[Dhiwakar92]

I'm curious to find out what the GDP per capita, per capita income figures are for North India and South India or heck even at a state level ?

While India is a whole will always a low figure, we have a big differences between states themselves when it comes to development, HDI etc.

I'm pretty sure if you were to look at it like that, then there are quite a few Indian states, especially in the south that would easily rank much higher than India itself.

All said and done, we still have a long way to go, overtaking U.K.'s economy given the sheer size of our country is no achievement whatsoever. These rankings hardly matter much.

[arakhanna]

A mentor of mine once said "Life is all about delta" "Where you were and where you are now". I am happy with this positive change. Maybe I am an eternal optimist. I see things improving everyday. Today is better than 10 years back which was better than 20 years ago.

A sure shot way to create unhappiness in the mind is to compare with others. Envy is similar to a self inflicted wound. Compared to where India was in 1947, especially post the worst famine known to man caused by the Brits, I think we have progressed well. Could it be better? yes and could it worse? yes to that too. I am thankful for our progress.

We should celebrate our growth and progress in bringing millions out of poverty over the last few decades. Unfortunately a lot of us look at the world through our jaundiced political eyes. Thank You GTO for bringing a new positive news to my notice to celebrate today.

[Dhiwakar92]

Originally Posted by arakhanna

A mentor of mine once said "Life is all about delta" "Where you were and where you are now". I am happy with this positive change. Maybe I am an eternal optimist. I see things improving everyday. Today is better than 10 years back which was better than 20 years ago.

A sure shot way to create unhappiness in the mind is to compare with others. Envy is similar to a self inflicted wound. Compared to where India was in 1947, especially post the worst famine known to man caused by the Brits, I think we have progressed well. Could it be better? yes and could it worse? yes to that too. I am thankful for our progress.

We should celebrate our growth and progress in bringing millions out of poverty over the last few decades. Unfortunately a lot of us look at the world through our jaundiced political eyes. Thank You GTO for bringing a new positive news to my notice to celebrate today.

I agree, it isn't fair to compare India with countries like South Korea or Singapore, which were similarly impoverished or heck even China.

This is because a comparison should always take place between similar entities.
Singapore is a lot smaller than India, fewer people to lift out of poverty and fewer people to worry about. They faced their own set of challenges, unique to them.

South Korea is homogeneous with respect to its population and that has its own set of advantages not that I'm advocating for any sort of homogeneity in India.

China can bulldoze its way to progress, something India can't really do.
Comparing ourselves with other countries will always leave us feeling disappointed and I'm not just saying this is true in India's case.

Whenever we compare ourselves with others, we always tend to look at what our competition is better than us at, we don't usually focus on what we're better than our competition at. Human nature perhaps ?

A person from Qatar or Bahrain might complain about living in a country that's really quite small, doesn't have much to offer in terms of landscape and places to visit, isn't a democracy etc.

Life is as much about competing with yourself as it is about competing with others

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Dhiwakar92

I'm curious to find out what the GDP per capita, per capita income figures are for North India and South India or heck even at a state level ?

Sample of states at nominal GDP per capita - figures US$ per capita.

5200 Goa
4200 Delhi
2700 Haryana
2500 Maharashtra
2400 Karnataka
2300 TN & Kerala
2200 Gujarat & Himachal
2000 Andhra & Punjab
1900 Indian Average
1800 Rajasthan
1100 Uttar Pradesh & Odisha
1000 Meghalaya
940 Bihar

Originally Posted by arakhanna

I am happy with this positive change. Maybe I am an eternal optimist. I see things improving everyday. Today is better than 10 years back which was better than 20 years ago. Compared to where India was in 1947, especially post the worst famine known to man caused by the Brits, I think we have progressed well. Could it be better? yes and could it worse? yes to that too. I am thankful for our progress. We should celebrate our growth and progress in bringing millions out of poverty over the last few decades. Unfortunately a lot of us look at the world through our jaundiced political eyes.

You bet. Thank you for saying this. In my almost six decades around the sun I have seen enormous changes in our country for the better despite the poverty, the corruption, the cheerful disorganization and not so cheerful disregard for rules. We have a long way to go but lets celebrate our achievements and sail forth vigorously. I do not share the cynicism of others expressed here even though the facts they point to our true.

