ECONOMIC ISSUES

OverpopulationThe population of India is an estimated 1.27 billion.Though India ranks second in population, it ranks 33 in population density. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, had implemented a forced sterilization program in the early 1970s but the program failed. Officially, men with two children or more were required to be sterilised, but many unmarried young men, political opponents and ignorant, poor men were also believed to have been affected by this program. This program is still remembered and regretted in India, and is blamed for creating a public aversion to family planning, which hampered Government programs for decades.

Poverty

2014 Poverty rate chart comparing India to select countries based on World Bank's May 2014 PPP method.

India suffers from substantial poverty.In 2012, the Indian government stated 21.9% of its population is below its official poverty limit. The World Bank, in 2011 based on 2005's PPPs International Comparison Program, estimated 23.6% of Indian population, or about 276 million people, lived below $1.25 per day on purchasing power parity.According to United Nation's Millennium Development Goal (MGD) programme 270 millions or 21.9% people out of 1.2 billion of Indians lived below poverty line of $1.25 in 2011-2012 as compare to 41.6% in 2004-05.

Official figures estimate that 27.of Indians lived below the national poverty line in 2004–2005. A 2007 report by the state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS) found that 25% of Indians, or 236 million people, lived on less than 20 rupees per day

with most working in "informal labour sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty.

Sanitation

Lack of proper sanitation is a major concern for the people of India. Statistics conducted by UNICEF have shown that only 90% of India’s population is able to utilise proper sanitation facilities as of 2008.It is estimated that one in every ten deaths in India is linked to poor sanitation and hygiene. Diarrhea is the single largest killer and accounts for one in every twenty deaths.Around 450,000 deaths were linked to diarrhea alone in 2006, of which 88% were deaths of children below five. Studies by UNICEF have also shown that diseases resulting from poor sanitation affects children in their cognitive development.

People without access to proper sanitation facilities more-often-than-not defecate in public or in rivers. One gram of faeces could potentially contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1000 parasite cysts and 100 worm eggs. The Ganga river in India has a stunning 1.1 million litres of raw sewage being disposed into it every minute.The high level of contamination of the river by human waste allow diseases like cholera to spread easily, resulting in many deaths, especially among children who are more susceptible to such viruses.

A lack of adequate sanitation also leads to significant economic losses for the country. A Water and sanitation Program (WSP) study The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Sanitation in India (2010) showed that inadequate sanitation caused India considerable economic losses, equivalent to 6.4 per cent of India’s GDP in 2006 at US$53.8 billion (Rs.2.4 trillion) In addition, the poorest 20% of households living in urban areas bore the highest per capita economic impacts of inadequate sanitation.

Recognising the importance of proper sanitation, the Government of India started the Central Rural Sanitation Program (CRSP) in 1986, in hope of improving the basic sanitation amenities of rural areas. This program was later reviewed and, in 1999, the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was launched. Programs such as Individual Household Latrines (IHHL), School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE), Community Sanitary Complex, Anganwadi toilets were implemented under the TSC.

Corruption perceptions map for Indian states based on a Transparency International survey in 2005. Darker regions were perceived to be more corrupt.These corruption indices have been changing. Bihar perceived as among most corrupt in 2005, was among least corrupt in 2011

Through the TSC, the Indian Government hopes to stimulate the demand for sanitation facilities in its less-urbanised areas, rather than to continually provide these amenities to these area's residents. This is a two-pronged strategy, where the people involved in this program take

ownership and better maintain their sanitation facilities, and at the same time, reduces the liabilities and costs on the Indian Government. This would allow the government to reallocate their resources to other aspects of development.Thus, the government set the objective of granting access to toilets to all by 2017.

To meet this objective, incentives are given out to encourage participation from the rural population to construct their own sanitation amenities. In addition, the government has set out to educate its people on the importance and benefits of proper sanitation through mass communication and interpersonal communication techniques. This is done through mass and print media to reach out to a larger audience and through group discussions and games to better engage and interact with the individual.

Corruption

Corruption is widespread in India. India is ranked 95 out of a 179 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, but its score has improved consistently from 2.7 in 2002 to 3.1 in 2011.

