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How Kerala got rich

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Re: How Kerala got rich

#61
Kerala has extremely aggressive out-migration (including my entire family): it is a bad place to be ambitious, particularly with the France-like union culture. If India is to become China-rich or Mexico-rich, my prediction is Kerala will regress to the mean of India states. Its model seems geared towards being an extremely good place to be poor (which is a huge achievement to be clear: they dealt with COVID better than the US, universal literacy is amazing etc) but not towards getting richer.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#62

Paragraph after paragraph restating the question, then: > In short ways, four forces of change – Kerala’s reintegration with the global economy, remittances from the Persian Gulf, strong welfare policies from a legacy of Leftist government, and private investment from individuals and businesses who shared the remittance flows – have combined to form the structure of Kerala’s miracle of human wellbeing with economic g…

So sending tons of people to be indentured servants in Saudi Arabian was the secret sauce.

> Hundreds of thousands of people migrated to the Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar to work in construction, retail and services, sectors that saw a massive investment boom following the two oil shocks of 1973 and 1979.

> The demand for skilled workers increased as the Gulf economies diversified from oil-based jobs to finance and business services. While offering jobs in the millions, the migration also had a series of broad effects back home on occupational diversification, skill accumulation, changing gender roles, consumption, economic and social mobility, and demographic transitions.

It looks like there they were employed across the value chain and the peninsula, some (many?) of which I do not think typically practices modern-day slavery.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#64
Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece- "Kerala: A ghost town in the world's most populated country" [0].

Many laborers from my state- West Bengal travel to ameliorate the labor shortage of Kerala. Because their laborers are in the Gulf. The unskilled labor wage in Kerala is almost twice of my state.

There is a common phrase in Bengal- "Kerala money" to explain big, well-made houses in villages mired with poverty. Many people, mainly Muslims migrate en masse to Kerala to earn a relatively much higher income and save the money to build big houses and buy motorbikes. We call that "Kerala money".

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64936519

Re: How Kerala got rich

#65

Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece- "Kerala: A ghost town in the world's most populated country" [0]. Many laborers from my state- West Bengal travel to ameliorate the labor shortage of Kerala. Because their laborers are in the Gulf. The uns…

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Re: How Kerala got rich

#66
post #28
post #8

Looks like this is one sided political propaganda article. Googling shows real picture. Unemployment is at 40%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_Kerala Kerala is in the grip of a surging drug crisis https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/kerala-is-in... Kerala rooting on central govt to solve state's Rs 26,000 crore monthly expenditure crisis https://keralakaumudi.com/en/news/news.php?id=1498119…

Yep. I lived there for the first two decades, and outside Kerala for the next two and a bit. The only thing Kerala exports is the workforce, since it's impossible to start anything in Kerala thanks to politics and high costs. I know because I've tried. Kerala had historical ties with the Middle East thanks in part to a substantial Muslim population, and the migrant labour force was able to funnel some of Middle Easte…

It's not clear what you tried to start and absent any other information your personal failure at it isn't a compelling alternative picture of the region's development to me.

I'm sure there are valid other views than the one presented in the article, I'm not saying there aren't. But as someone who doesn't know much about the region, you aren't really giving me more information about it, or giving me any reasons to take your view more seriously than the one presented in the article.

Re: How Kerala got rich

#67

> Fifty years ago it was one of India’s poorest states Yea that is a absolutely wrong. A state that had the highest literacy rate at independence will unsurprisingly remain at the higher end of developmental rankings.. In the 1970s Kerala was already comparable to Indian states from a human development and economic standpoint because of a strong shipbuilding and cooperative agricultural program (same with then undivi…

As per your 1st document (page 15). Kerala has risen from 84.6 to 152 (~80%) while Haryana from 106.9 to 176.8 (~65%) in addition to the fact that most of the Haryana's growth has come from being in proximity of New Delhi. Same for Tamil Nadu (56%).

Re: How Kerala got rich

#69
y is this on HN first page? by wat measure is Kerala rich? No industries if exports bodies to ME, commie rule for decades atrophied all industry. It's a political hitjob against India central gov, HN should keep its standard above this shitshow

Re: How Kerala got rich

#70

> Fifty years ago it was one of India’s poorest states Yea that is a absolutely wrong. A state that had the highest literacy rate at independence will unsurprisingly remain at the higher end of developmental rankings.. In the 1970s Kerala was already comparable to Indian states from a human development and economic standpoint because of a strong shipbuilding and cooperative agricultural program (same with then undivi…

Hopefully Uttarakhand can follow Himachal Pradesh, but it is ravaged by national parties as of now, best case scenario, the new youth leadership of UKD actually wins and does some work
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