[Vipin Kumar]

Good tidings as far as the global visibility of India is concerned. However, the GDP and the size and the rank of the economy can have relevance mostly only to global business and not much for internal equality. Even at the level of GDP too, a more polluting country can also produce greater GDP! The GDP needs to be understood in terms of its internal qualities also.

As certain members have already mentioned in this thread, more than a great rank in the order of size of the economy, we need greater distribution of wealth within the economy. If we look at our rank in global health index etc, we realise that we need to go far ahead. Unless there is a political will, tending towards elements of a socialist thought, the size of the economy will not internally flatten itself and will instead remain irrelevant to majority of its people. Economy has no agency of its own, though it can create conditions for political agencies to act, and act upon the economy, seize its size and use it for redistribution of wealth and ensure equality. Let us hope we use this opportunity from now.

[V.Narayan]

The point here is not overtaking the economy of the UK in size. The point here is that since 1980 we have moved from position 13 to position 7 in 2018 and are almost sure to move to position 5 in 2019 even if we grow by only 5% p.a. . This is at real exchange rates and not purchasing power parity – in which table we are number 3 though we don’t feel that way.

For a country to maintain its position in a comparative list is hard enough – such as Australia holding at 15th spot in 1980 and 2018 or Pakistan staying position #42 in both years. But to improve your relative position over almost 4 decades means consistent economic growth – key word is consistent; maintaining political & social stability in a diverse land; not falling into social-religious-ideological traps – even though we try hard to get into them; not getting mixed up in some unwanted war – Iran, USA (?); not getting into a debt trap and so many other factors.

Between 1980 and 2018 while we went from 13 to 7 and now moving to #5 in 2019. Let’s see what happened to others who were clustered around our ranking back then. South Africa at #14 is now #19. Argentina at#11 then is now #21. Spain who were #10 are now #13. Mexico at #9 is now at #15. But Brazil at #16 moved to #9. China at #7 moved to #2. Russia the other member of the BRICS nomenclature moved from #3 to #11. We must not forget the poverty, dis-organization, weak institutions and poor Government that still dogs us. At the same time we may want to savour what has been achieved despite the damage the licensed raj caused in the first 40 years. We could have got here 10 years back.

Coming to income inequality. There is no doubt that in absolute numbers our poverty and all its ills is staggering and we have another 2 generations of work ahead of us. But let’s look at UNO figures of what is called the 10% ratio. This is the ratio of average income of the top 10% to the average income of the bottom 10%. It is one of many measures. But it is indicative. This ratio is 19X in USA, 21X in Mexico and China and a staggering 33X in South Africa. UK and Australia are at a more reasonable 13X. France at 9X, Germany at 7X and Japan at an unbelievable 5X! India stands at 9X. Even if we say the UNO got it wrong for India by a full half measure it still puts us in 13X to 14X range. While I do not for a moment condone the failure and incompetence of Govt schemes to alleviate poverty let’s keep data in mind before thrashing ourselves.

Onwards and upwards. Let’s take the next hill. Nation building takes several generations.

[blorebuddy]

These kind of news does not mean anything
1) When we do not have clean drinking water and sanitation is not provided to all citizens
2) When we do not have quality free & quality basic education and health care to all citizens
3) When we do not have proper waste management system in place and continue to dump garbage in landfills, burn the plastic waste without worrying about the side effects and cry about pollution
4) When we pollute all water bodies without care about the nature and future
and the list goes on...we have miles to go by improving the standard of living before boasting about these

[Venkat_Figo]

Originally Posted by kiku007

India has missed the bus to even be compared with China.

I don't know at which point people will stop playing the British rule blame card for problems in the new millennium.

We don't have to compare ourselves to the Chinese, they have made huge trade offs for achieving growth, their methods of governance conflicts with the concept of democracy, which we cannot replicate.

After being free for 70 years, yes, we cannot blame the British anymore. We have had considerable time.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

We've also ahead of UK in the lack of infrastructure, lack of physical quality of life, lack of government welfare schemes, number of people below the poverty line, number of corrupt politicians, number of high value scams, etc.

As mentioned earlier, the size of the economy in financial terms is of no relevance when viewed alone and has to be taken in the context of the 20X higher population, per capita income / standard of living etc.

While we are headed in the right direction, I agree that we have a long way in achieving a good per capita income & standard of living.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

UK is 2,43,610 sq kms while India is 32,87,263 sq kms - that's 13.5x times bigger in size - that's more natural resources and avenues for increasing the size of the economy.

