This document provides statistics and facts about various socioeconomic indicators in India such as per capita income, human development index rankings, levels of hunger, unemployment, education, literacy, research and development, and defense spending. It highlights that India has a large gap compared to developed nations in terms of income, ranks low on human development factors, and nearly half the population suffers from malnutrition while unemployment is also high. Expenditure on education, healthcare and social welfare is low while military spending is significant.

1. Topic: INDIA SHINING
Name: Tejas Pankajkumar Patel.
Subject: Communication skills(110002)
Enrl. No.: 120110111020

2. India Country:
• The country's rulers have actively promoted this nation.
• Since the mid-1990s it was the BJP's favourite theme, and
even Hindutva was made subsidiary to this theme.
• Thus the 1998 nuclear tests – christened 'Operation Shakti'
occasioned a great display of chauvinistic breast-beating.

3. Facts of India:
Let us recall some obvious facts.
There is a yawning gap between India and the developed
world.
 According to the World Bank, India's Gross National
Product (GNP) in 2003 was $568 billion, compared to the
US's $10.95 trillion.
India, with 17 per cent of the world's population, accounts
for less than 1.7 per cent of the world's income.
Thus India's per capita GNP was $530, compared to the
US's nearly $38,000.
Even South Korea's per capita GNP was over $12,000.

4. Human Dev. Index
• The situation is far worse in terms of 'human
development'.
• In the UN's Human Development Index, which
claims to be a composite of various factors such as
health, education, and income, India ranks 127th
among 175 countries.
• India's under-five mortality rate per 1,000 live births is
93, that is, one in eleven children dies before the age of
five.
• Its maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births is
540, compared to 56 for China and 380 for even
Bangladesh.

5. Levels of Hunger in India:
No doubt, we are constantly told that poverty in India is
declining, and a great industry has sprung up of academic
treatises to show how fast poverty is declining.
 The official National Sample Survey of 2000 revealed that
three-fourths of India's rural population and half the
urban population did not get the minimum recommended
calories.
This is confirmed by nutritional and health surveys, which
reveal the following: more than two-fifths of the adult
population suffer from chronic energy deficiency, and a
large percentage are at the border of this condition; half
India's women are anemic; half its children can be
clinically defined as malnourished (stunted, wasting, or
both).
 "There is already a sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) within India
– half of our rural population or over 350 million people
are below the average food energy intake of SSA
countries."

6. Unemployment in India:
No doubt, one sector of the country's economy has seen
breakneck growth in the past decade: the provision of
software services and business process outsourcing
services to foreign (principally US) firms.
 However, that sector accounts for 0.25% of the labour
force.
Where are the rest? Nearly half of India's total working-
age population (15-59 years of age) is unemployed, most of
it not even counted as part of the labour force.
While agriculture continues to employ the majority of
those considered employed, it accounts for less than a
quarter of the national income, and that share continues
to shrink.

7. Growth of India:
The average rate of growth of agricultural production
during the past decade (1995-96 to 2004-05) is just 0.6 per
cent per year , which means production fell sharply in per
capita terms.
The growth rate of industrial production during the
decade 1995-96 to 2004-05 was only marginally higher
than during the 1980s
At any rate, India accounts for less than one per cent of
world exports. 'High technology' goods constitute just five
per cent of its exports.
Moreover, India's import bill currently is growing much
faster than its export receipts: thus India's trade deficit
rose from $15.4 billion in 2003-04 to $38.1 billion in 2004-
05, and is running during just the first quarter of 2005-06
at nearly $16 billion.

8. Literacy in India:
The truth is that adult literacy in India is just 61 per cent;
on this score, it ranks 146th out of 177 countries in the
UN's Human Development Index .
In recent years, on the recommendation of the World
Bank, the Indian government has focussed its meager
education expenditures increasingly on primary
education, largely abandoning secondary and higher
education.
Yet official data tell us that 42% of children enrolled drop
out before completing primary education (I-V) Another
19 %, according to official data, drop out before
completing upper primary education (VI-VIII).

