Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts

Monday, July 15, 2024

Ambani Wedding: Billionaires, BJP and Bollywood

Last few months have seen a grotesque display of obscene wealth in India, a country with well-documented levels of extreme poverty, hunger and unemployment. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani has splurged hundreds of millions of dollars on his son's wedding attended by top politicians including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities and Ambani's fellow billionaires who have accumulated vast amounts of wealth in one of the world's most unequal countries. Experts blame it on Mr. Modi's policies promoting crony capitalism. Viral Acharya, former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India, told the BBC that their ability to acquire large distressed companies, a growing appetite for mergers and acquisitions, and India's conscious industrial policy of creating "national champions via preferential allocation of projects and in some cases regulatory agencies turning a blind eye to predatory pricing".

Indian Prime Minister Modi at the Ambani Wedding in Mumbai. Source: ANI

Between 2014-15 and 2022-23 on Mr. Modi's watch, the rapid rise in inequality in India has been particularly striking in terms of wealth concentration, according to World Inequality Lab. The top 1% now control over 40% of total wealth in India, up from 12.5% in 1980, and they earn 22.6% of total pre-tax income, up from 7.3% in 1980. Almost 90% of the country's billionaire wealth has been found concentrated in the hands of the upper castes. The Inequality Report concludes: "This spectacular rise of inequality (in India) makes the “Billionaire Raj” headed by India’s modern bourgeoise more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. It also squarely places India among the most unequal countries in the world".

Bollywood, the powerful Indian film industry, has become a key enabler of BJP's billionaire-friendly and Islamophobic policies. In a piece titled “India's theatrical politics: Bollywood, billionaires and the BJP", authors Sehr Rushmeen and Wanya Sidhu write: "By shaping narratives that subtly endorse “Hindutva” ideologies, sometimes even employing Muslim actors to deliver skewed messages, Bollywood contributes to a socio-political echo chamber in favor of Modi’s BJP...... Bollywood movies transcend mere entertainment; they convey narratives cleverly crafted to align with the BJP’s political agenda. By consistently portraying Muslims and Pakistan in a negative spotlight, these Indian blockbusters perpetuate a cycle of fear and nationalistic fervor to garner votes for the BJP while discarding the imperative of forging national unity".

Meanwhile, India's child-wasting rate of 18.7% is the highest in the world, according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023 released last year. The South Asian country’s child wasting rate is higher than that of war-torn Yemen (at 14.4%) and Sudan (at 13.7%), which are ranked second and third in the world. Pakistan's child wasting rate is 8%. It represents the share of children under age five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition. The child wasting rate of the South Asia region is 14.8%, the highest of any world region and more than twice the child wasting rate of Africa. India is home to a quarter of the world's most undernourished people. According to the United Nations, India has nearly 195 million undernourished people. This is more than any other country, including China.

India Tops in Child Wasting Rate. Source: The Wire

India Tops the World in Child Wasting. Source: Global Hunger Index 2023

India's Hindu Nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to project India as a superpower launching moon missions and hosting G20 summits. Since the GHI 2023 report runs counter to this PR exercise, New Delhi has rejected its findings. But its own National Family Health Survey 5 (NFHS 5) says that "Thirty-six percent of children under age five years are stunted; 19 percent are wasted; 32 percent are underweight; and 3 percent are overweight. Children born to mothers with no schooling and children in the lowest wealth quintile are most likely to be undernourished".

Overall, India ranks at the 111th position out of 124 countries, with neighboring Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) and Sri Lanka (60th) faring better than India in the index. India has slipped four notches from its 107th position in 2022.

India has slipped 4 places, from 107 in 2022 to 111 in 2023, on GHI. Pakistan's ranking has also slipped 3 places, from 99 to 102. It is not a huge surprise since the country is still facing the aftermath of the disastrous floods of 2022. It is also suffering from a serious economic crisis. Meanwhile, India's Modi government is making claims to being the world's fastest growing economy. And yet, Indian children are the most malnourished in the world.

India Malnutrition Indicator Trends. Source GHI 2023

Pakistan Malnutrition Indicator Trends. Source GHI 2023

There's a close relationship between hunger and poverty. At the $3.65 poverty line, India accounts for 40% of the slight upward revision of the global poverty rate from 23.6% to 24.1%, according to the World Bank September 2023 Global Poverty Update. It is the same update that made the following recent headline in the Indian and Pakistani media about Pakistan: "Pakistan's 40% Population Lives Below Poverty Line, Says World Bank". Fact: 45.9% of Indians and 39.4% of Pakistanis live below the $3.65 a day poverty line as of September, 2023, according to the latest World Bank global poverty update that takes into account the impact of inflation on poverty rates. But neither the Pakistani media nor India's compliant "Godi Media" reported it. Nor did they question why poverty in India is growing despite the Modi government's claim to be "the world's fastest growing economy".