We have not taken huge strides in exploring our land as we do in space. We need a good team like ISRO to discover our land's full potential, we just take the easy way out, import. With so much manpower, we should expand on manufacturing, just like China. It will take us close to the real goal.

[avanishphatak]

This is a commendable thing happening after the Brexit in 1947.
While Britain is now gradually losing its relevance across the world,
India is gaining value across the world because of her adept smart and pragmatic business people and skilled employees.

Having such diversity population and cultures, comes with all kinds of problems.
But lets sit back and appreciate the fact that our diversity will become the strength for the future.
Sure, it may take us a decade or two.
Becoming the 2nd/3rd largest economy will lead to immense growth provided we have stable policies and vote for a stable govt.

Interesting talk by Nandan Nilekani on our demographic dividend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cYDyMnL4M8

[ringoism]

Originally Posted by blorebuddy

These kind of news does not mean anything
1) When we do not have clean drinking water and sanitation is not provided to all citizens
2) When we do not have quality free & quality basic education and health care to all citizens
3) When we do not have proper waste management system in place and continue to dump garbage in landfills, burn the plastic waste without worrying about the side effects and cry about pollution
4) When we pollute all water bodies without care about the nature and future
and the list goes on...we have miles to go by improving the standard of living before boasting about these

Originally Posted by avisidhu

Spending heavily and working tirelessly on health, education and environmental well being could have truly transformed us into a middle economy country with all sections uplifted.

Okay, as usual another long response:

So I'm an expat living here long and married to an Indian, all this is very interesting and pertinent as we have been recently trying to decide whether to register our Indian-born kids' births at my Embassy, which would compromise their ability to retain their Indian passports and to be considered Indian citizens with full rights/opportunities. Complicated decision partly coming down to the question of which country we're more optimistic about - and not just in terms of economics. I do feel the U.S. has become a bit overstretched in many ways and in those seems artificially propped up. It spends an awful lot of time and energy spinning its wheels at this point, and political rhetoric aside, it can only go on for so long like that. But that's another (long) discussion for another day/forum.

Coming to India, there are weaknesses and risks, but I agree that things have come a long way and I generally expect things to keep moving along somehow or the other; Not as fast as they could/should/most would like but there seems to be some forward momentum at this point. Few things here:

1. There's a huge amount of money flying around in India, in reality it possibly had surpassed the U.K. long ago if unreported economic activity were being ascertained/included - and please don't ask me how I know about all this!

2. A great deal of important change can be driven / realized by the people themselves; Even the best governments can/will only do so much. China's did more than most perhaps, but at the cost of democratic freedom / human rights.

In the U.S. 30-40 years ago, things like littering and drunk driving were more commonplace, a minority wore seat-belts. Large amounts of medical waste were washing up on New York and New Jersey beaches. We once dumped everything in our in our rivers and oceans, much earlier we (like London) had serious sanitation problems in city streets, we had our times of sweatshops. Change began partly with education about all these things in the schools/public media, so that the next generation (including future leaders) would be more responsible than the past ones; Secondly there were the efforts of “normal people”, whether influencing government policy, cooperating with it, or taking a “grassroots” approach. We had “MADD” and “SADD” (Mothers/Students Against Drunk Driving). We had the “Adopt a Highway” program where civic groups, schools, etc, would voluntarily take responsibility for cleaning up/maintaining a particular mile or two of national highway. Philadelphia has its mural arts program for urban beautification in the most depressed parts of the city.

In 2019, our relatively well-off villagers near Manali don't want to do a single thing for themselves in their own village - not even replace a Rs20 village water tap - They want the government to send someone out to do it for them, provide that rs20 tap, nevermind the fact that it will take ten times as long and cost "someone" at least fifty times as much to do it that way. And then they evade all taxation besides!!! The honorable H.P. Government, for their own part, put in dustbins in the villages around Manali lately - they are not well-suited to actual needs (with apple gardens all around, "wet" biodegradables should be put into composting for fertilizer - not into a designated separate dustbin for landfill disposal). So far nobody is using even the dry waste side, litter still abounds, and these must've cost taxpayers a fortune to purchase/install. So there is no lack of money in these cases, just lack of wisdom / vision / commitment / unity.


