India is one
of the oldest countries in Asia that has come a long way to bear the tag of
emerging nations. Over the years India has progressed well in some of the major
fields and has proved the world that it has the potential to become a leading
economy. Many Indians have proved their mettle in various international arenas
and have made the world to take a look at them. Ever since the independence
India has shown path breaking developments in different sectors particularly
trade and scientific developments. India has become a member of the G20 nations
and it is one of the members of BRICS nations. All these drastic changes have
made India joining the club of developing countries. On account of these
changes former president and scientist Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has envisaged a
vision - India 2020.
It has been 65
years since India got freedom from the British rule and becoming an independent
country after partition. This is supposed to be quite a very long time but we
are still a developing nation. This is really something to take note of. How
long are we going to be called as a developing country? When are we going to become
a developed country? Are we going to
achieve our vision of India 2020 with the present rate at which India is
growing? Definitely the answer is no. Generations after generation we keep
reading the same statement in history “India is a developing country”. We are
on the path of becoming a leading economy of the world. India realized the need
to open its market to the global economy and thus came the New Economic Policy
in 1991. India at that time was facing a severe Balance Of Payments (BOP)
problem. The new economic policy introduced the concept LPG. It is liberalizing
the rules and trade barriers, privatization of public sector companies and
globalization of the Indian economy. Ever since opening our economy to the
global market we have been witnessing a dramatic change in trade and business
and we were able to achieve a rapid economic growth. Consumerism has grown
tremendously and people are now open to innovative products. If you just see
Gross Domestic Product as the only measure of our development as politicians
claim it to be then you are wrong. Because GDP fail to reflect the real
prosperity of a nation. Let us now see where we stand in some of the key
indicators on global scale.
India is
ranked at 134 out of 187 countries in Human Development Index as per 2011 data.
The HDI is a measure of education, health, standard of living and income
parameters. India falls under the category of medium human development. Our
country also lags behind many other Asian countries like china, srilanka and
Maldives. The HDI value increased marginally from 0.344 to 0.547 between 1980
and 2011 on account of increase in life expectancy. On Quality Of Life Index it
ranks at 77 out of 111 countries. On literacy India is ranked at 168 out of 234
countries. India despite rapid economic growth has a very low per capita income
making it the poorest country among the G20 nations. This is because of huge
income gap and wealth inequality. India ranks 95 out of 178 countries in terms
of corruption which is bit surprising making us think how much other countries
are involved in corruption. Billions of black money is slashed away by our
politicians at Swiss bank. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development for international student assessment program ranked India at 72 out
of 73 on global educational survey. Indian students performed poorly. The
education system for a long time has undergone serious criticism. The Indian
education system is mostly based on just teacher student interaction in
classroom and rote learning. The funds allocated for education even in the
recent budget is very low compared to global standards. The OECD report also
stated that it is very difficult doing business in India. The report ranked India
at 173. This is hugely because the clearance is very slow in our country.
Malnutrition and hunger level is on rise. The only area in which we top is the
population rate on which we are ranked at 2 among 221 countries, china being
the first.
China is the
biggest competitor of India and has emerged as one of the super power economy
in the recent times. This is mainly attributed to their overwhelming
performance post the global crisis. And they almost lead us on various fronts.
Many other countries like Japan, Singapore and Malaysia have developed on various
fields like technology, infrastructural development and per capita income. So
what is that making our country to lag behind all these other emerging
economies? The answer is politics. The present political system in India is
ruled by the older generations. Indian politics is considered to be very worst
and dirty with huge corruption and false promises. A common man named Anna
Hazzare has been denied and criticized by the ruling government for raising his
voice against corruption in India and demanding a bill to abolish corruption in
India. The news was all over for a while and then gone in vain. If alone all
these black money slashed away by our politicians is brought to our country,
India will be free from all foreign debts and can finance the current fiscal
deficit and trade deficit which is of a big worry. And moreover the money can
be used for infrastructural development which is now very much essential for
the current economic slowdown. With the defense expenditure being hiked in
every budget for improving the standard of our armed forces , protecting our
country from terrorism we still live with constant fear of attacks. The tragic
Mumbai blast and the recent bomb blast at Hyderabad stands testimony to it.
What about attacks caused internally? Indian women face insecurity and now
after the recent Delhi gang rape they live with fear and feel insecure. The
sad part is that the president’s son calling the protests on the case as a
drama. There has been increasing suicides of farmers and students. With all this now you can guess where
we will stand at the Happy Planet Index. So only if the political system is cleaned and
handed over to the next generation who are ambitious with bigger dreams can we
expect a better India. If not, only if the current politicians come to sense
and realise their actual job we will be able to achieve our visions and goals
if not by 2020 atleast by 2050.
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