Pakistan Floods 2022

Food in Pakistan 2nd Cheapest in the World

India in Crisis: Unemployment and Hunger Persist After COVID

India Rising, Pakistan Collapsing

Record Number of Indians Seeking Asylum in US

Vast Majority of Pakistanis Support Imran Khan's Handling of Covid19 Crisis

Incomes of Poorest Pakistanis Growing Faster Than Their Richest Counterparts

Pakistanis Consuming More Calories, Fruits & Vegetables Per Capita

How Grim is Pakistan's Social Sector Progress?

Pakistan Fares Marginally Better Than India On Disease Burdens

COVID Lockdown Decimates India's Middle Class

Pakistan Child Health Indicators

Pakistan's Balance of Payments Crisis

How Has India Built Large Forex Reserves Despite Perennial Trade Deficits

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Thursday, June 20, 2024

Are Some Pakistanis Feeding into Indian Delusions of Grandeur?

Many Pakistanis are singing effusive praises of India on social media platforms and racking up millions of views, according to a report in the Indian mainstream media. These Pakistanis are boosting their earnings by feeding into the Indians' delusions. The "India Today" report claims that, in the last 6 months alone, the number of channels using the hashtag #pakistanireactiononindia on YouTube increased by 1,000, and the number of videos by 5,000. Calling it an "industry" is an acknowledgment of the profit motive of the Pakistani YouTubers. These YouTubers steer clear of anything that even remotely challenges their unadulterated praise of India. For example, they make no mention of India ranking worse than Pakistan on income poverty, hunger and overall happiness. Nor do they talk about thousands of Indian farmers killing themselves every year. Nor do they mention extremely high levels of unemployment in Modi's India.

Modi Claims "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest)

India's Population:

India is the world's most populous country with a population (1.4 billion) over 6 times larger than Pakistan's (230 million). India has the world's largest number of social media users and hundreds of millions of book readers. The profit motive for praising India extends beyond just the social media. It also includes book publishers and authors who see an opportunity to profit from it. India's English language book market is the world's third largest, behind that of the United States at the top and of the United Kingdom at number 2. It is the fastest growing market today which will make India the world's number 1 market in the next ten years. It could happen sooner if the book sales in the US and the UK decline faster or those in India grow more rapidly than they are already.

Indian Delusions:

Delusions are a symptom of mental disorders, and are characterized by a belief in something that is not true. Here's how India Today describes what it calls "The Praise India Industry" and how it is received by Indians:

"Indians love people from abroad lauding their achievements, but seem to derive the biggest satisfaction when Pakistanis gush over India's success. Pakistanis have understood that and have tapped into that, creating an entire industry of YouTubers in Pakistan".

India's leaders and their western boosters have been promoting the country as an emerging superpower to counter rising China. They cite the size of India's economy, demography, military and consumer market to back up their assertions. These claims are challenged by India's former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman, former head of IMF in India, in an article titled "India's Size Illusion". In a similar article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And How to Counter It", Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow for Asia strategy at the Stimson Center, has raised serious questions about India's ability to counter China in the Indian Ocean region.

Akhand Bharat (Greater India) Mural in India's New Parliament Building

Modi's 56 inch Chest:

"Desh ka bahut nuksaan hua hai", acknowledged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his military's 2019 failures against Pakistan in Balakot and Kashmir. This marked a major shift in Modi's belligerent tone that has been characterized by his boasts of "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest) and talk of "munh tor jawab" (jaw-breaking response) and "boli nahin goli" (bullets, not talks) to intimidate Pakistan in the last few years. These events should force India's western backers to reassess their strategy of boosting India as a counterweight to China.

