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Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

economist.com

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Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#161

Post by slothtrop »

alephnerd wrote: post #160
kelipso wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the caste aspect makes sense in terms of who a politician feels responsible for when they are in power. For example, typical upper caste politician might feel that they only need to improve the conditions of upper caste people while not feeling responsible for people in lower castes, or just people who are poor in general. I think sentiments like that is prevalent across politics in India, though I agree abou…

Most politicans in India are from the lowest castes - "Other Backward Caste" and "Scheduled Castes" [0]. And India uses Caste Based Affirmative Action using a quota that makes around 60% of all government positions reserved for lower caste individuals [1] > state of government schools in India, which are almost exclusively used by the very poor. State funded schools in east Asian countries are of significantly higher…

> Most politicans in India are from the lowest castes - "Other Backward Caste" and "Scheduled Castes" [0].

Now, but the argument concerns development over the 20th century, not the current makeup.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#162

Post by teitoklien »

amriksohata wrote: post #134

Before British rule India had one of the highest GDPs in the world, it became impoverished after the loot and famines of British rule. Then it had 60+ years of corrupt and stagnant rule, in the last decade or so the people have had enough and are now voting in people only who believe in development. This is what you are seeing in this data.

> so the people have had enough and are now voting in people only who believe in development. This is what you are seeing in this data.

It is a strong reason why people praise the current Indian ruling government ive noticed both among poor masses, middle class and elite, so you’re correct.

But they and the opposition all win elections there primarily on freebies, whichever party promises freebies wins in most parts of India.

It’s just that people are more confident on freebies coming to them, if they vote the party in their province/state if the party is also ruling at the central level, since taxes are passed from centre to state, especially in the last 10 years with introduction of GST, etc.

So yea, it is much more mixed, that just that reason, not to mention, first past the post, and uneven population sizes across different states, also change matters a lot.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#163

Post by slothtrop »

alephnerd wrote: post #144
slothtrop wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check this out: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-how-asia-works The odd one out in this assessment is India, because it did some similar things (land reform) without success. A difference might be that India sheltered businesses from foreign competition and didn't encourage and invest as much. Another, is that you need caste connections to do business. Culturally I intuit that the upper-castes that contro…

India has similar barriers for foreign manufacturing businesses to enter as those that China has. And the caste aspect doesn't make sense, as caste is hyperlocal and there isn't solidarity between caste groups of different ethnicities. Furthermore, caste ranking doesn't fully translate to business ownership, as traditionally, merchant and moneylending castes like Banias were towards the lower end. The main difference…

> The main difference between China and India is China makes it's urban centers de facto independent of rural hinterlands within the same prefecture, while in India, urban and rural are both under the same state government.

I don't see the significance of this.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#164

Post by teitoklien »

gadders wrote: post #69

[flagged]

Most of aid sent to India, is mostly sent to undermine the country.

Most of british aid sent to India, is sent to convert people to Christianity via missionaries. American aid to its NGOs are sent to bring about regime changes and influence elections via USAID.

etc, etc.

Not to mention India itself disburses aid money to countries across the world.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#165

Post by kamaal »

alephnerd wrote: post #119
ViktorRay wrote: post #53

China and India had similar levels of poverty 50 years ago. How come China today is so different from India today? In terms of cleanliness and poverty elimination specifically. I know China liberalized in the 80’s and India in the 90’s. So you could say that’s a 10 year difference. But China 10 years ago was still very different from India even today. Does anyone have any ideas?

> China today is so different from India today? In terms of cleanliness Urban Goverment in China versus India is VERY different. In China, cities are given significant autonomy and a bigger pot of cash compared to prefecture they are in. Furthermore, the Chinese cities that most foreigners visit (Beijing, Shanghai) are under direct control of the Central Government. In India, urban government is subservient to state…

>>urban Bangalore only has around 20 seats in Karnataka's Legislative Assembly out of 224 total. This means that state governments have little to no incentive to care about providing urban services and goods, when they can better invest in other constituencies that actually can flip the tide in elections.

That is because citizens themselves don't care.

Single biggest motivation of the Indian voter base is using the process of elections and then elected politician like attack dogs to hurt the people they hate(Often minorities). This is through and through. This manifests along the lines of religion and caste, mostly. But regionalism and language politics has played its part in the past. But in the past few decades its mostly religion.

Every time a political party does something good, anything good. Especially uniformly for the masses, they are voted out. This is because in a country like India, people don't want things to uniformly improve for everyone. The goal is always for your(community) to have an edge, while everybody else must be made to suffer. Any other arrangement and the masses feel their favorite politicians didn't hurt the people they hate enough.

>>That said, Indian cities are getting better and cleaner, but funding for urban infrastructure only really began in the last 2-3 years.

Quite the opposite, every city in Karnataka, has gotten significantly dirtier, garbage littered and both dusty and polluted in the past decades.