Contrastingly, out here in Mizoram (wife's place) local Village Councils came up with their own ways of locally making low-cost dustbins of widely varying materials/sizes/shapes, residents themselves put them all over the place wherever they felt the need, and they are highly utilized / maintained - there is hardly litter to be found in most places. Where the state highway running through the village was broken, they collected money amongst themselves and voluntarily cemented over the bare dirt areas between their homes and whatever tarmac remained. As for water supply in a place of scarcity, some have developed self-regulating rationing schemes of their own, depending on household size. Whereas in Himachal our village water tank got held up for years because the allotted money vanished and villagers themselves stole the pipes and built railings on their houses with it. So gov't may put broader ideas and assistance up, but application, cooperation and maintenance from our side is crucial. When an administrative mix-up had double-allotted money for some project to my wife's uncle, the Village President, he explained to them their error and gave the extra back (and they STILL won India's "Clean Village" competition that year!). When the government sees residents as unified and active change-agents, as people of genuine commitment and integrity, they feel confident to provide funding for additional projects, they are not just throwing money to the wind.

3. The economic disparity here IS a concern. But of course there are people with relatively little income whose quality of life is actually much better overall than the top earners living in rather unbearable metro conditions (not just in India).

It's almost become cliche by now, but Bhutan's rather rightly-oriented "GNH" (Gross National Happiness) Indicator bears mentioning, there really is something to be said for it. I'm not sure how it's measured, or IF it can truly be measured, but as an American, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" always made more sense to me than "A chicken in every pot, and a car in every backyard". One sets a supposed universal standard for a definition of "prosperity" (as would per-capita income level), the other refers to things more innate and commonly aspired to by all humans. One can definitely be happy (even as a Team-Bhpian, I'd venture) as a vegetarian with no car at all - never mind any backyard! For that matter one can be happy even with uneducated kids and a stinking sewer running past his front door - but for that he's got to get into the realm of supernaturally transcendent contentment, I suppose, it is certainly not any kind of ideal.

4. The last time I visited the U.S. I'd been away quite awhile, and against the backdrop of a rather happy existence all these years in India, the contrast was not primarily in the level of wealth (some in truth are quite poor over there), but indeed of quality of life; in the 'States, as I see it personally, most things are relatively hassle-free and easy. People DO work hard and some get very little leave, but keeping aside the urban ghettos, the average U.S. resident - rich or poor - doesn't have to prepare for battle whenever they walk out the front door or move out onto the roadway. Things are just quite... pleasant. Less hassles on the road, getting on the metro, with auto-drivers, in government offices (they don't ask bribes because most would indignantly refuse to pay them), less pollution of every kind (air/water/noise/litter), less pushiness and me-first-ness, at least superficially speaking. Practically nothing is “adulterated”. Kids get decent educations even in free gov't schools (because the teachers do at least show up and try).

India is younger and there's nothing wrong with having unfinished business. There is a kind of developmental curve that doesn't take the same shape for every place. Just should realize that it's for all of us to take part in, all the above are affected by our own attitudes / actions, even our beliefs. Perhaps especially for that upper-level 10% category, who fill a lot of gov't offices and classrooms, run a lot of businesses/industries, and make a lot of critical decisions that affect the rest. If nothing else it is they who are also best equipped to unite and hold the powers-that-be accountable for the sake of the common good...

If they will not, then this upper 10% will probably continue to exist at what is actually a lower quality-of-life standard than maybe the lower 50% in the U.S. I think many realize it, evidenced by all those recently filling up places like Manali - people who just cannot bear metro conditions anymore and who've got enough capital / family support to start fresh somewhere else.

5. From my own perspective / situation, I see that anyone here who's not moving with the economic "progress" is rapidly falling behind - But staying with that progress can require, besides energy and drive, quite a lot of creativity/connections/capital that many do not possess. As a reasonably unambitious, simple, decidedly middle-class person from "outside" the community of "movers and shakers", I'm being directly affected by that reality. Land/housing prices up 20x in ten years???!!! It's the same story in so many places; the metros, the coasts, even remote, hardly populated Mizoram... The “growth” may be almost unnaturally paced, and many cannot keep up (in truth I myself am not). Certain gov't schemes are supposed to help those with very little to get a solid start, but unfortunately many of these are never effective because of the siphoning off into corrupt hands; if it gets passed along at all, it is often to those who don't actually need it: “The rich getting richer”. Some of those rich need to pull back a little, hold their government responsible for following through on the upliftment of those outside their own community.

