Most national newspapers in India today have two headlines 'SENSEX Falls Below 10,000 ' & 'Sachin the first to reach 12,000.'
We have been repeatedly told over the past month or so that the fundamentals of Indian economy are strong & the global meltdown (initiated by the meltdown in the US) won't have any major impact on the Indian market.Now we know for sure that this is not true.Diwali is about a fortnight away & people instead of buying are selling gold!
My view is that the primary reason is the size of our economy.
Our per capita income is very low.So even though we have more than a billion people our economy as a whole doesn't count for much in the global market.There are different ways of measuring economy like GDP,PPP,etc. however the US economy accounts for around 20% of the global economy right now & India's share is barely 2%.That means our economy is about 10% of the US economy even though our population is nearly 4 times compared to that nation.That means an average US worker is 40 times more productive than an Indian worker.If we take a look back in history our situation wasn't always so bad.
Graph from : Visualizing Economics
So how do we make our workforce more productive.I believe the first step would be to eliminate hunger. India ranks 66th out of 88 nations on the Global Hunger Index.The first India State Hunger Index tells the same story.
More on the same topic next month.
Realted Posts :
P K Sinha : National Smart Identity Card : 18.01.2010
!Bravo Bazira !
This was a fascinating graph. China is making a comeback - do you suppose from population control? What happened to India? The British?
ReplyDeleteI had to look up Dehradun in Wikipedia. What a beautiful valley!
Very rightly put. India has miles to go. Govt beats on beating droms of our economy, de-coupled frpm USA. The result is in front of us. There are many skeletons in the almirah. Wait for them...
ReplyDeleteGood and eduvative page.
Yes katharine visualizing economics has got lots of easy to understand info.
ReplyDeleteWell China started it's liberalisation process a lot earlier than India & they have a strong central govt.I guess India never really industrialized fully.Britishers were more interested in sourcing Indian raw materials,processing them in Britain n then selling them all over the world.
What has been has been we have to look forward.India is a young nation & though our 2 generations after Independence cudn't really compete well I have hope from the future generation.My state 'Uttarakhand' is located in central Himalayas.Lots of beauty.Plz take a look at www.uttaranchal.ws n www.ghughuti.com when u have time.
I am glad u liked the most Mr.Kundra wud post more on Indian economy.
Mr.Kundra plz read most as post :)
ReplyDeleteWe shud have an option to edit posts.
I just hope as your country matures that your people don't lose their ethics and values as some of ours have! We still have a great country, but I'm afraid the materialism and me-ness are going to be our downfall.
ReplyDeleteBTW, thanks for visiting our blog again!
Britain's draining India's resources is much what the US and the rest of the world has been doing to Latin America for the last 100 years.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game about the politics between England and Russia in the 1800's over the issue of who would have control of India's resources.
Keep up the good blogging!
Pat every thing has it's pros & cons.I spent 3 yrz in S Korea & itt wasn't the country I expected it to be.In the past 4 decades the social fabric has been torn apart there as people have more to spend.Same thing is happening in India.Economic freedom means people becoming more individualistic & caring less about the social norms.It is not 100% bad.I'm not sure if u've visited India but areas which are less economically develop also usually score high on social vices like female infanticide & dowry deaths.I guess it's the case of a half-full half-empty glass.Depends which way u wanna look at it.
ReplyDeleteI try & visit blogs of bloggers who've commented on my blog atleast once a month.
Katharine let's not foregt Africa.I respect Africa as it's the first home of human beings.It's also the richest continent in more ways than one.However European nations continue to exploit it.I'll try & get hold of the book.
Wow I did not know I blog well :)Thanx a lot n keep in touch.