Is population contributing to India’s poverty?
Recently, the industrialist and self-proclaimed godman Baba Ramdev said those with more than two children should be denied rights to vote. We are living in times where people speak about things that never relate to them. Politicians speak about science and sanyasis speak about economics. Baba Ramdev’s talk is the continuation of such trend.
According to him, increased population has contributed to the poverty of the country. This is an old theory. A country like China is facing an acute problem of deluge of aged persons owing to one child policy. Hence, the family planning policy has taken a backseat now.
In a country like India, population is a resource, and people are not suffering owing to the lack of it. Instead, the concentration of financial resources owing to Ambani, Adani, Ramdev etc has led to the country’s majority population living in poverty.
If he is really serious about poverty, Ramdev should talk about improper sharing of resources where the wealth lies in the hands of some rich people. That would suit the perspective of a sadhu such as Ramdev. But, Ramdev being an industrialist, he has amassed huge amount of wealth and resources to himself. Expecting him to speak on even distribution of resources is really foolish.
Are we really a poor country? Last year, an additional Rs 2200 crore worth property was amassed by the crorepatis of the country. While the one percent rich category increased its wealth by 39%, that population in the lowest order of hierarchy saw an increase of only three percent. This is according to the Oxfam report.
Since 2004, the poorest of the poor which is about 10% or 13.6 crore Indians, are still reeling under debts. While the poor struggle to feed their children and buy them medicines, a few affluent people are usurping the resources of the country. This leads to widespread anger, as Winnie Byanyima – the Oxfam International Executive Director.
She has even cautioned that this aversive uneven distribution of resources can cause serious damage to social and democratic setup of the country.
But unfortunately, people like Baba Ramdev are pointing fingers at increasing population and trying to slip out of their role in contributing to the concentration of wealth. About 10% of India’s population holds 77.4% wealth of the nation. The richest of the rich, in the top order has 51.53% of the national wealth. The 60% of the lower strata of the population holds just 4.8% of the national wealth.
About nine richest persons in India hold wealth that is equivalent to 50% of the wealth distributed among people from the lowest strata. Between 2018 and 22, the country will produce about 70 new crorepatis. With them, the number of poor will also increase. The report has said the governments often contribute to this menace by reducing the budgetary allocation to health and education of the poor, and reduce the taxes for the rich while increasing the cap on loans doled out to them. This leads to the widening of the gulf between the rich and the poor. Last year about 18 new crorepatis entered the list of privileged rich in the country.
India now has 119 crorepatis. The estimated value of their total assets stands at 400 billion dollars (Rs 28,00,000 crore)
This has been the highest annual increase in the last decade since 2008, with wealth in 2018 increasing up to $ 440.1 bn from $ 325.5 bn in 2017.
By increasing a mere 0.5% of taxes on the assets of the rich, India can cover nearly 50% of the budgetary allocation by the government for health. But then these are high hopes since the corporate forces are the ones that are running the government. So them allowing this hike in taxes is a very far thought.
The corporates are fleeing from the country after fleecing the Indian banks which hold the money saved by the middle class with their hard earnings. The country is busy hiking the tax limit for the middle class instead of taxing the rich. If only the resources concentrated among the few rich is disseminated among the poor, the picture would be different. The population should be turned into human resource. Instead of that, a self-proclaimed god man speaking against the unborn children would be the highest form of hypocrisy.
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War is not romantic, Bollywood movie; We should not cheer for it: Ex-Army chief Naravane
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Pune (PTI): Former Indian Army chief General Manoj Naravane has slammed questions being raised on the suspension of hostilities between India and Pakistan, saying war is not romantic and is not a Bollywood movie.
Speaking at an event in Pune, Naravane said if ordered, he would go to war, but diplomacy would be his first choice.
He said there is trauma among people living in the border areas, including children who have seen shelling and have to run to shelters at night.
"For those who have lost their loved ones, that trauma will be carried through generations. There's also something called PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). People who have seen gruesome scenes wake up sweating even after 20 years and need psychiatric care," he said.
Naravane was speaking at a programme organised by the Institute of Cost Accountants of India.
"War is not romantic. It is not your Bollywood movie. It is very serious business. War or violence should be the last thing we should resort to, which is why our Prime Minister said this is not an era of war. Although war will be forced upon us by unwise people, we should not cheer for it," he said.
"Still, people are asking why we have not gone for a full-out war. As a military man, if ordered, I will go to war, but that will not be my first choice," the former Indian Army Chief said.
Naravane said his first choice would be diplomacy, settling differences through dialogue and not reaching the stage of armed conflict.
"We are all equal stakeholders in national security. We should try to resolve differences not only between countries, but amongst ourselves, whether in families or between states, regions and communities. Violence is not the answer," he said.
India launched Operation Sindoor on early May 7 to destroy seven terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack.
India and Pakistan on Saturday announced reaching an understanding to stop all firings and military actions on land, air and sea.
