Calli Scheidt & Adam Frogley
Singapore American School
Modern Asian Perspectives
The Indian Façade
Background on Poverty in India
Poverty in India has been a growing issue for decades. India had been under Britain rule from 1830 to 1947; India became dependent on Britain’s economy. Once they were no longer under their rule, India’s economy crumbled, propelling them toward poverty. In 1830, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was much greater than Britain’s but because of Britain’s rule, they started buying their products from India cheap, exporting them and in return, making a large profit. In 1990, the GPD’s switched and Britain’s was immensely higher than India’s. With the alarming population growth that took place in the 1900’s and lack of investment, India continued spiraling downwards until 51.3% of their population was in poverty in 1977.
Another cause of their poverty was their lack of literacy. This limited the jobs that people could do, resulting in “75% of the poor are in rural areas with most of them comprising daily wagers, self-employed households and landless laborers.” Due to the fluctuation of illiteracy and lack of education, those who were educated, became incredibly wealthy which resulted in the failure of the Public Distribution System (PDS). This means that there is a huge discrepancy between the lower and high class; there was no middle. With a fertility rate of 3.3, India’s population is growing immensely fast and they aren’t prepared for it. Their Growth rate expected to exceed China's by 2010.
Not only is 2/3rd’s of its one billion population poor but these people “...are living on less than $0.20 or $0.40 a day.” India’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is $530-$1250, in US dollars whereas the United States’ GNI is $43,740.
Fortunately though, nowadays “India adds 40 million people to its middle class every year. An estimated 300 million Indians now belong to the middle class; one-third of them have emerged from poverty in the last ten years.” Although many people are moving out of poverty and into the middle class, they don’t have the chance to increase their social status any farther due to improper training and slow job growth and limited jobs.
As a result of poor education, mass population growth, illiteracy, minimal job opportunities and the failure of the PDS system, there isn’t much hope for India getting out of poverty any time soon
Solutions:
For our solution, we are planning on showing our youtube video on the morning show. At the end of our movie, a sign will come up saying that we will be collecting money for charity in the cafeteria during second break. The sign will say to look for the tent and that whoever wants to join us and camp out with us in our tent is welcome. We also plan to take all the trash cans on the upper level of the cafeteria and put them next to our tent. This will bring in the smell of the slums as well as attract any people who need to throw away anything. It will be lunch time and people will be forced to come over to us to get rid of their trash. This is when we can ask them for their donations if they have not already come up to do so. In addition to this, we will be dressing up in dirty, ripped shirts to help further represent the slum atmosphere. The charity we plan to raise money for is H.A.R.T India. It will be easy to give the money to this club because they are part of the school. The money will then go to India to help the poor and needy.
If not in Singapore, please visit www.ide-india.org to learn more about India and it's poverty and donate. $1 is all they need to survive for a day.
...do you really need to see more?
Issue:
The Bibliography:
"India- Data & Statistics." 2007. The World Bank. 25 Sep 2007
<http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,menuPK:295609~pagePK:141132~piPK:141109~theSitePK:295584,00.html>.
"Rural poverty in Asia." 18 Sep 2007 <http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/english/regions/asia/index.htm>.
"Poverty in India." 17 Sep 2007. Wikipedia- The Free Encyclopedia. 20 Sep 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India>.
Shrivastava, Aseem. "India on 20 Cents." ZNet Economy. 26 Nov 2006. 25 Sep 2007 <http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11489>.
"The World Factbook: India." CIA The World Factbook. 04 Oct 2008. CIA. 15 Oct 2007 <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world factbook/print/in.html>.
Back to ALL PROJECTS: http://theyoutubeproject.pbwiki.com/
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