India, often described as peaceful, stable and prosperous in the Western media, remains home to the largest number of poor and hungry people in the world. About one-third of the world's poor people live in India. More than 450 million Indians exist on less than $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank. It also has a higher proportion of its population living on less than $2 per day than even sub-Saharan Africa. India has about 42% of the population living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 per day. The number of Indian poor also constitute 33% of the global poor, which is pegged at 1.4 billion people, according to a Times of India news report. More than 6 million of those desperately poor Indians live in Mumbai alone, representing about half the residents of the nation's financial capital. They live in super-sized slums and improvised housing juxtaposed with the shining new skyscrapers that symbolize India's resurgence. According to the World Bank and the UN Development Program (UNDP), 22% of Pakistan's population is classified as poor.
There is widespread hunger and malnutrition in all parts of India. India ranks 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index of 88 countries while Pakistan is slightly better at 61 and Bangladesh slightly worse at 70. The first India State Hunger Index (Ishi) report in 2008 found that Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger in India, comparable to Chad and Ethiopia. Four states — Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Assam — fell in the 'serious' category. "Affluent" Gujarat, 13th on the Indian list is below Haiti, ranked 69. The authors said India's poor performance was primarily due to its relatively high levels of child malnutrition and under-nourishment resulting from calorie deficient diets.
Indian media's headlines about the newly-minted Indian billionaires need to bring sharper focus on the growing rich-poor gap in India. On its inside pages, The Times of India last year reported Communist Party leader Sitaram Yechury's as saying that "on the one hand, 36 Indian billionaires constituted 25% of India’s GDP while on the other, 70% of Indians had to do with Rs 20 a day". "A farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes. The gap between the two Indias is widening," he said.
Today's San Jose Mercury News has a pictorial about grinding poverty in India done by John Boudreau and Dai Sugano. This heartbreaking pictorial illustrates the extent of the problem that India faces, a problem that could potentially be very destabilizing and put the entire society at the risk of widespread chaos and violence.
Here's a video clip from the Mercury News story:
Here's a video clip on world poverty:
Please make your contribution to the Hunger Project or Hidaya Foundation or Edhi Foundation to help alleviate hunger and poverty in South Asia.
Related links:
Growing Middle Class in Developing Nations
Poverty in Pakistan
A Broken People in Booming India
Hunger and Democracy
Grinding Poverty Defies China's Boom
Poverty News Blog
Begging for Pakistan's Needy
UN Millennium Development Goals in Pakistan
Muhammad Khan Junejo: How Should We Remember Him?
22 hours ago
46 comments:
.Mr. Haq, good job on writing the true reality about India. In western media they glorify India ,even though India definitely possess the technology might but at a mediocre level compared to a developed nation. Due to their deep inbred caste system, rich poor gap is widening. India and Pakistan are very similar in many ways, but I had the opportunity to visit both countries, this is my opinion which might be incorrect and I apologize to be to judgmental or biased, following I noted: 1) same deceiving, unethical culture in both countries , 2)heavy duty corruption and unfairly use their religion to dominate their poor slave class segment of their population, 3)same cave man mentality Politicians, but better law and order situation in India, I noted after the soviet afghan war, security situation deteriorated in our major cities in Pakistan, 4)dirt and filth among all major cities, 5)no plan to dump sewerage the main source to prevent common infectious diseases, 5)India has superior infrastructure compared to Pakistan, largely due to British Raj's concentration to just coincidently build everything in areas that are now parts of India, because Provinces like Sindh, Baluchistan, even NWFP was barren and largely uninhabited before partition., 6)Better living standards in Pakistani cities than India, largely we enjoyed Foreign goods, India depended on their local production only, for example back 15 years ago until Rajiv Gandhi okayed foreign exports to India, you will see top of the line Japanese brand transportation use in Pakistani cities by rich and poor, while the Indians were driving Morris and ambassadors which polluted the whole city and lacked the basic comforts of a modern car 7)nutritional standards are extremely superior among the masses in Pakistan, 8)Pakistan armed forces are the best in the world, because with India's chronic bad intentions and its mega size it could have swallowed Pakistan in a second, it is because of our defense forces we are surviving till now as an independent nation.Long live Pakistani defense forces, long live Pakistan, 9) Iam against nuclear proliferations but we need to salute our Nuclear scientist Like Dr Khan that today we enjoy the independent free Pakistan 9)people who migrated to Pakistan and even original locals of Pakistan are lucky too, as in India they heavily discriminate Muslims due to their unfair system like for example medical student admissions in India first priority is the lower caste Hindu, then Brahman Hindu and last if any seat still available comes Muslim students, same thing happens in all top level government jobs, 10) just listen to speeches of Indian and Pakistani Politicians and their grooming, they reflect a corrupt, cave man mentality, poorly educated whose agenda is to make money overnight using religion, poverty etc. Mr. Haq,That was a well written article, I really enjoyed, you should definitely forward this article to all important news magazines like Times, Newsweek letters to editor , even Indian Pakistani blogs, as that will bring awareness in western media and also Indian/Pakistani media that instead of solving the sufferings of our poor masses, we are diverting our efforts for another god forbid expensive war. Both countries should pressurize their governments to work towards the betterment of a common man, instead of hidden political agendas, make them accountable for everything just like USA.
as in India they heavily discriminate Muslims due to their unfair system like for example medical student admissions in India first priority is the lower caste Hindu, then Brahman Hindu and last if any seat still available comes Muslim students, same thing happens in all top level government jobs
This is utterly bogus !
No Indian can ever be discriminated based on caste or religion. Period. If any discrimination exists, it is illegal and happens beyond the reach of law, which will hopefully change for the better.
