wong wrote:The source is most likely the 2009-2010 economic from your ministry of finance. Mr. Venkatesan thinks its 800 million, not 900 million.
No shit Sherlock! You're so perceptive Wong.
If you haven't read the economic survey then don't try to wisecrack about what's in it or not.
As regards what sh1t heads like Venkatesan says, don't put too much importance to it, we Indians don't. I know it's a bit of cognitive dissonance for the Chinese to see folks like Venkatesan, and one of the world's richest men like Azim Premji openly criticising the government. I mean if they had been Chinese then we all know what kind of treatment these "dissidents" would have received. However, what to do we poor In'juns are like that onlee, we say what we feel.
As regards the numbers, like Suraj said, it does not pass the smell test. 600 million cellphone owners in a country with 800 million out of 1.1 billion in dire poverty, come on even you can't seriously believe that can you?
If you are really interested in looking into this further you could have a look at
this paper by Angus Deaton (Princeton University) and Jean Drèze (Allahabad University). Have no fear Drèze is well known as a pinko leftist, so should by just up your street.
Here's the abstract, should give some food for thought
In spite of India’s rapid economic growth, there has been a sustained decline in per capita
calorie consumption during the last twenty-five years. While the decline has been largest
among better-off households, it has taken place throughout the range of household per
capita total expenditure. For both adults and children, anthropometric indicators of
nutritional status in India are among the worst in the world. While these indicators have
shown improvement over time, the rate of progress is slow relative to what might be
expected based on international and historical experience.
This paper presents the basic facts about growth, poverty and nutrition in India, it points to a number of puzzles, and it
sketches a preliminary story that is consistent with the evidence. The reduction in calorie
consumption cannot be attributed to declining real incomes, nor to any increase in the
relative price of food.
Our leading hypothesis, on which much work remains to be done, is that, as real incomes and wages have increased, leading to some nutritional improvement, there has been an offsetting reduction in calorie requirements due to declining
levels of physical activity and possibly also to various improvements in the health
environment.
If correct, this analysis does not imply that Indians are currently adequately
nourished; nothing could be further from the truth. Calorie intake has serious limitations
as a nutritional intake; while calories are extremely important, there are too many sources
of variation in calorie requirements for standard, invariant, calorie-norms to be usefully
applied to large sections of the population. We conclude with a plea for better, and more
regular, monitoring of nutritional status in India.
Some more information:
Three, it would be difficult to attribute the decline in calorie consumption to declining percapita incomes, or to changes in relative prices. Indeed, the evidence points to rising per-capita
incomes (especially--but not exclusively--among the better-off), with little change in the price of
food - or calories – relative to other commodities. Thus, the main point is that calorie
consumption is lower today at a given level of per-capita household expenditure, and this applies
across the expenditure scale, at low levels of per capita expenditure as well as high. In other
words, the decline in calorie consumption in rural areas is associated with a steady downward
drift of calorie Engel curves, the plots of per capita calorie consumption against per capita total
expenditure.
Four, one possible explanation for this drift is that calorie requirements have declined, due to
better health as well as to lower activity levels. There are fragments of evidence to support this
hypothesis, such as major expansions in the availability of safe water, vaccination rates, transport
facilities, and the ownership of various effort-saving durables. Given that calorie requirements
rise sharply with activity levels, fairly moderate reductions in activity levels (reductions that
appear to be well within the realm of plausibility) would go a long way to explain the 10 per cent
reduction in average calorie intake since 1983.
It has rained 2 cm in KKM district in a time we normally get 60 cm. Hope the chattering class keeps this in mind while buying the latest Gucci bag.