6. Having mixed-race kids of a minority religion does make me pause... communalism does seem a potential de-stabilizer that could slow or stop otherwise healthy progress.

7. In Philadelphia, USA, what drove people in a couple large waves from founder William Penn's "Greene Country Towne" - a well-planned city turned intolerable was: 1. (earlier) The Black Plague (some of our metros were once unbearably filthy/polluted as well); 2. (much later) racial disharmony.

-Eric

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by ringoism

Okay, as usual another long response:

A very well thought through and succinctly written post Eric. Thank you for its balance and long term perspective. -Narayan

[yogeshsom29]

I am optimistic types, before saying grass is greener on other side, I prefer to water my side of grass to make it greener.

It indeed is an amazing journey for the background we’ve had as a nation. As we do on long drives, in this case also I prefer to enjoy the journey & not wait to enjoy only when I’ll reach the destination.

While number crunching on various parameters may offer a different perspective, often true & grim as well but then what is perfect. Each nation has its own respective highs & lows to deal with irrespective of its economic status.

Honest citizens make honest nations & that’s the journey to look forward to.

My wish list to see our nation grow faster is;

•A lot of sense of belonging-ness to the nation; treat everything out of our personal 4 walls as good as we would treat inside.

•Education is important but hey, I’ve seen even ultra educated & uber rich litter around with a who cares attitude. Improved focus on Civic sense is the need of hour (while studying we’d 75-25 distribution of History – Civics, how I wish today that it was reverse)

•Corporate sector to take up lot of community development initiatives.

•As an individual, a will & intent to improve; we have heard enough stories of people making it big despite of their backgrounds & there is much more than just luck at play.

[Miyata]

I guess I may belong to the category of "pessimists" on that front. It's not that we ("the pessimists!") don't have any appreciation for the progress seen so far. We do. The issue is, that's too damn small and too damn slow.

We have had the advantage of massive amounts of data from all over the world. We can easily see many of the problems; the resolution to those problems are fairly handy and tractable as well. What then are we waiting and procrastinating for? Where is that restlessness in moving things forward constructively?

Transparency in banking (so we reduce Modi's --the other one-- and Mallays);
Transparency in real estate;
Transparency in infrastructure development and seriousness about it;
Transparency in RTO and licensing processes;

These are simple things. Easier to implement and follow through.

But I guess, we'll just wait for time to take us there in it's own sweet time!

That's one pessimists pov.

[Nithesh_M]

You can thank Brexit for that. Their currency is losing its values, manufacturers are moving to EU, there's going to be more job losses, less exports, high imports etc., they basically dropped a big sledgehammer on their own foot by voting for something without even knowing what it meant for them as individuals.

Most Motorsports organizations are planning to give the UK rounds a miss for fear of having their cargo stuck at the border crossings and delaying its movement to be setup for live races at British tracks. F1 manufacturers who have their base in and around UK are already murmuring about moving base to Germany or other EU nations because their employees are from EU in majority and this passport game is going to only escalate their costs if they operate post Brexit with no deal between EU and UK. Car manufacturers who have plants in the UK don't want to have their raw materials delayed at the borders and nor do they want to stockpile massive vehicles at their warehouses pending dispatch to EU countries. They're also talking of moving out.

Not saying its all doom for the British folks in the future, but the damage they've done to their own economy is going to take decades to undo. And as an unknown economic entity once said, lost GDP can never be recovered. They might bounce back a few decades from now but they'll be on the same path as we were post independence.

[pratyush6]

Democracy is a major strength of this country. However, the makers of our constitution did not hope for the once in 5 year democratic participation by mango people like us. What they envisioned was a functioning and a participatory population.

The size of our Economy counts for zilch when we have our fellow citizens eating out of garbage - take that GDP number to them? The income inequality we have is scary.

However, it's not all bad and we need to accept that too. We have come up the hard way in the past 70 years. Things like child mortality and diseases have come down drastically. Most of the western world envisaged that our country would most likely fail and time and again we've proved otherwise.
Only if we were more involved in asking questions to those who are in power and (consequently) have a system of accountability, I have absolute Zero doubts in my mind that India would become a true leader in the world.