India has a Muslim captain of the cricket team, a Muslim president (twice) and a currently serving Muslim vice-president. The richest man living in India is a Muslim (Azim Premzi) and the top actors & musicians of Bollywood are Muslims.
Extreme poverty exists primarily in the northern states of India : Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. They are overpopulated and the population is not educated well. This problem of poverty will persist for at least several decades.
Actually, Pakistanis have a deep obsession with India. Indians are not comparing themselves to Pakistanis anymore.
Ray,
Your statement "Extreme poverty exists primarily in the northern states of India : Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa" ignores reality of deep and abject poverty and hunger in all parts of India. Isn't Mumbai with 6m poor in Maharashtra? How about Gujarat, which ranks worse than Haiti in hunger? Just look at India's state-by-state hunger data. Closing your eyes to these realities while shouting chauvinistic nonsense at Pakistanis ( while claiming that Pakistanis are obsessed with India) and beating war drums against Pakistan is not the solution to your problems. India's biggest threat lies within its own borders...the threat from 456 m poor and disenfranchised Indians who are being left behind as the right wing bigots talk about "Shining India".
Mr. Ray lightning, it is not bogus just because I bet you are not a Muslim and you have no idea the pain and sufferings of some Indian Muslims I know who are from Andhra pardesh and Maharashtra who have expressed this to me in detail. The famous Muslim names you are mentioning are just symbols primary reasons to get votes and show the masses everything is ok and its a united India.But majority do suffer because of their caste and religious beliefs, that’s why thank god 60 years ago Pakistan was created. It’s not obsession with India, but always the regional threat you offer us since partition, where there is no choice left but to make you aware the reality. Pakistanis have no animosity against Indians, we love your bollywood movies, but every few years Indian war drums, so Pakistan feels obligated and end up cooking plans to counter this threat for their survival and Independence. Educated people like us need civilized dialogue/cultural exchanges and for sake of the future generations and be ready to tolerate all these fanatics evil actions from time to time on both sides until we achieve a real lasting peace.
Whats going on in India, is this really true?, please click link below, this is really interesting :
http://www.theindianblogger.com/newsmakers/goonda-raj-of-raj-thackeray-in-mumbai/
Hey!How are you guys doing? I was reading the posts. Lets make it Bharat Vs Pakistan. Lets make it Bharat and Pakistan. Wow, this suits me. I have never been to Pakistan. The info on Pak is trickling at the most where as info on India is all over the place, in different shades. First, its freedom of speech and then the resources.The development in India is faster and much even than Pakistan because of Democracy and may be too many interest groups . Pakistanis are brilliant, I had friends from pak in USA. But again, the gap between the haves and have nots is huge, very huge. In Pak unlike in India, some of the populations are ignored of their existence for various reasons. On the whole, the situation is similar. Infact, the Hindu blood or Vedic blood is more in Pakistani land than in India. I love to have as many people comment on this as possible.
In a country of blood sucking Jaydev, what do you expect Riaz.
In what could be thoroughly embarrassing for the US, its cities have been found to have levels of inequality as high as those in African and
Latin American cities. In contrast, western Europe, on average, has the most egalitarian cities in the world, according to a UN report based on Ginni coefficient. Gini coefficient is a statistical tool normally used to measure inequality at the national level and to measure inequality at the city level. The international alert line for inequality is 0.4. If a country's score is above that mark it signifies unacceptable levels of inequality.
"Today, China has the highest level of consumption inequality in the Asia region, higher than Pakistan (0.298), Bangladesh (0.318), India (0.325), and Indonesia (0.343), among others," states the report.
Among the Asian nations mentioned in this October 2008 UN report, Pakistan is more egalitarian than the India, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia. Based on all the UNDP data, Pakistan does not have the level of hunger and abject poverty observed in India or Bangladesh.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Inequalities_stark_in_US_cities/articleshow/3656239.cms
pakistan is a secular country and therefor it drove out Sindhis out of their motherland.....
i think are rapist has no right to call for other person being guilty or not for the crime of sexual harassment. in this case i would like a pakistani intellectual to tell me are they sorry for what they have done to sindhis????? and after you apologies talk about the Muslims in India.....
Statistics is an easy tool to hide the facts.....India has more larger middle class than pakistan.
the property rates of mumbai is equivalent to that of new york so any person living in the city and owns a legal house here is a millionaire by default.....
mumbai enjoys a wonderful and luxurious lifestyle that no pakistani city can offer. can any city of pakistan brag itself infront of Mumbai....Mumbai has created stars who are famous around the world and is there any pakistani city who has done that???????
My dearest old neighbor, sindhis wehere forced out of karachi trust me my grandfather was......we came to India as refuges and today sindhis own the highest number of educational institute across mumbai......
karachi had got it glories due to sindhis you are just living on our royalty.....
India is a land of of opportunity some make it and many do not but the entire journey is safer and better than the world around while pakistan as the world calls it is the epicenter of world terrorism....by closing your eyes to bright shining India paksitan will never progress and if it believes that by doing that it can prove that India is dark and dream pakistan is better than snap out a dreams build no reality and facts are you are begging infront of IMF and not INDIA which is rated as the second fastest growing economy even in the global doom Indian GDP has grown by 7%.. remember that the SUN also black spot and India is no perfect child of universe......it has its drawbacks but do not just compare the drawback lets also compare glory.
Who has more millionaires India or pakistan????? who has more billionaires India or pakistan?????
