Contrasting conundrum
on Jana Gana Mana (India), 14/Oct/2010 18:33, 34 days ago
One of the reasons we were pleased to have a VSO placement in India was to have the experience of living in a developing country that is on its way to developed status. The Commonwealth Games is the event that would reinforce that India is on track for developed nation status, hand in hand with its 7.4% economic growth in 2009-10. Surely with all this growth, poverty must be reducing? Well, India is ranked 67 out of 84 countries for having alarming scales of hunger in the 2010 Global Hunger Index, so I guess not. Living in Delhi, I expect to see similar to what I experienced in Chennai a couple of years ago - poverty against the backdrop of contrast, slums next to shopping malls and million pound mansions next door to makeshift camps.So, in a country where out of a population of 1.2 billion, 830 million Indians earn less that Rs20 (28p) a day, is it right that whilst there is such poverty that India can support an event that has cost approximately $6 billion? Still.....we'll be trying to do our bit towards fighting global poverty!And that said, wasn't the closing ceremony a fantastic spectacle??