hi, Roughly India has 30 million middle class people.An income of 1000 US dollar per month is considered as middle class. Thats one reason of strong foreign market in india.I guess 30 million may be bigger than the population of some countries. According to reports the number of dirt poor people are another 25 million,that is those who are below the povertly line,that means less than an income of 10 US dollars per month. This is what the report and statistics keep saying but any daily wager gets a minimum 3 US dollars per day,however poor he may be. That accounts to 90 US dollar per month.Thats the poorest you can find in india for a *working* person. So its open to interpret what dirt poor really is. That is still too less,considering the present cost of living in india. Open drains,diseases,insanitory conditions are still visible in india-though its comming down very slowly. Go to a govt. hospital,the sanitation and facilities are poor,escpecially in villages. A large portion of the indian community depend on farming and its upto the 'rain gods' that they yield a good harvest. To eliminate poverty the govt. employs 5 year plans. here is a detailed list of the plans http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/welcome.html The govt. provides rations to all its citizens-that is to buy basic essentials like rice,wheat,kerosene etc... at a much lower prices that commercially available. Schooling is pretty affordable to the poor in government schools and there are enough govt schools and provide free mid day meals for children.How ever the state of govt schools are sad. This year there were over 500 cases of food posioning among children in one of the 27 states of india all because of unhygenic food supplied.I am not aware of the condition in other states.The govt. schools in many areas have thatched roofs and some are even very near collapsing.Some schools occupy just 1/10th of an acre of land and some even less. The quality of education is also pretty poor.Most schools only teach in the local lingo and finding english speaking people in many regions are hard.Many of the students emerging from govt. schools eventually joins the labour class. In india the average number of students that pass tenth grade is only 50 percent of the students appearing 10th grade. As for politics,2 of the states in india are ruled by the communist party of india.The case of labour class is slighly better here but now a days corruption is at the peak,that the ruling party and opposition party joins hands to fill up their pockets. More over elections in india are won over simple majority and there are over one thousand registered parties in india.The oppoition against the ruling part is usually high. Rich people constitute around 3 to 5 percent of the population. Rich people tend to grow very rich because India is one country you can be 70 to 80 percent sure that any person you approach will accept a bribe be it sales tax,income tax or any kind of tax. Tax evasion is very common among the rich.If you would like to reduce your electricity bill for industries just bribe them and they will reverse the electricity meter for you. If a few barrels of illicit liquor gets caught,you can bribe them to replace it with water.You can get away with a lot of things and make a lot of money-if you are rich. Atleast there is'nt much stigma in viewing the poor.they are more or les treated as equal and well respected.Others aren't really bothered of poor ppl. These are just a few basic issues.the conditions in US are much better than here. One part is better in india-privacy rights and liberty are much better compared to US and even if you do small crimes you can get away with it. I can spit on the road,i can stand on the road and block the traffic till i just get shoved off the road side.There is no way I get arrested.I can do a lot of things and not get arrested. If u get arrested-for minor crimes,you can bribe the cop and you are freed.I never have a swat team that breaks down my doors.The streets are guns and snipers free.I have no surveillence cameras watching me. Regards Sarath. --- Mike Rosing <eresrch@eskimo.com> wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Thoenen, Peter CIV Sprint wrote:
Actually...the *wealthy* (implied other 2 billion folk because even the poorest whiny american I have seen is a king in Kosovo) do see, they just don't care.
I agree. Even India has a few with wealth far beyond the imagination of most Americans, and many with the same living standard as Americans. They certainly see it. Sarad, care to give us a short political description of how India views its poorest population and how they want to eliminate their suffering? What fraction of India's population is "dirt poor"?
Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
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