Also who helped the sindhis and forced them out of their motherland??? who India or pakistan?????
waiting for reply.......answer honestly......if you have the quality be honest to yourself......for me i know my facts well i do not need a soul searching to be done by me
Indian Sindhi,
While I sympathize with you and your family for the loss you suffered from partition of India, it seems you and your fellow Hindu Sindhis have done fairly well after the events of 1947. That's why you are so self-centered as to discount the suffering of all others, including fellow Muslims in India. You have a self-serving attitude that allows you to dismiss hard data about the vast rich-poor divide and the suffering of 456m poor and hungry fellow citizens in India. My advice to you is to acknowledge the facts and the data as they are rather distract your attention and the attention of others from it. Acknowledgment is the first step toward solving any problem. As you say, you need to answer your own questions honestly without adding extraneous BS. If you don't, you should be prepared to eventually face the wrath of the vast number of poor and destitute citizens of your adopted land.
Dear Riaz,
Thank you for this wonderful post. To us Indians, this is not a news. Most of us know that grinding poverty (as well as many other problems) exists in India. Most of us are also sure that as we have overcome many other problems, we will overcome this also.
What makes me wonder is that why should a Pakistani concern himself about Indian society? Most of the time the underlaying reason is malice and envy. On my part I prefer to be concerned about my own community(India) than about others.
Few others have commented about discrimination Muslims face in India. Since I have first hand experience living in India, I can say this is absolute bullshit. In a vast and heterogeneous society like India, there will always be few instances of discrimination, but that does not make for any systematic discrimination. Average Hindus have no ill will towards average Muslims. Thus in India secularism is a cultural norm, and not merely a constitutionally imposed requirement. Similarly democracy in India is for real. People living in feudal societies like Pakistan can have no inkling how much democratic empowerment can transform a society.
On the final note, I think Pakistani people will always ill-mouth about India to justify the foolish choice of Jinnah to divide South Asian Muslim community into two. Hindus had a better sense to remain united and also to accommodate other communities. On our part we do not even care if Pakistan exists or not. All we want to say, stop exporting terrorism to our shores and leave us alone.
- Anwar Shaikh
I'm hugely amazed at the viewpoints presented by Pakistani bloggers which are verily India Centric and have got no pith in them.
Pakistan is no match to INDIA in any realm of existence. It's factually ridiculous to put at par with each other.
India has a civilization of millenniums whereas Pakistan is born out of a demented mentalities of a group of Islamic zealots hence bereft of any civilization to identify with.
It never occurs to us to think or discuss about Pakistan at any given time unless there is an act terrorism committed in our land. Why should we think of a populace who severed this pristine country in the name of a most despised religion on the earth.
Look around and you will find that some mindless act is committed by Muslim somewhere because they are being discriminated against or being persecuted and hence they are fighting for their self determination.
Please explain to me in Indian context Muslims would verily be termed as the descendents of Mohammad Gori who was an aggressor. And now these uncouth parasite seeks to have their rightful claim on our land. And our gullible and most effeminate leader called Nehru was cause for all the trouble India face today whether it is Pakistan or Kashmir.
Please keep your trap shut.
Riaz
I am not a chavunistic Indian. On the contrary, I only respect humanism and prefer that no countries existed.
You, on the contrary, are a right wing commentator of Pakistan trying to grab a left-wing clothing because it currently suits the anti-American feeling in Pakistan. The reality is that Pakistan has been joined at the hip with USA ever since its inception. Throughout history, it supported USA during the worst periods of aggression.
I don't deny that poverty exists in India. How can I ? But the progress of India in eradicating hunger, illiteracy and disease has been remarkable. By the time the British left 60 years ago, India was amongst the worst in all the indices. Now it is doing quite well in comparison. Most of the progress in eradicating poverty has been achieved after the economic liberalization of the 1990s. And the urban poverty (as visible in the slums of Mumbai) is much lower than rural poverty. Coastal and south-Indian states are doing much better than landlocked states. But it will not be long before the northern states catch up.
Anonymous,
I am from Andhra Pradesh and lots of my good friends are Muslims. So I know what I am talking about. If you feel thankful that Pakistan has been created, good for you. India's Muslims are happy to remain in India. As Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has said, .Full eleven centuries have passed by since then. Islam has now as great a claim on the soil of India as Hinduism. If Hinduism has been the religion of the people here for several thousands of years Islam also has been their religion for a thousand years. Just as a Hindu can say with pride that he is an Indian and follows Hinduism, so also we can say with equal pride that we are Indians and follow Islam. I shall enlarge this orbit still further. The Indian Christian is equally entitled to say with pride that he is an Indian and is following a religion of India, namely Christianity.. This is how it works in India.
It is just too comical how some of these Indian nationalist cannot take any criticism of glorious nation of India. Only thing left for them is to make up stuff about Pakistan to feel good about themselves.
You should read this from New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2008/12/positive-influe.html
"Ten days in India will remind anyone of the joys of competitive, entertaining, jingoistic, splashy, marginally-believable newspapers. (If they did not have Bollywood to cover, they would have to invent it.) The “Shining India” formulations that have come to dominate recent American perceptions of the country are much too glib and politicized to be reliable, and yet there is no missing the glorious riot of moneymaking, hustling, showboating and collective dreaming that has overtaken India’s big cities."
Worth a look.
Also see what he has to say about Pak:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2008/12/headline-news.html
You have not answered my questions........answer them honestly and acknowledge what i am asking from you.....
i am a young 22 year old Mumbai fella according to the definition i belong to middle class and i earn Rs. 30000 and i have bought my own car.....thanks to my studies....
India has a population of 1.1 billion and large part of it in current time is middle class. we have more cities in Asia then any other country.....
The number of malls India has is larger than any other asian country.....we have acknowledged the need to grow and we have a vision for growth.....
atleast we do not be satisfy ourselves in misery by collecting data and saying that hey some country lacks here and we are point better than them so we are happy by that data.