India's Illusions:

Indian government's former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian has enumerated and challenged arguments for what he calls "India's Size Illusion" as follows:

1. India’s economic size has not translated into commensurate military strength. Part of the problem is simple geography. (German Chancellor Otto Von) Bismarck (1815-1898) supposedly said that the US is bordered on two sides by weak neighbors and on two sides by fish. India, however, does not enjoy such splendid isolation. Ever since independence, it has been confronted on its Western frontier by Pakistan, a highly armed, chronically hostile, and often military-ruled neighbor. More recently, India’s northern neighbor, China, also has become aggressive, repudiating the territorial status quo, occupying contested land in the Himalayas, reclaiming territory in the east, and building up a large military presence along India’s borders. So, India may have fish for neighbors along its long peninsular coast, but on land it faces major security challenges on two fronts.

2. Then there is the question of market size. As Pennsylvania State University’s Shoumitro Chatterjee and one of us (Subramanian) have shown, India’s middle-class market for consumption is much smaller than the $3 trillion headline GDP number suggests, because many people have limited purchasing power while a smaller number of well-off people tend to save a lot. In fact, the effective size of India’s consumer market is less than $1 trillion, far smaller than China’s and even smaller relative to the potential world export market of nearly $30 trillion.

Indo-Pacific Dominance:

In an article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And How to Counter It", Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow for Asia strategy at the Stimson Center, has raised serious doubts about India's ability to counter China in the Indian Ocean region. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article:

1. China has been building dozens of advanced warships that seem poised to head toward the vast body of water through which 80 percent of global seaborne trade transits.....Indeed, a deeper (US) partnership with India — the world’s largest democracy, on an upward economic trajectory, seemingly perfectly positioned to counter China on land and at sea — has been something of a holy grail for at least four U.S. administrations.......Yet what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a decade ago called a “strategic bet” on India does not seem to be paying off. Indian naval and political power in the Indian Ocean region is faltering, giving way to influence by Beijing. Many of these problems are of India’s own making.

2. There is increasing discussion and advocacy among China’s foreign policy scholars and former officials about an Indian Ocean fleet. Indeed, the idea is consistent with China’s efforts to acquire military facilities in the Horn of Africa, on Pakistan’s Indian Ocean coast, in Myanmar and in the UAE, which offers access to the Persian Gulf. China has also engaged in intelligence collection efforts in the region and increased its port visits and diplomatic presence.

India's "Accidental" Missile Firing:

India's March 9 "accidental firing" of Brahmos nuclear-capable supersonic cruise missile into Pakistan has raised serious questions about the safety of the Indian nuclear arsenal. Do the people in charge of India's nukes have basic competence to handle such weapons? Was this really an "unauthorized" or "accidental" firing? Why was there a long delay by New Delhi in acknowledging the incident? Could Pakistan be blamed if it assumed that extremist right-wing Hindu elements had taken control of the missile system in India and fired it deliberately into Pakistani territory? Has the Indian government risked the lives of 1.6 billion people of South Asia?

Could this "errant" missile have brought down commercial passenger planes that were in the air at the time of this "accidental" firing? Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg detailing air traffic in the flight path of the Indian Brahmos:

"Several planes passed through the direct trajectory of the missile that day, which flew from the Indian garrison town of Ambala and ended up in Mian Channu in Eastern Pakistan. They included a Flydubai jet heading to Dubai from Sialkot, an IndiGo plane going from Srinagar to Mumbai and an Airblue Ltd. flight from Lahore to Riyadh. All crossed the missile’s trajectory within an hour of its accidental launch, data from flight-tracking application Flightradar24 show. Other international flights in the vicinity of the missile’s trajectory -- and within its range -- included a Kuwait Airways Co. jet heading to Guangzhou, China from Kuwait City, a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Riyadh from New Delhi, and a Qatar Airways service from Kathmandu to Doha, the data show. No advisory to pilots operating in the vicinity -- known as a notice to airmen or NOTAM -- was issued".

India: A Paper Elephant:

In an article titled "Paper Elephant", the Economist magazine talked about how India has ramped up its military spending and emerged as the world's largest arms importer. "Its military doctrine envisages fighting simultaneous land wars against Pakistan and China while retaining dominance in the Indian Ocean", the article said. It summed up the situation as follows: "India spends a fortune on defense and gets poor value for money".

After the India-Pakistan aerial combat over Kashmir in 2019, New York Times published a story from its South Asia correspondent headlined: "After India Loses Dogfight to Pakistan, Questions Arise About Its Military". Here are some excerpts of the report:

"Its (India's) loss of a plane last week to a country (Pakistan) whose military is about half the size and receives a quarter (a sixth according to SIPRI) of the funding is telling. ...India’s armed forces are in alarming shape....It was an inauspicious moment for a military the United States is banking on to help keep an expanding China in check".

