India ranked worse than China, Pakistan, B'desh, Sri Lanka in inclusive index as Modi reaches Davos to address WEF

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addresses the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday, India ranks worse than all its neighbours in the new Inclusive Development Index (IDI) which it has released on the day WEF summit began in the Swiss city, January 22. Ranking 62nd out of 74 emerging economies, India's ranking is worse than not just China but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
While Pakistan ranks 47th, Sri Lanka 40th, Nepal 22nd, and China 26th, the five countries that are found to rank better than India include Rwanda, Laos, Uganda, Mali and Senegal. The only country ranking worse than India among the the "competing" BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economies is South Africa (69th).
Ironically, in per capita GDP ranking, India ranks better (51st) than Pakistan (59th), Nepal (71st) and Bangladesh (64th), though worse than China (22nd) and Sri Lanka 39th). Comments the report, titled "The Inclusive Development Index 2018", "GDP growth is best understood as a top-line measure of national economic performance, in the sense that it is a means(albeit a crucially important one) to the bottom-line societal measure of success: broad-based progress in living standards."
However, it undrrlines, "As many countries have experienced and the Inclusive Development Index data illustrate, growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for robustly rising median living standards. Accordingly, policymakers and citizens alike would benefit from having an alternative, or at least complementary, bottom-line metric that measures the level and rate of improvement in shared socioeconomic progress."
According to WEF, "Slow progress in living standards and widening inequality have contributed to political polarization and erosion of social cohesion in many advanced and emerging economies.
This has led to the emergence of a worldwide consensus on the need for a more inclusive and sustainable model of growth and development that promotes high living standards for all."
Suggesting that the gap between GDP growth and inclusive development is best understood if one looks at the BRICS countries, the WEF report says, "Performance is mixed among BRICS economies: the Russian Federation (19) is ahead of China (26), Brazil (37), India (62), and South Africa (69)."
Agreeing that has India has "an improving trend", the report says, the country ranks 62nd out of 74 emerging economies and it performs well (44th) in terms of "Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, profiting from a low dependency ratio that is set to further decline as the economy reaps the dividends of an extremely young population (28% of the Indian population was younger than 14 years in 2017)."
However, it notes, "Though the incidence of poverty has declined in India over the past five years, 6 out of 10 Indians still live on less than $3.20 per day. Given the prevalence of inequality both in terms of both income and wealth, there is substantial scope for improvement for India in this aspect." While India's poverty rate is 60.4% compared to China's 12.4%, a related concern is low employment level (51.9% compared to China's 67.5%).
At the same time, report says, "Both labor productivity and GDP per capita posted strong growth rates over the past five years, while employment growth has slowed. Healthy life expectancy also increased by approximately three years to 59.6..." It adds, "Brazil, China, and India, though these are mainly driven by strong human capital investment, while reporting high levels of resource depletion."
Ranking advanced economies separately, the report says, "Norway is the best performing advanced economy in 2018, with a consistently strong performance: it ranks second on one of the Index’s three pillars (Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability) and third on each of the other two (Growth and Development, and Inclusion). Small European economies dominate the Index, with Australia (9) the only non-European economy in the top 10."
It adds, Of the G7 economies, Germany (12) is ranked highest, followed by Canada (17), France (18), United Kingdom (21), United States (23), Japan (24), and Italy (27). In many countries, there is a stark difference between individual pillars: for example, the US ranks 10th out of the 29 advanced economies on Growth and Development, but 26th on Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability and 28th on Inclusion; France, meanwhile, ranks 12th on Inclusion, 21st on Growth and Development, and 24th on Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability."

Comments

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

India, Pakistan told to eliminate nuclear weapons: N-war "would kill" 2 billion

Counterview Desk
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries, representing tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned citizens, claiming to share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation, has warned that “an unprecedented global catastrophe” awaits the globe against the backdrop of warmongering in India and Pakistan.

Women, business, law: India scores worst among all BRICS, several African nations

By Rajiv Shah
A new World Bank report ranks India 125th in its Women, Business and the Law (WBL) index among 187 economies it seeks to analyse across the globe. The report's main aim claims to be to "gain new insight into how women’s employment and entrepreneurship choices are affected by legal gender discrimination. On a scale of 100, India's score is 71.25, worse than the global average of 74.71.

Counterview

Search This Blog