India today is growing and has the largest number of graduates passing out in the country every year......where is pakistan in that comparison???
literacy in pakistan is much lesser than that in India go check any data and the situation is getting worse.....mr. pakistani intellectual write whatever data you want to write but what will you do when your future generations will not be able to read them???
sindhis in India have acknowledged that they were ripped off by pakistan but we have not stopped living because we believe that we can make the world a better place because we have ability to grow.
and you do not have any right to talk about Indian muslims they do not accept your theory that the terrorist who attacked mumbai was not a pakistani trust me they have not even allowed a grave for them
Indian muslims do not need a pakistani and if they thought that they would be in pakistan but they made a choice to live in India.
Muslims in India are Indians my best friend is a muslim and FYI he is working for Infosys a brand well known in the world........does pakistan have any self made branded company???
give me ten brands of pakistan well known around the world....because i hav have ten indian names and if you request i will post it for you.....
We have hungry people in country but atleast but they are decreasing......you have illiterate people and polulation of illiterate people is increasing and remeber lack of education is the base of all problems and India is bringing in revolution in education and we have more and more educatd people coming up......
Get a data and beat this fact.....i wish you have the guts to answer my questions about sindhis. come clean if you can.....
and remember the company intel and their child Pentium had a Indian father and you were the employee a pakistani.......HAHA. Indian did beat you over there too. better luck for the future if literacy prevails in you country.....will it???
And if yes can you tell me about your governments plan of action and how much success they have achieved till now....???? anyways there is a Indian flag on moon will there be a pakistani flag on moon..........come on paksiatni techie reply to that one too.....if you have answers
i am frank and if you are too then you will allow his post to be seen and also take my question seriously or else for me definitely you will be a escapist....reply to all the question i have raised till now fellow pakistani scholar
Also the country i belong to Is INDIA your people made two parts of it India and pakistan and my land SINDH was in pakistan where i like all sindhis was forced out off.....
sindhis were never given a choice to adopt a country as we were forced out of our motherland....karachi is my ancestral city but i am forecd to live in mumbai because the pakistani forced us out......
why you do not fight for a sindh or sindhi cause but only for Kashmir and kashmiris????
does your justice look at religion before giving a verdict. that shows how racist you are.......tell me is the colour of muslim blood is gold and that of hindu is red and therefore their pain and sufering does not mean you anything????
why you do not raise voice for sindhis and their motherland??? or you have double standards and if you have then be frank about it. do not try to be an idealistic if you are not one
"blood-sucking"..I honestly have no idea why my green tinted, mentally bearded brothers call me that. You know I was a very moderate person..I became a blood-sucking bigot (2 out of 3 of my muslim fnds dont accept 9/11 is bin laden's job..its mossad+cia to discredit muslims..eew) very lately(plz dont blame RSS again...culprit is google/internet).Ha Ha.I am very opinionated on each and every topic so even if I join RSS they will throw me out..India is definitely under-developed and I don't think Indian media white-wash stuff(on the contrary..gives some bad publicity). Well there are millions of well-to ppl as well..so commercial television will only highlight "elitist" stuff like gossips of rich movie stars(and Taj-Oberoi attack not attack on CST which killed many poor ppl) that draws advertising revenues. What do u ppl expect..show live 24/7 open drains and garbage on streets? R u ppl nuts or something? I can state with Ahmenajad's conviction(or G.W.Bush's) that Muslims in India are not discriminated against. That is a BS pakis want to delude themselves with so that they get a substratum for their identity(credibility) which paki-land lacks. Some blow-backs against Muslims like in Gujarat with more than adequate provocation(ofcourse u wont buy it..Muslims cant do no harm from Algeria,Philipines,Chechnya to Pak..they r always victimised..yeah right!) doesnt mean institutionalized discrimination like in paki-land. I urge riaz (though ur heart is bleeding 1000s of miles in Gaza) to research state of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh(during BNP worst). I hope u will contribute a single piece for that issue(to keep a balance..;-)).Hindus demonstrating for Jamat-ul-Dawa won't count(That was the weirdest & unfunny stuff i have heard in a long time). Your MI or ISI tried such cheap tricks before and got exposed in western media(los angels times).(when there was firing on LoC..Pak Army brought western media to see results of Indian shelling on civilians..the old guy(narrating indian shelling atrocities) was exposed by LA times as a "story-teller"..telling different story to different journalists..[i hope u got the point])
Apparently western media isn't as dumb as pakis think.
Anwar Shaikh,
You said, "Since I have first hand experience living in India, I can say this is absolute bullshit".
Congratulations! You seem to be rather unique in your perspective given the data compiled by Sachar Commission, led by a former Indian chief justice, Rajender Sachar, Muslims were now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables. Some 52% of Muslim men were unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men. Among Muslim women, 91% were unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 couldn’t read or write. While making up 11% of the population, Muslims accounted for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they held less than 5% of government jobs.
Anwar,
Maybe you should pay a little more attention to what is going on around you.
Bangalore Photoblog,
It just shows that Pakistan press and medias are far more self-critical than Indian media and the Western friends. If you get a chance, please read the post on "Peaceful, Stable, Prosperous India" by Pankaj Mishra on this blog
.
Here's an excerpt from it:
Apparently, no inconvenient truths are allowed to mar what Foreign Affairs, the foreign policy journal of America's elite, has declared a "roaring capitalist success story". Add Bollywood's singing and dancing stars, beauty queens and Booker prize-winning writers to the Tatas, the Mittals and the IT tycoons, and the picture of Indian confidence, vigour and felicity is complete.
The passive consumer of this image, already puzzled by recurring reports of explosions in Indian cities, may be startled to learn from the National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC) in Washington that the death toll from terrorist attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007 was 3,674, second only to that in Iraq. (In the same period, 1,000 died as a result of such attacks in Pakistan, the "most dangerous place on earth" according to the Economist, Newsweek and other vendors of geopolitical insight.)