9. Education in India:
Moreover, the quality of education imparted in
government schools is so dismal that half the children in
Class IV in government schools in Mumbai cannot do the
arithmetic calculations required of a Class I student.
When put to the test,18% of students attending Classes II
to V in Andhra Pradesh couldn't do single-digit additions
while only 12 per cent managed single-digit subtractions.
In a spot-the-object quiz, only 54 per cent got the results
right.
Higher education, which the Government has increasingly
abandoned to a rapacious private sector, is out of the
reach of all but a small section.

10. According to the official publication Research and
Development Statistics (2000-01, the latest edition), India's
expenditure on R & D has been falling as a share of GDP,
from 0.91% in 1987 to 0.81% in 1998.
 According to official figures, 80% of R & D expenditure
was carried out by the Government.
 This was largely not for productive purposes, but for
military purposes: 32% on direct military research, 21 % on
space research (much of which actually serves the missile
programme) and 12%on atomic energy.
Even allowing for some genuine space and atomic energy
expenditures, at least half of R & D expenditure in India
appears to be for military purposes.
About Research:

11. Research Realities:
Researchers
in R & D
per
million
people
Patents granted
to residents
per million
people
Receipts of royalties
& license fees
(US $ per
person)
United States 4,526 302 $167.2
China 633 5 $0.1
India 120 0 $0.2
Source: Human Development Report 2005, U.N. Figures relate to most recent
yearforwhich data are available.

12. Information Technology In India:
India's much-vaunted Information Technology (IT)
sector is composed of two parts: the software sector,
and the IT-enabled sector (ITES).
The biggest supply may be of BPO (business-process
outsourcing) workers who do not need to use the
telephone much: claims processors, credit-card
administrators, health-insurance workers and so on.
Indian universities churn out 2.5 million graduates a
year.
Perhaps a quarter to half of these have the right skills
to do this sort of BPO work, says NASSCOM's
president, Kiran Karnik.
To improve that ratio, he is working with India's
University Grants Commission to have three-year
degree courses supplemented by one-year technical
certificates in IT or American accounting standards.

13. Allocation for employment:
2004-05 RE 2005-06 BE
Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana 45.90 36.00
National Food for Work (NFFW)
Programme
18.18 54.00
Foodgrains component of NFFW* 22.02 56.00
Total 86.10 146.00
As % of GDP 0.28 0.42

14. Agriculture Allocations:
Agriculture & Allied Activities
1990-91 1.22%
2002-03 0.79%
Irrigation & Flood Control
1990-91 1.25%
2002-03 0.94%
RBI, Handbook of Statistics on State Government Finances, 2004; RBI, Handbook of Statistics on the Indian
Economy, 2003-04.

15. State Economies in Trouble
Grant Loan to be raised
by states from
the market
Total
Additional Central
Assistance for
Externally Aided
Projects
5.87 34.00 39.87
Accelerated Irrigation Benefit
Programme
-- 48.00 48.00
Accelerated Power
Development
6.30 14.70 21.00
Urban Renewal Sub-mission
for Slum Development
58.96 14.00 19.90
Urban Renewal Sub-mission
for Urban Infrastructure
& Transport
10.28 24.50 34.78
SOURCE: Union Budget, 2005-06

16. Defence
The official defence budget comes to Rs 969.52 billion
(including pensions); to this we should add border works,
border roads, and half the budgets of the Department of
Atomic Energy and the Department of Space (this is
admittedly a very rough measure: the former is
responsible for making nuclear weapons, the latter for the
missile programme, but no separate provision is made for
either of those two expensive programmes).
The total, the unofficial defence budget, would come to
well over Rs 1,030 billion.
The figure would go even higher if we add the budgets of
various security forces such as the Border Security Force.

17. Military Expenditure:
Ministry of Defence 15.00
Defence Pensions 124.52
Army 312.43
Navy 60.27
Air Force 90.05
Research & Devt 28.14
Capital Outlay 343.75
Total official defence budget* 969.52
Other military-related expenditure (Rs billion)
Indo-Bangladesh, Indo-Pak Border Works 12.15
Border Roads Development Board 11.49
Dept of Atomic Energy 49.96
Dept of Space 31.48