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Guess Why Pakistani Analyst Uzair Younus is Making Headlines in India!

Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani: America Does Not Respect India

World Happiness Report: India Among Saddest Nations of the World

Balakot and Kashmir: Fact Checkers Expose Indian Lies

WB Poverty Update: India Biggest Contributor to Increase in Poverty

India in Crisis: Unemployment, Hunger Persist After Waves of Covid

Modi's Blunders and Delusions

India's Israel Envy: What If Modi Attacks Pakistan?

Project Azm: Pakistan to Develop 5th Generation Fighter Jet

Pakistan Navy Modernization

Pakistan's Sea-Based Second Strike Capability

Who Won the 1965 War? India or Pakistan?

Is the West Unwittingly Helping Modi Realize His Akhand Bharat Hindutva Dream?

Has Pakistan Lost All Wars?

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Thursday, June 13, 2024

Agriculture: A Rare Bright Spot in Pakistan's Economy

Pakistan's agriculture sector grew 6.3% in 2023-24, far outpacing the overall economy that grew just 2.38%, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2023-24. This is good news for about 40% of the country's population working in the agriculture sector. By contrast, India's agriculture growth slowed to 1.2% in recent quarters. Studies have shown that strong growth in agriculture helps reduce poverty in developing nations like India and Pakistan.

Snapshot of Pakistan's Economy. Source: Economic Survey of Pakistan 2023-24

The agriculture growth in Pakistan was the highest in 19 years. All major crops saw significant increases. Wheat output jumped 11.6% from 28.2 million tons last year to 31.4 million tons this year, the economic survey said. Cotton, severely damaged by floods and rains last year, reached 10.2 million bales compared to 4.9 million bales last year, growing by 108.2%. Rice output also saw a significant increase — up by 34.8% — reaching 9.9 million tons compared to 7.3 million tons.

Strong crop output is in part the result of higher yields from increased water and fertilizer availability to farmers, according to the economic survey.

The survey said the water availability during Kharif 2023 increased to 61.9 million acre-feet (MAF) from 43.3 MAF in Kharif 2022 (when the floods hit). For Rabi 2023-24, the water availability was 30.6 MAF, showing an increase of 4.1% over Rabi 2022-23.

Domestic fertilizer production during FY24 (July-March) rose by 17.3% to 3.25 million tons compared to 2.77 million tons in the same period of FY23. Fertilizer imports also increased by 23.7%, reaching 524,000 tons. The availability of fertilizer increased by 18.1% to 3.77 million tons.

Pakistan's Rice Exports Soared 80% in Current Fiscal Year. Source: FT

The value of Pakistan’s rice exports soared to $3.6 billion over the last 11 months, up from $2 billion in July to May 2022-23. Its previous record for was 4.8 million metric tons of rice exports, valued at about $2.5 billion in 2021-22, according to the Financial Times.

Pakistan is among the world's largest food producing countries. It produces large and growing quantities of cereals, meat, milk, fruits and vegetables. Currently, Pakistan produces about 38 million tons of cereals (mainly wheat, rice and corn), 17 million tons of fruits and vegetables, 70 million tons of sugarcane, 60 million tons of milk and 4.5 million tons of meat. Total value of the nation's agricultural output exceeds $70 billion. Improving agriculture inputs and modernizing value chains can help the farm sector become much more productive to serve both domestic and export markets.

Agriculture is considered a key tool for reducing poverty in developing countries like Pakistan. It employs almost half of the rural workforce, contributes around 20% to the country's GDP, and provides raw materials for agro-based industries, according to a study by Yaping Liu, Asad Amin, Samma Faiz Rasool, and Qamar Uz Zaman. However, some studies suggest that agriculture may only help mitigate rural poverty in the long term, while other sources say that sustainable agriculture practices can significantly improve agricultural production and reduce poverty.

Pakistan Sets New Record For Rice Exports

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Friday, January 26, 2024

Indian Muslims: The Poorest Group in Modi's Hindu Rashtra

Muslims are the poorest group in India. They will most likely face further marginalization after the recent inauguration of the Ram Temple built on the ruins of the historic Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The medieval mosque was demolished by right-wing Hindu groups in 1992. While consolidating the power of the upper caste Hindus in India, the newly built Ram Temple, inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will also not benefit the vast majority of Hindus either. It will, however, help Mr. Modi's BJP party win the upcoming election by a wide margin.