To put it in plain language - which the NCTC is unlikely to use - India is host to some of the fiercest conflicts in the world. Since 1989 more than 80,000 have died in insurgencies in Kashmir and the northeastern states.
Manmohan Singh himself has called the Maoist insurgency centred on the state of Chhattisgarh the biggest internal security threat to India since independence. The Maoists, however, are confined to rural areas; their bold tactics haven't rattled Indian middle-class confidence in recent years as much as the bomb attacks in major cities have.
Indian Sindhi,
Congratulations! It's nice to hear you can afford a car in India.
At the same time, it seems you want others to feel your pain but you do not care for the suffering of others. Instead, you keep citing statistics of millionaires and billionaires in India that is completely irrelevant to the subject of abject poverty and widespread hunger in India.
Instead of demanding answers to your irrelevant questions, what you need is more introspection about yourself and your country.
Anwar,
You say, "What makes me wonder is that why should a Pakistani concern himself about Indian society? Most of the time the underlaying reason is malice and envy. On my part I prefer to be concerned about my own community(India) than about others."
I have never heard a more ridiculous argument. If you read my blog more often, you'll find that I have written many posts admiring India and the many accomplishments of Indians. Such positive commentary has been well received by my Indian readers and drawn the attention of the Indian media. It's only when I am critical of India that the entire saffron brigade goes into action accusing me of all sorts of bias and bigotry. In fact, many of the comments I have received from Indian nationalists are full of bigotry and naked chauvinism against Pakistanis in particular and and Muslims in general.
The worst of the commentary adorned with abusive language does not make it to the blog because I moderate it. What you see published is a relatively clean sample of the the comments received.
"Instead of demanding answers to your irrelevant questions, what you need is more introspection about yourself and your country"
Questions of sindh may be irrelevant to you as it is not your motherland it is sindhis motherland......
i care about the poor but i am proud of the fellow citizens who have made it big whereas no pakistani has made it BIG.
i as an Indian acknowledge my rich and the poor of my country but you as a pakistani cannot acknowledge illiteracy or your millionaires as you cannot accept that your country illiteracy is icreasing and your country has no Millionaires or MNCs to booost about. for you economics is not relevant but double standard freedom terrorism is.......all criminals are no state actors but we are tallking about the nationality of those actors and they are pakistanis. you may close your eyes but your country has more grinding issues than India will ever have........i believe after ten year whether the map of pakistan will remain what it is now is the biggest challenge right now for pakistan.......so mind your house as it is on the verge of a break.......
while i move ahead with my life in normal conditions and enjoy the heaven India
Here's an CNN-IBN online poll result of its Indian audience:
Is Israel a role model for India when it comes to security?
Yes: 59 per cent
No: 41 per cent
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/war-on-terror-israels-the-way-to-go-with-pak/82023-3-single.html
This poll confirms my earlier post about India's middle class demanding India "do a Lebanon" in Pakistan.
Indian Sindhi, the answer to your question is PARTITION, it effected all ethnicities pathans, Punjabis, etc etc.By the way one of my friend was Sindhi Hindu, they never migrated and owned a huge house in Karachi and imported paper from China were multimillinaires.So probably your ancestors should have stayed back. Come on forget about India/Paki bashing, let’s defeat these extremists on both sides of the border through cultural exchanges and Dialogue. Pakistanis are just crazy about your pretty bollywood actresses. Long live Pakistan. Mr. Riaz you have attracted a large audience in such a short time, long live Mr. Riaz, I remember few days back when you posted this article, there were only 2 comments, one of mine honest comparison among the 2 South Asian rivals.These Indians cannot handle the truth.
Please watch this, its so funny, with these type of Politicians in majority on Indian side, how pakistan can expect peace from our neighbours and what diplomatic language they will understand, its bad really, please watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhequbKB-bc
@ anom
regarding migration of sindhis it was a forced migration and the world acknowledges those facts i do not know whether pakistani history books have facts as they present a bias picture of pakistan. those books are even disputed by UNESCO.......
regarding your friend he might be abbreviation but if you want i can give the entire history behind with facts which if you are interested can go through.......
Sindhis need an answer from pakistan about the wrong doing that pakistan has done to them......pakistan must apologies to sindhis
Hi Riaz,
I knew that you would bring up Sachchar Committee report the moment talk of discrimination against Muslims is initiated. Since, again living in India, I know how and for what reason these reports are compiled, I do not take the "truth" revealed in these reports for granted. My case can better be understood by referring to U.C. Banerjee committee report and Nanavati committee report about Gujarat riots. The "truth" revealed by these reports are diametrically opposite. You can choose between these two "truths" according to your political and community affiliations. So much for these reports.
Another point, "poor performance implies discrimination" is so hopeless a logical fallacy that I don't expect an intelligent person to fall into it. If Indian Muslim community has performed poorly compared to other communities, the reasons are varied and complex, but to smell discrimination into the statistics compiled by Sachchar committee is childish. I also don't understand why only Muslim community has been discriminated against, while other minorities like Christean, Parsi and Sikh have done well. May be with your profound understanding of Indian situation, you can throw some light on this.
What we Indian Muslims don't need is the status of victimhood. We will do ourselves greater justice if instead of believing in the conspiracy theories by the likes of Mr.Sachchar, we ask ourselves -"If other communities can do well, why can not we?".
Final point- number of Muslim Nobel Prize winners in Science is far less than Jews. Who is discriminating against Muslims in countries like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan and preventing them from creating first rate Science? If you come up with a conspiracy theory (like a Jewish lobby in Nobel Prize committee), Mr. Sachchar will be delighted to know.
