India\nis a beautiful nation enriched with diversity among its natural resources as\nwell as social ingenuousness. People of different social status are well\nconnected with each other\u2019s conditions which is the key to our intellectual\ndevelopment and that makes our civilisation survive till date. Poverty is the\nmain challenge for the economy of any nation, but in a developing nation\npoverty is a threat to its progress. As a result, poverty leads to security\nissue in India, most of the crimes being related to inability of having choices\nand opportunities, which is a violation of human dignity and lack of basic\ncapacity to participate effectively in society. In India, poverty is triggering\ninstability and uncertainty among different strata of the society. As Kofi\nAnnan, seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations says, \u201cExtreme poverty\nanywhere is a threat to human security everywhere\u201d. Therefore, in developing\ncountries like us poverty is taking chronic status. Poverty is not only the\nlack of sufficient food or money, but also the lack of necessary amenities\nrequired for dignified social development. Hence, poverty is a threat to the\nfunctioning of India\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oxfam\nsurvey in early 2018 revealed that the richest 1% in India cornered 73% of the\nwealth generated in the country in 2017. The survey also showed that India\u2019s\nrichest 1% held a huge 58% of the country\u2019s total wealth\u2014higher than the global\nfigure of about 50%. Around 67 crore Indians comprising the poorest half of the\npopulation saw their wealth rise by just 1%, whereas the wealth of India\u2019s\nrichest 1% increased by over Rs. 20.9 lakh crore during 2017\u2014an amount\nequivalent to the total budget of the Central Government in 2017-18, Oxfam\nIndia said. The survey and data say that Indian economy is getting richer and\nricher but the income gap in the Indian society is getting deeper year by year.\nThis economic inequality will particularly integrate cyclic poverty that could\nfracture the lines of caste, religion, region and gender. Across the world,\nwomen consistently earn less than men and are concentrated in the lowest paid\njobs. By comparison, 9 out of 10 billionaires are men. In India, there are\nonly four women billionaires and three of them have inherited family wealth.\nPoverty is a lack of scope for wealth exploration too which blocks the\nexpansion and social development. \u201cAs long as poverty, injustice and gross\ninequality exist in our world, none of us can truly rest,\u201d said Nelson Mandela,\nformer President of South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poverty\nis a multifaceted concept inclusive of social, economic and political elements.\nIt is complex to define poverty. It depends on multidimensional elements like\nregion, area, geographical condition, circumstances and many more. On the basis\nof social, economic and political aspects poverty can be identified as\nabsolute, relative, situational, generational, rural, urban. Absolute poverty\nwas first introduced in 1990. The \u201cdollar a day\u201d poverty line measured absolute\npoverty by the standards of the world\u2019s poorest countries. It is usually common\nboth in underdeveloped and developing countries.It is limited by\nmalnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality,\nand low life expectancy.According to Jeffrey David Sachs, an American\neconomist and former director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University,\nthe extreme global poverty could be eliminated by 2025 if the wealthy countries\nof the world were to increase their combined foreign aid budgets. So the United\nNations, World Bank and different other socio-economic associations are taking\ndifferent initiatives apart from donations to eradicate the absolute poverty\nsituations from poverty-driven countries specially Africa and Southeast Asia,\netc. Relative poverty is measured as the percentage of the population with\nincome less than some fixed proportion of median income. It is social\nperspective comparison of economic status. Situational and generational\npoverties are temporary but complicated as people are trapped in it and unable\nto access the tools required to get out of it. On happening of adverse events\nlike environmental disaster, job loss and severe health problem, these poverty\nsituations are handed over to individual and families from one generation to\nanother. More than any donations, specific scopes, opportunity and empowerment\nare strongly effective to eradicate this situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\nin India, 60% of the poor still reside in the States of Bihar, Jharkhand,\nOdisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The reason\nfor these States to be in the category of the poorest state is because most of\nthe tribal people live there. Also, most of these regions are either\nflood-prone or suffer from calamities. These conditions hamper agriculture to a\ngreat extent, on which the household income of these people depends. A disaster\nmanagement and climate-friendly development can really eradicate such type of\npoverty issues.Rural Poverty occurs in rural areas where population is\nbelow 50,000. These types of areas have less job opportunities, less access to\nquality services, less support for disabilities and education opportunities.\nPeople are tending to live mostly on farming and other menial work available in\nthe surroundings. For eliminating this type of poverty there must be\nwell-connected network in rural and urban areas. There should be communication\nfacilities along with good transport networks, so that the people of rural\nareas could move freely and farmers with their articles can come to urban\nmarket directly without any intermediate aggregations. North east or the\ngeographically isolated villages of India are facing these poverty issues.\nThough several government schemes have been introduced for travel and\ncommunications, there is a long way to go for complete elimination. The\nmetropolitan areas with population over 50,000 are facing urban poverty where\nthe urban poor are facing challenges regarding limited access to health and\neducation, improper social protection mechanism, inadequacy in housing\nservices, violent and unhealthy environment because of overcrowding. Senior\ncitizens are also facing this unemployment issue because of high commodity\nvalues and costly medical treatment. Rural housing schemes, health insurance\nschemes and proper food subsidies are very much effective. The rural poverty\nrate is growing and has exceeded the urban poverty rate every year since data\ncollection began in the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the extreme or absolute poverty in\nIndia that is number of Indians living on less than a dollar is falling fast,\nthe other types of poverty are growing more. Skilled workers with less scope\nfor exploration are introducing cyclic poverty. This poverty trap can be\novercome with outside interventions such as different self-employment schemes,\nheritage developments, livelihood missions etc. Giving fixed sums of money or\nsubsidies may not be able to meet the developmental issues in poverty trap. To\nbridge the poverty gap, effective empowerment schemes are highly recommended.\nClimate awareness and preservation of natural habitat can also bring balance\nbetween different social strata as Scheduled Tribal communities mostly rely on\nnature for their livelihood. In the name of urbanisation their natural\ninheritance must not be altered. The rich diversified flora and fauna of our\nnation are very efficient for poverty eradication too as they are home to\nprecious animals, medicines and national integrity. Their promotion could\nincrease advanced tourism which would be beneficial for local public as well as\nbringing in foreign currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
True\ncauses of poverty in India are lack of economic freedom, misunderstanding the\nnature of poverty, political bipolarities where people are biased and confused\nas well as weak and rigid social structure where castes and religions are\ninvolved. Children and women are the worst sufferers of poverty because they\nlack economic freedom in patriarchal society. People\u2019s mindset needs to be\nchanged first as \u201cPoverty is the worst form of violence,\u201d Mahatma Gandhi\nthought. The only way to reverse this trend is to increase tax collection\nthrough progressive direct taxation such as introducing wealth and inheritance\ntaxes and spending this money on education, health, and nutrition for the poor,\nfocusing specially on the early childhood development of the poor. Only then\ncan one hope to create a country of more equal opportunity and spread the\nbenefits of high growth and the country will experience the more inclusive and\nholistic development.\n\nLastly, it is important to understand that the world is a very small\nbeautiful place, it has no luxury to go through
\nthe same route again as taken by the developed countries for their upgradation.\nIt is high time that the developing countries like India understood the nature\nand origin of poverty and found indigenous solution, so that climate, people\nand economy would be equally benefitted. India had never been absolutely poor\nbut past few decades of wealth mismanagement made its people to live in extreme\npoverty. <\/s><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India is a beautiful nation enriched with diversity among its natural resources as well as social ingenuousness. People of different social status are well connected with each other\u2019s conditions which is the key to our intellectual development and that makes our civilisation survive till date. Poverty is the main challenge for the economy of any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}