Average Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure in India. Source: Hindustan Times

Analysis of 2021-22 data from AIDIS (All India Debt and Investment Survey) and PLFS (Periodic Labor Force Survey) shows that Indian Muslims have the lowest asset and consumption levels among major religious groups in the country. Even upper caste Muslims (Ashrafs) are poorer than Hindu OBCs (Other Backward Castes).

Average MPCE (Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure) for Muslims is only Rs. 2,170, lower than Rs. 2,470 for Hindus, Rs. 3,194 for Christians and Rs. 3,620 for Sikhs. Average MPCE for upper caste Hindus is Rs. 3,321, the highest of all groups.

Average Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure by Caste in India. Source: Hindustan Times

The economic inequality is the lowest among Muslims, far lower than among various Hindu castes. Average MPCE for lower caste Muslims is Rs. 2,164 while it is Rs. 2,180 for upper caste Muslims (Ashrafs). Inequality among Hindu castes is the highest. Lower caste Hindus average MPCE is only Rs. 2,095, far lower than Rs. 3,321 for upper caste Hindus.

India is almost totally dominated by the upper caste Hindus. It is not just the 220 million Dalits (untouchables), or the 190 million Muslims, or the 110 million from “scheduled tribes” (Adivasis) who are under-represented in positions of power and privilege, but also the 40-50% of Hindus who come from the widest tier of the pyramid, the shudras or laboring castes, known as Other Backwards Classes (OBCs), according to a report in The Economist Magazine. Here's an excerpt from The Economist:

"Out of the 89 highest-ranked civil servants in the central government, according to a recent survey, just four are not upper-caste Hindus, and not one is an obc. Two-thirds of the Supreme Court’s 31 judges and more than half of all state governors are high-caste Hindus. When the home ministry recently formed a panel to revise the criminal code, its five experts were all men, all from north India and all from upper castes. The trend is just as stark outside of government. A study published last year of the mainstream Hindi and English press revealed that out of 121 people in senior jobs, such as editors, all but 15 were upper caste. Not a single one was a Dalit."

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PS: Since I published this post in January this year, there has been a barrage of comments (all rejected) claiming without evidence that the Indian Muslims are richer than Pakistani Muslims. The fact is that the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) in Pakistan was PKR 5,959 in 2019-20, the year closest to the 2021-22 for which the Indian MPCE data is available. Using the 2019 average exchange rate of 2.136 PKR to INR, this works out to MPCE of INR 2,789 in Pakistan, higher than for Indian Hindus (INR 2,470) and Muslims (INR 2,170). As to the cost of living in the two countries, Pakistan is 15.8% cheaper than India without rent and 20.1% cheaper with rent, according to Numbeo.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Global Hunger Index 2023: India's Child Wasting Rate is the Highest in the World

India's child-wasting rate of 18.7% is the highest in the world, according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023 released recently. The South Asian country’s child wasting rate is higher than that of war-torn Yemen (at 14.4%) and Sudan (at 13.7%), which are ranked second and third in the world. Pakistan's child wasting rate is 8%. It represents the share of children under age five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition. The child wasting rate of the South Asia region is 14.8%, the highest of any world region and more than twice the child wasting rate of Africa. India is home to a quarter of the world's most undernourished people. According to the United Nations, India has nearly 195 million undernourished people. This is more than any other country, including China.

India Tops in Child Wasting Rate. Source: The Wire

India Tops the World in Child Wasting. Source: Global Hunger Index 2023

India has slipped 4 places, from 107 in 2022 to 111 in 2023, on GHI. Pakistan ranking has also slipped 3 places, from 99 to 102. It is not a huge surprise since the country is still facing the aftermath of the disastrous floods of 2022. It is also suffering from a serious economic crisis. Meanwhile, India's Modi government is making claims to being the world's fastest growing economy. And yet, Indian children are the most malnourished in the world.

India Malnutrition Indicator Trends. Source GHI 2023

Pakistan Malnutrition Indicator Trends. Source GHI 2023

There's a close relationship between hunger and poverty. At the $3.65 poverty line, India accounts for 40% of the slight upward revision of the global poverty rate from 23.6% to 24.1%, according to the World Bank September 2023 Global Poverty Update. It is the same update that made the following recent headline in the Indian and Pakistani media about Pakistan: "Pakistan's 40% Population Lives Below Poverty Line, Says World Bank". Fact: 45.9% of Indians and 39.4% of Pakistanis live below the $3.65 a day poverty line as of September, 2023, according to the the latest World Bank global poverty update that takes into account the impact of inflation on poverty rates. But neither the Pakistani media nor India's compliant "Godi Media" reported it. Nor did they question why poverty in India is growing despite the Modi government's claim to be "the world's fastest growing economy".