The TI India study estimates the monetary value of petty corruption in 11 basic services provided by the government, like education, healthcare, judiciary, police, etc., to be around Rs.21,068 crores India still ranks in the bottom quartile of developing nations in terms of the ease of doing business, and compared to China and other lower developed Asian nations, the average time taken to secure the clearances for a startup or to invoke bankruptcy is much greater.[28]

Education

Literacy rate map of India, 2011.

Initiatives

Since the Indian Constitution was completed in 1949, education has remained one of the priorities of the Indian government. The first education minister Maulana Azad founded a system of education which aimed to provide free education at the primary level. Primary education was made free and compulsory for children from 6-14, and child labour was banned. The government introduced incentives to education and disincentives for not receiving education – for instance, the provision of mid-day meals in schools were introduced.

Many similar initiatives echoed, and the largest of such initiatives is Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which actively promoted “Education for All”. In line with this, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) aimed to increase their expenditure on education to 6% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from values fluctuating about 3% through their National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) in 2004. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was also imposed in 2009. Despite these initiatives, education continues to persist as an impediment to development.

Issues

While many schools were built, they had poor infrastructure and inadequate facilities. Schools in the rural areas were especially affected. According to District Information System for Education (DISE) in India in 2009, only about 51.5% of all schools in India have boundary walls, 16.65% have computers and 39% have electricity. Of which, only 6.47% of primary schools and 33.4% of upper primary schools have computers, and only 27.7% of primary schools have electricity.Learning in poorly furnished schools was not conducive, resulting in poor quality education.

Furthermore, the absence rates of teachers and students were high, while their retainment rates low. The incentives for going to school were not apparent, while punishment for absence was not enforced. Despite the government’s decree on compulsory education and the child labour ban, many children were still missing classes to go to work. The government did not interfere even when children missed school.

Also, online country studies publications by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress stated that “it was not unusual for the teacher to be absent or even to subcontract the teaching work to unqualified substitutes”.[ This exacerbates the problems of the lack of qualified teachers. Currently, the student-teacher ratio remains high at around 32, which is not much of an improvement since 2006 when the ratio was 34.

Economic and social disparities also plague the fundamentals of the education system. Rural children are less able to receive education because of greater opportunity costs, since rural children have to work to contribute to the family’s income. According to the Annual Status of Education in 2009, the average attendance rate of students in the rural states is about 75%. Though this rate varies significantly, states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had more than 40% absentees during a random visit to their schools. In the urban states, more than 90% of the students were present in their schools during a visit.

Opportunity for youth

Take India, one of the youngest countries in the world, where youth accounted for 20% of the total population in 2011, according to the Registrar General of India. However, youth unemployment remains high in India.

Violence

Religious violence

A railway station in Punjab during large-scale migration that followed the partition of India along religious lines.

Constitutionally India is a secular state, [34] but large-scale violence have periodically occurred in India since independence. In recent decades, communal tensions and religion-based politics have become more prominent.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Since March 1990, estimates of between 250,000 to 300,000 pandits have migrated outside Kashmir due to persecution by Islamic fundamentalists in the largest case of ethnic cleansing since the partition of India. The proportion of Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley has declined from about 15% in 1947 to, by some estimates, less than 0.1% since the insurgency in Kashmir took on a religious and sectarian flavor. Many Kashmiri Pandits have been killed by Islamist terrorists in incidents such as the Wandhama massacre and the 2000 Amarnath pilgrimage massacre.

In 1990s, violent attacks on Christians in India were reported The acts of violence include arson of churches, forced conversion of Christians to Hinduism, distribution of threatening literature, raping of nuns, murder of Christian priests and destruction of Christian schools, colleges, and cemeteries. The Sangh Parivar and related organisations have stated that the violence is an expression of "spontaneous anger" of "vanvasis" against "forcible conversion" activities undertaken by missionaries, a claim described as "absurd" and rejected by scholars.

Between 1964 and 1996, thirty-eight incidents of violence against Christians were reported. In 1997, twenty-four such incidents were reported. In 2007 and 2008 there was a further flare up of

tensions in Odisha, the first following the Christians' putting up a Pandhal in land traditionally used by Hindus and the second after the unprovoked murder of a Hindu Guru and four of his disciples while observing Janmashtami puja. This was followed by an attack on a 150-year-old church in Madhya Pradesh, and more attacks in Karnataka,