India Sindhi Sain Munjha - Cha budhayoun tha? Marn wanjhan key tour munjhan? towhan jo dil dado siah thee viyoh aan. Munhanjey elaiqy man sindhi hindu gharench ameer thee viyon aan. Hun key ko be maslo na aa..sain munjhe guzarish aa sindh tey sindhi no badnam karan dee zaroorat na aa.
Anwar,
I admire your emphasis on personal responsibility that Indian Muslims must take to move ahead even under difficult circumstances, as apparently you have been able to do. But it should not excuse the need for a level playing field and an end to systemic discrimination in Indian society as borne out by all of the data, official or anecdotal, that has been reported extensively by commissions and individuals, including my own personal visits and observations.
The Nanavati commission you mention was set up by Gujarat state government that was accused of aiding and betting massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. This commission was nothing more than an attempt by Modi to obfuscate the truth about Gujarat. Bannerjee report was genuine and it was supported by many independent accounts by foreign observers of the events in Gujarat, including Tehelka's investigative reporting. Modi is guilty as sin and there are no two ways about it. Modi and his kind are a stigma on Indian society and on the legacy of many of its outstanding leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi who was killed by an RSS member.
Iraq, India, Mexico deadliest for media
Updated at: 2235 PST, Wednesday, January 07, 2009
GENEVA: Iraq remained the deadliest country for media workers in 2008, followed by India and Mexico, although the number of deaths was down sharply from the previous year, a study showed.
A total of 109 journalists and support staff in 36 countries died while covering the news last year, most of them murdered because of their work, the International News Safety Institute (INSI) reported.
The figure was down from 172 such deaths in 2007, largely due to a decline in the number of media workers killed in Iraq. The death toll there fell to 16 from 65, reflecting a drop in overall violence, the institute said on Tuesday.
"Journalists in far too many countries continue to be targeted for murder for what they do," said Rodney Pinder, director of INSI, which provides security training for reporters covering dangerous situations.
Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, 252 journalists and other media workers such as translators and drivers have been killed in Iraq.
India and Mexico followed Iraq as the most dangerous places for media professionals with 10 deaths each. Eight journalists were known to have died in the Philippines according to INSI.
http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_PAK.html
Sir,
As per Human Development Index 2007-08, India is 128th on the Poverty Index and Pakistan 136th. 28% of India's population and 32% pakistanis live below the poverty line.
However, my point is as India and Pakistan, we should not be celebrating each other's poverty. Rather we should find solutions to solve this menace.
I am ashamed and angry the way both Indians and Pakistanis are debating this issue on your blog.
I think you must delete all these posts simply to ensure that innocent hot headed fools of both countries do not get excited with this interaction and continue the hate campaign.
Also being anti-India in Pakistan and anti-Pakistan in India might give us some short term admiration, but it would be disastrous in long term.
I hope you appreciate.
Thanks.
N
Mumbai, India
Anonymous,
"..my point is as India and Pakistan, we should not be celebrating each other's poverty. Rather we should find solutions to solve this menace."
I fundamentally agree with your point. South Asia as a whole suffers massive deprivation on most basic human needs. The point of my post is that, as South Asian nations gain wealth and prosperity, many on the lowest rungs of society are being left out. Based on all the data such as hunger index, Ginni coefficient, real income poverty (not the contrived human poverty index as defined by UNDP), India does particularly badly compared with Pakistan. But, instead of paying attention to the common enemy, the "hot heads" as you put it, are engaged in war talk which will hurt most those who have the least go begin with. We need to get our priorities straight and find a way to lift people up rather than tear each other down.
the "hot heads" as you put it, are engaged in war talk which will hurt most those who have the least go begin with. We need to get our priorities straight and find a way to lift people up rather than tear each other down.
Give that advise to your Army.This situation is precipitated solely by elements in Pak military.Jehadi-Military complex in your country are threatening the whole world...just yesterday UK MI5 chief was on record saying 75% of terror leads now under investigation and surveillance are from Pakistan. Pakistan is today as somebody said is an international migraine.
My problem with your argument is that when you say.."we need to work together in terror.. we need to alleviate poverty etc"..is hyphenating India with Pakistan and also assumes that we Indians share equal responsibility for the mess which is clearly not the case. You are also of the view that everything is becoz of "Kashmir issue" not solved. Like if that is "solved"(euphemism for giving rest of Kashmir to your Army on the platter) every problem will vanish into thin air. The reality is Pak will never mend its ways. The todays' angels like Nawaz Sharif is the guy who gave go ahead for the 1993 Mumbai blasts which killed more than 300? people. The right approach most analyst here are fast converging is to dismember Pakistan by covert ops.
"The right approach most analyst here are fast converging is to dismember Pakistan by covert ops." as per Mr Jadev.
Mr Jadev, your last comments in this post signifies as if you are the prime minister of India or Chief of RAW, where are you getting all these sensitive information. When USA with all its might could not succeed in this arena, where do you think the Indians stand in this global economic turmoil .Please do your homework on current world affairs before you comment and please come out of your supernatural fantasy land.You are just a commoner local citizen as all of us in this bog. I read detail updated news everyday, plus I have satellite TV with different news channels at home, where you got that BS specially the view about British intelligence and their conclusions.Even if it was really their opinion as you quoted, it has no value, British Raaj is outdated a dinosaur in Global arena, its just like speculating about MARS and commenting about the prestigious and brave Pakistani army, in other words, you dont know. 60 years of unnecessary threat form mega India, what are your expectations that Pakistani defense forces should immediately become Saints overnight, just because you and other Indians prefer that type of perfect comfortable scenario.
So Jaydev is accepting the responsibility of spreading terror in Kashmir and Balochistan. Indian Sindhi....read Jaydev carefully to understand the mind of sick indian extremists. Jaydev - You are all set ...in a self destruction mode...