Global Child Poverty Rate. Source: UNICEF

Another recent report by UNICEF that went unnoticed by the media is that the child poverty rate in India far exceeds the rate in Bangladesh and Pakistan: At $2.15 poverty level, India has 11.5% children under poverty, Pakistan 5.6% and Bangladesh 5.1%. At $3.65 poverty level, India has 49.8% children under poverty, Pakistan 45% and Bangladesh 35.2%.

Child Poverty Rate By Year By Region From 2013 to 2022. Source: UNICEF

The UNICEF data shows that the South Asia region's child poverty rate at $2.15 for any year since 2013 drops to about a half when India is excluded.

The latest World Bank and UNICEF reports remind me of the famous Indian writer and poet Javed Akhtar who told his audience at a conference in Mumbai earlier this year that he saw "no visible poverty" in Lahore during his multiple visits to Pakistan over the last three decades. Responding to Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat's query about Pakistan's economic crisis at ABP's "Ideas of India Summit 2023" in Mumbai, Akhtar said: "Unlike what you see in Delhi and

Mumbai, I did not see any visible poverty in Lahore". This was Akhtar's first interview upon his return to India after attending "Faiz Festival" in Lahore, Pakistan.

Javed Akhtar at ABP Ideas Summit in Mumbai

Chetan Bhagat began by talking about high inflation, low forex reserves and major economic crisis in Pakistan and followed it up by asking Javed Akhtar about its effects he saw on the people in Pakistan. In response, Akhtar said, "Bilkul Nahin (Not at all). In India you see poverty right in front of you, next door to a billionaire. Maybe it is kept back of the beyond. Only some people are allowed to enter certain areas. But you don't see it (poverty) on the streets. In India, it is right in front of you...amiri bhi or gharibi bhi (wealth and poverty). Sare kam apke samne hain (It's all in front of you). Wahan yeh dekhai nahin deta (you don't see it in Pakistan)".

Alhamra Arts Center, Lahore, Pakistan

Disappointed by the response, Bhagat suggested that the Indian visitor could have been guided by his hosts through certain routes where he couldn't see any poverty. Javed Akhtar then said "it's not possible to hide poverty. I would have seen at least a "jhalak" (glimpse) of it as I always do in Delhi and Mumbai....I have been to Pakistan many times but I have not seen it".

What Javed Akhtar saw and reported recently is obviously anecdotal evidence. But it is also supported by hard data. Over 75% of the world's poor deprived of basic living standards (nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing) live in India compared to 4.6% in Bangladesh and 4.1% in Pakistan, according to a recently released OPHI/UNDP report on multidimensional poverty. Here's what the report says: "More than 45.5 million poor people are deprived in only these four indicators (nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing). Of those people, 34.4 million live in India, 2.1 million in Bangladesh and 1.9 million in Pakistan—making this a predominantly South Asian profile".

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022. Source: OPHI/UNDP

Income Poverty in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Source: Our World in Data

The UNDP poverty report shows that the income poverty (people living on $1.90 or less per day) in Pakistan is 3.6% while it is 22.5% in India and 14.3% in Bangladesh. In terms of the population vulnerable to multidimensional poverty, Pakistan (12.9%) does better than Bangladesh (18.2%) and India (18.7%) However, Pakistan fares worse than India and Bangladesh in multiple dimensions of poverty. The headline multidimensional poverty (MPI) figure for Pakistan (0.198) is worse than for Bangladesh (0.104) and India (0.069). This is primarily due to the education and health deficits in Pakistan. Adults with fewer than 6 years of schooling are considered multidimensionally poor by OPHI/UNDP. Income poverty is not included in the MPI calculations. The data used by OHP/UNDP for MPI calculation is from years 2017/18 for Pakistan and from years 2019/2021 for India.

Multidimensional Poverty in South Asia. Source: UNDP

The Indian government's reported multidimensional poverty rate of 25.01% is much higher than the OPHI/UNDP estimate of 16.4%. NITI Ayog report released in November 2021 says: "India’s national MPI identifies 25.01 percent of the population as multidimensionally poor".

