the top 200
universities.So much for our IITs and
other educational navratnas ! Only
two Asian universities made it to the
top 25 the University of Hong Kong
and the National University of
Singapore.The combined population
of those two cities: twelve
million.India was the only BRICS
country to not feature in the top 200.
It would be foolish to blame
everything on Indias parliament and
the state legislatures.The problems of
India go deep,and Indias elite bear
much of the blame.But our legislators
are supposed to lead.And they are
supposed to put things right.Who
thinks today that the protests in
parliament are really about getting rid
of corruption The protests are
completely partisan in nature and are
geared to embarrassing the
incumbent government and to
wresting power.Power has to have
purpose,and there is no sign that the
opposition parties have a better
approach to fighting corruption than
the Congress government.In the
meantime,India groans under the
weight of
poverty,maldevelopment,and
injustice,and sinks ever closer to the
bottom of the heap in the comity of
nations.
There is something fundamentally
and very badly wrong in our
country.We have a shambolic
democracy that beggars our
citizens.Can this democracy last And if
it lasts,can it mean much The sheen
has gone off democracy all over the
world,after the economic crisis of
2008.In India,the lamp of democracy
has never shone with any great
conviction.Will it be missed...