>>Also, one thing I noticed is the 2nd most populous of each state tends to be much cleaner than the 1st. So Mysore is miles cleaner than Bangalore

Thats mostly because fewer the people, lesser hands there are to throw garbage and pollute, its just that scale of grotesque is reduced not the phenomenon itself.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#166

Post by gopheryourshelf »

iafiaf wrote: post #58
andsoitis wrote: post #10

Counter balance: “According to the 2023 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 111th out of 125 countries, with a score of 28.7, indicating a “serious” level of hunger. Although this is a slight improvement from its 2015 score of 29.2, the progress has been slow compared to countries with similar economic growth rates. India also has the highest child wasting rate in the world at 18.7%. And 35.5% of children under five are…

I would urge you to watch a statistical debunking of these so-called "global goodness" metrics. Sanjeev Sanyal does a good job of it [1],[2],[3] Multiple organization(s) that manage such indices are, turns out, funded by the same cabal who want to concoct a narrative. They are not unbiased. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lgf2WHstBY [2] [PDF] https://eacpm.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Reversing-Ga... [3] ht…

You quote a ruling party cheerleader to claim that anyone showing the real truth about India is just part of Soros gang :)

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#167

Post by teitoklien »

gadders wrote: post #109
pavlov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that USAID has been thrown under the bus, it’s actually a golden opportunity for Europe to both rethink and boost aid programs. India is a crucial counterbalance to China. Now that the USA is retreating into internal bickering and giving up its global leadership, Europe should continue building ties with India and helping them lift people out of poverty.

I'd rather taxes were spent on people in the home nations, rather than ex-colonies or other 3rd world countries. I also don't think countries should be spending on a space programme if they are still accepting aid.

They are not accepting aid.

Read this : https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/india-tells-uk-we-dont-need-your-f...

It’s not Indian newspaper, its british newspaper. They’ve been asking UK to stop the aid since 2008, It’s being sent out of corruption deals between UK politicians and local special interest groups who are friends with those politicians.

India never asked for any of these aids. The total aid India receives is smaller than the bloody fertiliser SUBSIDY budget of the country.

It’s literally trinkets and they actively do not want it. India also banned foreign contributions and aid money being sent to its local NGOs without central government permission, just to put a stop to this.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#168

Post by alephnerd »

slothtrop wrote: post #161
alephnerd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most politicans in India are from the lowest castes - "Other Backward Caste" and "Scheduled Castes" [0]. And India uses Caste Based Affirmative Action using a quota that makes around 60% of all government positions reserved for lower caste individuals [1] > state of government schools in India, which are almost exclusively used by the very poor. State funded schools in east Asian countries are of significantly higher…

> Most politicans in India are from the lowest castes - "Other Backward Caste" and "Scheduled Castes" [0]. Now, but the argument concerns development over the 20th century, not the current makeup.

The OBC/SC/ST plurality has been the norm in Indian politics since the 1980s.

China and India only began to diverge in the late 2000s to early 2010s, and much of that is due to China's investment in urban construction and real estate, while India's economy entered a lost decade due to a loan origination crisis.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#169

Post by rayiner »

ksynwa wrote: post #5

I don't understand the significant of metrics like the international poverty line. Seems like the only point of its existence is to create a sense of progress or maybe exaggerate it. They never account for basic stuff like how many calories people get to eat, let alone the quality of nutrition. Last year I read an article saying like 30% of children in India are stunted.

These metrics are there to measure progress, and the progress is real and happening. My dad was born in 1951 in a village in neighboring Bangladesh. When he was a kid, over 30% of kids died before age 5: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1072376/child-mortality-.... This was an improvement compared to 50 years before that, when the under-5 mortality rate was about half (which was about the same as in pre-industrial Europe). Today, the under 5 mortality rate is only 3%. Still higher than the sub-1% of the U.S., but similar to what it was in the U.S. in 1951 at the same time my dad was born.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#170

Post by kamaal »

ViktorRay wrote: post #143
okucu wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read professor Vivek Chibbers book "locked in place". I highly recommend it (any book of his actually). It's an account of why India's economy was and still is an utter failure. China also didn't succeed due to "liberalization". How come the absolute majority of capitalist economies in the world (Latin/South America, Africa, Asia etc.) are still dirt poor then?

It’s hard to believe today but South Korea in the 1960’s was the poorest nation on Earth. Far poorer than even China. In the post World War II era, Singapore was also deeply impoverished and wrecked by the legacy of war and colonialism. Hong Kong as well. Taiwan was poor too. Japan was decimated by the war. All these countries ended up becoming wealthy and prosperous due to liberalization and capitalism. South Korea,…

>>It’s hard to believe today but South Korea in the 1960’s was the poorest nation on Earth.

In % GDP terms S.Korea is a top spender on research, development and education.

To give you a contrast in the recent Delhi elections, the party that built quality schooling for the poor was voted out. These are deep undercurrents of the Indian society. Watching a poor persons child get schooling and eventually a shot at getting better than your kid, is something most of the Indian middle class can't bear to watch it happen.

The motivations of Indian electorate are always- Can this political party hurt the people I hate?

You can't help people whose life purpose is to sabotage good things out of envy that other people will have it good.

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