Multidimensional Poverty in India. Source: NITI Ayog via IIP

Earlier last year, Global Hunger Index 2022 reported that India ranks 107th for hunger among 121 nations. The nation fares worse than all of its South Asian neighbors except for war-torn Afghanistan ranked 109, according to the the report. Sri Lanka ranks 64, Nepal 81, Bangladesh 84 and Pakistan 99. India and Pakistan have levels of hunger that are considered serious. Both have slipped on the hunger charts from 2021 when India was ranked 101 and Pakistan 92. Seventeen countries, including Bosnia, China, Kuwait, Turkey and UAE, are collectively ranked between 1 and 17 for having a score of less than five.

Here's a video of Javed Akhtar's interview with Chetan Bhagat at ABP's "Ideas of India Summit 2023". Please watch from 4:19 to 6:00 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/live/pZ5e81ysKGQ?feature=share

Pakistan Floods 2022

Food in Pakistan 2nd Cheapest in the World

India in Crisis: Unemployment and Hunger Persist After COVID

India Rising, Pakistan Collapsing

PakAlumni Social Network

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Modi Co-opting Chandrayaan-3 Success For Hindutva Propaganda?

Well before India's Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon on August 23, India's "Godi Media" started showing split screens with the landing craft’s animated image (no pictures or live video) alongside a photo of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was clearly meant to give him exclusive credit for ISRO scientists' major accomplishment after their decades-long hard work. This Hindutva propaganda has echoes of Adolf Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to promote his Nazi ideology. It is boosting the morale of the hateful Hindu supremacist trolls unleashed by the BJP “IT cell” on social media. It is easy to conclude that the Chandrayaan is now essentially a prestige project for the Hindu Nationalist government in New Delhi. Funding such projects is easier for politicians than implementing social sector programs to uplift hundreds of millions of poor and hungry Indians who are deprived of the most basic necessities.

Chadrayaan3-Modi Split Screen Godi Media Propaganda

It is clear that Mr. Modi wants to claim credit for the moon landing but he refuses to take responsibility for high unemployment and widespread malnutrition in the world’s largest population living in extreme poverty in India. Nor does the Modi regime accept the blame for millions of preventable COVID19 deaths in India in 2020-21. This is what Princeton economist Professor Ashoka Mody, the author of “India is Broken”,refers to as India’s “lived reality”. Here's an excerpt from Mody's book:

"The grim reality is that, to employ all working-age Indians, the economy needs to create 200 million jobs over the next decade, an impossible order after the past decade of declining employment numbers.1 Right from independence, the Indian economy produced too few jobs. For more than 80 percent of Indians, the informal sector employment became the safety net, where workers idled for long stretches, earning below- or barely-above-poverty wages. Demonetization in 2016, a poorly executed goods and services tax in 2017, and COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 struck hammer blows on the informal sector while creating no new options. Indeed, technology accelerated job destruction, especially in retail and wholesale trade. More Indians just stopped looking for work. Set against this bleakness, many pundits and leaders look back to celebrate and draw hope from India’s high GDP growth rates of the 1990s and 2000s. That celebrated celebrated growth, however, was an outcome of unusually buoyant world trade, rampant natural resource use, and a domestic finance-construction bubble. Even as wealthy Indians accumulated astonishing riches, job creation remained weak. The most severe forms of poverty came down, but still afflicted over 20 percent of Indians; another 40 percent lived precariously, ever at risk of falling back into a dire existence. The median Indian lived in that vulnerable zone—and, looking through a government-induced data fog, still lives there. The unchanging problem through the post-independence years has been the lack of public goods for shared progress: education, health delivery, functioning cities, clean air and water, and a responsive and fair judiciary. Along with scarcity of jobs, the absence or poor quality of public goods makes the lived reality of vast numbers."

India Ranks Low on Social Progress Indicators. Source: Economist

India ranks 110 among 170 countries on the Social Progress Index (SPI), according to a dataset published by the Social Progress Imperative, a non-profit organization. The Social Progress Index combines 52 social and environmental indicators.

Over 75% of the world's poor who are deprived of basic living standards (nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing) live in India compared to 4.6% in Bangladesh and 4.1% in Pakistan, according to a recently released OPHI/UNDP report on multidimensional poverty. Here's what the report says: "More than 45.5 million poor people are deprived in only these four indicators (nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing). Of those people, 34.4 million live in India, 2.1 million in Bangladesh and 1.9 million in Pakistan—making this a predominantly South Asian profile".

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Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Greece Boat Tragedy: Are Pakistani Migrants Fleeing Hunger and Poverty?