Dear Mr.Anonymous & Mr.Jaydev,
This interaction will not take you anywhere. Trust me.
You are those true blue indians and pakistanis that our politicians fool all the time and get elected.
Please give me one constructive suggestion on how we can move forward as brothers and not enemies.
I had a friend of mine visit Pakistan during India Pakistan series in 2005. He was numbed by the way pakistanis treated him in their land. He now has a lot of pakistani friends who also visit him in India.
Barring a few, all politicians in both countries are deceptive. Whether a Zardari/Gilani in Pakistan or a Narendra Modi/Advani in India. Unless we as common people decide to live harmoniously, how can we have peace around us?
As Gandhi said - An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
N
Mumbai
India
N
Mumbai
India
As Gandhi said - An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
You are absolutely right, but who has been the bully in last 60 years?
Lets start dialogue, peace talks etc and tolerate this nonsense from extremists on bothsides with patience and understanding.
BBC has a report on tale of two Indian women, both named Laxmi, who live totally different lives. One picks through garbage and the other heads a software dev team.
Here's an excerpt from the story:
"Indians need to stop believing that the country will continue to grow above 6% a year automatically, without any effort, and that our inevitable destiny is to become a world power," says Rajiv Kumar, an analyst from the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in Delhi.
The development model adopted by India - which has resulted in an average growth of 8% in the last four years - also contributed to the inequality that now threatens to undermine it.
The index that measures the gap between the rich and the poor - the Gini coefficient - was stable throughout the 1980s, but shot up in the following decades and is still growing.
Similarly, the Indian states that hold the most wealth grow faster than the poorer states.
Alarmed by this disparity, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that the "tide of the Indian economy rises, but not all the boats are managing to rise with it".
In recent years, the growth of inequality, especially in rural India, strengthened extremist movements with Maoist tendencies, such as the naxalists, who preach social revolution and insurgency against the government.
Today, they are already present in 40% of the territory. The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has already said that the naxalists are the main threat to India's security.
Here is a report in the Indian media with an Indian official Syeda Hameed admitting that India is doing worse than Pakistan and Bangladesh on nutrition:
New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) India is worse than Bangladesh and Pakistan when it comes to nourishment and is showing little improvement in the area despite big money being spent on it, says Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed.
'There has been an enormous infusion of funds. But the National Family Health Survey gives a different story on malnourishment in the country. We don't know, something is just not clicking,' Hameed said.
Speaking at a conference on 'Malnutrition an emergency: what it costs the nation', she said even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during interactions with the Planning Commission has described malnourishment as the 'blackest mark'.
'I should not compare. But countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are better,' she said. The conference was organised Monday by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region.
According to India's National Family Health Survey, almost 46 percent of children under the age of three are undernourished - an improvement of just one percent in the last seven years. This is only a shade better than Sub-Saharan Africa where about 35 percent of children are malnourished.
Hameed said the government's Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, which is a flagship programme to improve the health of women and children, had not shown results despite a lot of money being spent on it in the past few years.
'We have not been successful in improving the status of health of our women and children,' she added.
The annual budget for women and child development (WCD) ministry in 2008-9 is Rs.72 billion. Of this, Rs.63 billion is for ICDS.
According to Unicef, every year 2.1 million children in India die before celebrating their fifth birthday. While malnutrition is the primary reason behind it, other factors like lack of health facilities, hygiene and good nutrition compound the problem.
Narrating her experiences while travelling the length and breadth of the country, Hameed said in many areas women were still starving and finding it difficult to feed their children.
She said emphasis should be given on inclusive breast-feeding for six months after a child's birth, maternity benefits for pregnant women and food fortification of ready to eat mid-day meals.
'We are concerned and worried that we are losing human beings in such a manner. It is a disappointment and a blot. We have just improved a fraction and we are determined that we do not let it get worse,' she said.
'It is frustrating to see this dark and dismal picture of undernourishment in the country. We have to learn the experiences from other South Asian countries,' she added.
The NFHS survey found that levels of anaemia in children and women had worsened compared to seven years ago -- around 56 percent of women and 79 percent of children below three years are anaemic.
Vinita Bali, managing director of Britannia Industries, said the problem was very critical and action was needed from both the government and the industry.
She said their 'Tiger' biscuits had been fortified with iron and had shown amazing results. These biscuits have been provided to children in Hyderabad with a midday meal.
'We conducted a study and found that in six months of taking these biscuits, the haemoglobin increased. The biscuits are not only healthy but also fortified,' she said.
'There should be a balance between prevention and treatment. Our focus should be to target the most vulnerable and then only we will have a much healthier future for India,' he added.
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/india-worse-than-pakistan-bangladesh-on-nourishment_news_927008.htm
Here's an LA Times report on the vicious cycle of poverty in rural India:
India has long been plagued by unscrupulous moneylenders who exploit impoverished farmers. But with crops failing more frequently, farmers are left even more desperate and vulnerable.
Reporting from Jhansi, India - She stops for long stretches, lost in thought, trying to make sense of how she's been left half a person.
Sunita, 18, who requested that her family name not be used to preserve her chance of getting married, said her nightmare started in early 2007 after her father took a loan for her sister's wedding. The local moneylender charged 60% annual interest.
When the family was unable to make the exorbitant interest payments, she said, the moneylender forced himself on her, not once or twice but repeatedly over many months.
"I used to cry a lot and became a living corpse," she said.
Sunita's allegations, which the moneylender denies, cast a harsh light on widespread abuses in rural India, where a highly bureaucratic banking system, corruption and widespread illiteracy allow unethical people with extra income to exploit poor villagers, activists say.
