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India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

economictimes.indiatimes.com

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Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#171

Post by Dharmakirti »

acchow wrote: post #164
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #3

One of the best things about living in India is watching families move from lower or lower-middle class to middle-class status. Usually, all it takes is someone from the family landing a white-collar job. While the tech bodyshops (TCS, Infosys, etc.) might have a poor reputation in the US, these companies have been absolutely critical in helping move tens of millions into middle-class respectability.

Is TCS/Infosys/etc taking a risk on hiring untrained/undertrained employees and putting in the effort to train them? Or did they get training through a college/university? If the latter, I’d say education is helping pull these people out of poverty.

Indias software sector is so starved of talented resources that they have already started tapping into rural areas. e.g. navgurukul.org

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#172

Post by dotnet00 »

newsclues wrote: post #85

Hasn't there been recent news about toxic pollution in the region? What good is lifting people out of poverty, if they are lifted out of poverty and placed in a toxic urban environment?

If they aren't in poverty you have more options for reducing pollution.

When someone is so poor that they can just barely feed themselves and their family, you can't realistically expect them to do much to reduce pollution. You can't really enforce pollution regulation because they can't pay fines and tossing them in prison only makes things worse.

When they're able to afford some luxuries they're capable of devoting more thought towards their environment and can afford to spend more for more environmentally friendly living.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#173

Post by _zamorano_ »

richard___ wrote: post #28
mensetmanusman wrote: post #15

Such an awesome accomplishment. Also, it’s interestingly a huge black eye to the CCP: news of this Indian accomplishment will be censored in China, because it proves that nations can progress without forced-sterilization/-abortion/-1-child-policy/authoritarianism/ etc.

Why do so many people on HN hate on China? What's your relationship with Chinese people in your personal life?

It's the double standards, you know. Not being able to vote, and so... While the US and its war machine has lost track of destroyed countries in this last decades in an Orwellian permanent conflict.

But the bad guys are the chinese, who hasn't been involved in a war in 40 years.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#174

Post by baybal2 »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #92
anthropodie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those millions who moved to middle class are also helping the layer below them. These lifted households are spending their wealth on house helps, local grocery stores, taxis/autos and a whole lot of other local businesses. This trickle down effect then boosts development in cities where these IT hubs are located. Even more students then want to join these IT companies and enjoy the lifestyle of their seniors thus con…

You seem to be close to the situation. Do you think Indian Walmart is a future inevitability?

No post body was provided.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#175

Post by abdullahkhalids »

Dharmakirti wrote: post #169
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Asia was captured by the East India Company, and the wealth of its people systematically extracted over centuries. This is different from the many other local wars and invasions that happened in India before and during this time, where either the invaders left after stealing wealth once, or they stayed and generally tried to improve the area they captured. Systematic extraction of wealth was only a feature of c…

> hate for capitalism is pretty old in certain parts of the world. I would like to have a different take. India has a strong merchant class since aeons and market economy was never a taboo culturally. You can see that in the entrepreneurs like Bansals, Agrawals, Shahs that are at the helm of Indian Unicorns. So yes, there is a skepticism about 'western' capitalism, but not for market economics.

I don't see how we disagree. I am aware that capitalism and market based economies are not one-to-one. The share-holder system is what results in massive exploitation in capitalism. Market economies can also exploit but not in the same dispassionate way that share-holders do.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#176

Post by vhanda »

atentaten wrote: post #158

> India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN At what costs? I've heard this narrative before as it has happened in many Western countries and it is continuing to happen in China. I don't have the answer, but I always wonder about the costs of lifting so many people out of poverty, for example, there could be costs related to: environment, quality of life, traditions and values, mental health, etc. Along wi…

> I wonder how did they get into poverty in the first place. A lot of areas that are now declared as poverty zones today may have been poor in the past, but were self-sufficient and self sustaining.

Well, when the British left in 1945, roughly 15% of the country was literate [0], now that is up to 77% [0]. From here [1], it seems that poverty was around 45% of the population (361 million). It also says the rate varied based on how the monsoon season went, which makes sense for a primarily agrarian society, especially one which had to import food to meet their needs till 1965 (roughly).

so, basically, the British didn't leave India in a good place. See [2]

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India#/media/File:...

[1] - https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACR801.pdf

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#177

Post by GordonS »

acchow wrote: post #164
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #3

One of the best things about living in India is watching families move from lower or lower-middle class to middle-class status. Usually, all it takes is someone from the family landing a white-collar job. While the tech bodyshops (TCS, Infosys, etc.) might have a poor reputation in the US, these companies have been absolutely critical in helping move tens of millions into middle-class respectability.

Is TCS/Infosys/etc taking a risk on hiring untrained/undertrained employees and putting in the effort to train them? Or did they get training through a college/university? If the latter, I’d say education is helping pull these people out of poverty.

IME (I led offshore teams of Indian devs for years), the quality of the in-house training TCS/Infosys/Cognizant/Capgemini etc provide for employees is... poor. They seem to focus on quantity over quality, presumably so devs have lots of "relevant" training to pad CVs with.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#178

Post by colinmhayes »

atentaten wrote: post #158

> India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN At what costs? I've heard this narrative before as it has happened in many Western countries and it is continuing to happen in China. I don't have the answer, but I always wonder about the costs of lifting so many people out of poverty, for example, there could be costs related to: environment, quality of life, traditions and values, mental health, etc. Along wi…

> I wonder how did they get into poverty in the first place.

Human history is basically nothing but suffering and starvation. 80% of the population was living in extreme poverty before the industrial revolution. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio...

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#179

Post by InTheArena »

quicklime wrote: post #110
InTheArena wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globalization certainly, to the degree that the United States has pushed and opened borders, absolutely. To the degree that pseudo-communistic countries have reformed their legal systems to respect the rule of law and property, that has little to do with the United States. The guy who can't get a lifetime job at a shirt factory, steelworks, or software job in the USA also "paid" for this.

The global economy is not a zero sum game, and globalisation worked well for the USA as a whole. Americans just didn’t share that newfound wealth with the lower classes as well as India did.

Actually, multiple studies have shown that yes, while some did get richer in the USA, the cost of globalization - worldwide - was mainly born by the middle class. People in poverty received governmental assistance.

And as someone who is in India frequently, the idea that newfound wealth was shared as a deliberate policy mechanism with lower classes is somewhat ... discredited.

I believe in globalization - but the US government should have done a better job helping people with it's impacts, and the developed world should stop pretending that there was no cost to others to make it happen.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

#180

Post by sabujp »

Why does the US need to stick to a 2% inflation rate? India's has exceeded 5% for decades (https://www.worlddata.info/asia/india/inflation-rates.php#:~....). Indian stock market shows no signs of recession. If you held since 1990 (or inception) (data from tv https://www.tradingview.com/x/rGnAJxlH/) :

Ethereum +9110%

India NIFTY50 +6059%

Bitcoin +5566%

Nasdaq100 +4705%

Shanghai SSE Composite +2307%

NIFTY100 +1709%

SPX S&P 500 +908%

SSE50 +227%

SSE100 +67%

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