The extensive news coverage of the loss of Pakistani migrants' lives in the recent Greece boat tragedy has linked it to "hunger" in Pakistan. The essence of these news stories is captured by a quote in a CNN headline: "We'll die of hunger anyway". It is attributed to a young man from the Pakistani town of Gujarat who is unfortunately believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean on his way to Greece. These stories beg the following questions: Is it really true that Pakistani migrants are fleeing hunger and poverty? How can people suffering from hunger afford to pay thousands of dollars to human smugglers to leave for greener pastures?

Pakistan Per Capita GDP. Source: World BankPakistan's GDP per capita is about $1,600

The above questions are answered by two recent studies released by the Center for Global Development as follows: As GDP per capita rises, so do emigration rates. Emigration is seen as an investment as migrants are better-educated and richer than others. A similar 2010 study by the African Development Bank on emigration found that the share of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa remains low despite high levels of hunger and poverty in the region. Pakistan's rates of emigration have been rising along with GDP per capita growth over the last decade. It is currently about $1600 per person, according to the World Bank. Pakistan's latest economic survey reported that the per capita income in US dollar terms fell to $1,568 in FY23 from $1,766 in the previous year and $1,677 in FY21.

Outward Migration of Pakistani Workers. Source: Pakistan Bureau of Emigration

Two studies based on research by Michael Clemens and Mariapia Mendola released by the Center for Global Development (CGD) report that those who migrate are not among the world’s poorest. To the contrary, they find that migration is seen as an investment as migrants who are better-educated and richer than others. Here are the key points about migration as reported by the studies:

1. As GDP per capita rises, so do emigration rates. This relationship slows after roughly US$5,000, and reverses after roughly $10,000 (i.e. low- to middle-income, or the level of China or Mexico). Pakistan's current GDP per capita is about $1,600. Pakistan's latest economic survey reported that the per capita income in US dollar terms fell to $1,568 in FY23 from $1,766 in the previous year and $1,677 in FY21

.2. Successful, sustained economic growth in the low-income countries is therefore likely to raise the emigration rate, at least in the short-term. As incomes rise, so too does people’s ability to afford the investments that make migration easier.

3. These new migrants will not be among their countries poorest: in low-income countries, people actively preparing to emigrate have 30 percent higher incomes than the population on average, and 14 percent of these higher incomes come from more years of education.

“The world’s poorest are not the ones who migrate,” said co-author Mariapia Mendola, professor of economics the Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca and Director of the Poverty and Development Program at Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano in Milan, according to the CGD. “Migration is seen as an investment, just like higher education. You wouldn’t decide not to send your kids to college just because your family is getting wealthier. Similarly, families are not deciding to stay put as their incomes rise. Migration changes lives and economies for the better.”

“This pattern is not new, or something to fear,” Michael Clemens, director of Migration, Displacement, and Humanitarian Policy and senior fellow at CGD, says. “As a poor country gets richer, at first more people emigrate, until the process eventually slows and reverses itself. We’ve seen it with Sweden a century ago and Mexico a half century ago. We’re seeing it now in Central America, and we’ll hopefully see the pattern emerge in sub-Saharan Africa as that region gets richer.”

A similar 2010 study by the African Development Bank on emigration found that the share of emigration from sub-Saharan Africa remains low despite high levels of poverty. Here's an excerpt of it:

"Results show that despite an increase in the absolute number of migrants, Africa, particularly SubSaharan Africa, has one of the lowest rate of emigration in the world .... Poorer countries generally have lower rates of emigration ......Bad socio-economic conditions generally seem to lead to higher rate of emigration by highly skilled individuals. Generally, migration is driven by motives to improve livelihoods with notable evidence of changes in labor market status."

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Tuesday, February 28, 2023

ABP India Summit 2023: Javed Akhtar Saw "No Visible Poverty" in Lahore, Pakistan

Famous Indian writer and poet Javed Akhtar told his audience at a conference in Mumbai that he saw "no visible poverty" in Lahore during his multiple visits to Pakistan over the last three decades. Responding to Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat's query about Pakistan's economic crisis at ABP's "Ideas of India Summit 2023" in Mumbai, Akhtar said: "Unlike what you see in Delhi and Mumbai, I did not see any visible poverty in Lahore". This was Akhtar's first interview upon his return to India after attending "Faiz Festival" in Lahore, Pakistan.

Javed Akhtar at ABP Ideas Summit in Mumbai

Alhamra Arts Center, Lahore, Pakistan