But here in the Bundelkhand region in central India that is among the nation's more impoverished areas, the problem is exacerbated by climate change and environmental mismanagement, they say, suggesting that ecological degradation and global warming are changing human life in more ways than just elevated sea levels and melting glaciers.
"Before, a bad year would lead to a good year," said Bharat Dogra, a fellow at New Delhi's Institute of Social Sciences specializing in the Bundelkhand region. "Now climate change is giving us seven or eight bad years in a row, putting local people deeper and deeper in debt. I expect the situation will only get worse."
An estimated 200,000 Indian farmers have ended their lives since 1997, including many in this area, largely because of debt.
A 2007 study of 13 Bundelkhand villages found that up to 45% of farming families had forfeited their land, and in extreme cases some were forced into indentured servitude. Tractor companies, land mafia and bankers routinely collude, encouraging farmers to take loans they can't afford, a 2008 report by India's Supreme Court found, knowing they'll default and be forced to sell their land.
"While a few people borrow for social status or a desire to buy a new motorcycle, in most cases it's for sheer survival," Dogra said. "When they see their children starving after several years of crop failures, many feel they have no choice."
Recent amendments to a 1976 law in Uttar Pradesh state have increased the maximum punishment for unauthorized money-lending to three years in jail, up from six months, but many loan sharks are well-connected and elude prosecution. The law specifies that lenders must obtain a state license, but the requirements for obtaining it can be vague, a situation that critics say gives bureaucrats significant leeway to enact arbitrary rules and exact questionable fees.
"I take occasional loans when we're desperate," says Jhagdu, 50, a farmer in Barora, 60 miles south of Jhansi, sitting on his haunches with teeth stained red from chewing betel nut. "When there's no rain, like now, you can't repay for a year, so the amounts can double."
Here are "Reflections on India" published by an American traveler-blogger:
First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don't know how cultural the filth is, but it's really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one's health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum--the capital of Kerala--and Calicut. I don't know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India's productivity, if it already hasn't. The pollution will hobble India's growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small 'c' sense.)
The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It's awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.
Here's a BBC report on homeless deaths from cold in India:
Scores die in India every year, being ill-equipped to deal with extreme cold.
Estimates of the number of dead vary from 25 to 100 but these figures cannot be confirmed at present.
Fog in central Punjab region in neighbouring Pakistan has also shut down highways and affected railway and flight schedules.
A number of people have been injured in some minor accidents due to fog on Monday morning, the BBC's M Ilyas Khan says.
Intense cold
Heavy fog and a cold wave have disrupted life across northern India with temperatures dropping to zero degree Celsius in several places, including the city of Amritsar in Punjab.
Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are among the northern states which have been hit by intensely cold weather.
In Uttar Pradesh, scores of homeless people have died after being exposed to the intense cold.
The victims were mostly poor people who were sleeping on the streets or out in the open.
There are few homeless shelters in Indian cities and towns and although the authorities have distributed blankets and firewood, their efforts have been inadequate in the face of the extreme cold, says the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi.
Poor visibility because of dense fog has also affected rail and air traffic in the region with several flights and trains cancelled, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded.
On Saturday, the fog caused two separate train accidents in Uttar Pradesh leaving 10 people dead and nearly 50 injured.
There are an estimated 4.5 million Indian workers in just the GCC countries, about half of them in the UAE, according to the Financial Times.
The current difficulties in Dubai are exposing India's vulnerability to the possible economic collapse in the Gulf region. The fears are deepening that remittances, worth about $27bn a year, accounting for over 50% of total remittance inflows, from the Gulf to India. The United Arab Emirates is also one of India’s most important export destinations, accounting for about $17.5bn in trade or 10 per cent of India’s merchandise exports.
In spite of repeated tales of horror by Indian workers, the Islamic Gulf nations remain a powerful magnet for Indians seeking a way out of abject poverty and deprivation at home.
The village of Akhopur is in the district of Siwan in Bihar, India- from where about 75,000 people work in the Gulf. Most work as masons, helpers, carpenters, fitters and drivers, according to a recent story by the BBC.
They often labor in abysmal conditions with little or no facilities, but many say they can at least earn a living since opportunities back home are non-existent.
In Akhopur and neighboring villages of Bindusar, Orma and Khalispur, every household has at least two people working in the Gulf.
In the wake of recent Dubai troubles, the flow of returnees is ever growing, raising fear of rising h unger and poverty in resurgent India.
Often motivated by religious bigotry rather than than genuine concern, some Indians point to the unacceptable and deplorable treatment of the poor Indian workers in the "Arbi land".
But the real question is why are the Indian workers forced to accept degrading treatment in foreign lands?
Why is resurgent India so badly failing its people?
Why are 42% of Indians forced to live on less than $1.25 a day?
Why does Indian official Syeda Hameed believe "countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are better" than India in terms of meeting basic nutritional needs of their children?
Why have an estimated 200,000 farmers in India committed suicide in the last ten years?
Why are 46% of India's children malnourished?
Why does the world call India a nutriti onal weakling?
Here's a recent post by BBC's Soutik Biswas:
A sobering thought to keep in mind though. Impressive growth figures are unlikely to stun the poor into mindless optimism about their future. India has long been used to illustrate how extensive poverty coexists with growth. It has a shabby record in pulling people out of poverty - in the last two decades the number of absolutely poor in India has declined by 17 percentage points compared to China, which brought down its absolutely poor by some 45 percentage points. The number of Indian billionaires rose from nine in 2004 to 40 in 2007, says Forbes magazine. That's higher than Japan which had 24, while France and Italy had 14 billionaires each. When one of the world's highest number of billionaires coexist with what one economist calls the world's "largest number of homeless, ill-fed illiterates", something is gravely wrong. This is what rankles many in this happy season of positive thinking.
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