india shines in only few pockets...

10 reports that shamed India in 2010!

Economic growth is fine but a lot needs to be done for human development

in the midst of the great economic success, India also continues to fail on several fronts. Here is a brief look at 10 reports released in 2010, which highlight corruption, inadequate infrastructure, widespread poverty and lack of social facilities:

Since 1948, graft has cost India $462 bn: Year 2010, corruption hit the headlines, be it the 2G or the Commonwealth Games, with each scam breaking records. But a report by the Washington-based think tank Global Financial Integrity (GFI) put the matter in the historical perspective. “The corrupt have drained India of $462 billion (about Rs 20.8 trillion) between 1948 and now,” the report said.

Another TI report found political parties to be the most corrupt institution in India followed by the police.

Eight Indian states have more poor than 26 African countries: As per the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), there are more poor people in eight Indian states (a total of around 421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million), said a report brought out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford university.


India among the worst places for a mother: According to its report, 70,000 women lose their lives due to pregnancy or childbirth complications. In a different report the organisation noted that India had the highest number of underweight children and children with severe acute malnutrition in the Commonwealth countries.

Girls in Indian cities live in fear: Sixty-nine percent of the girls surveyed felt cities offer an unsafe and insecure living environment and 74 percent felt most vulnerable in public places, said a report by the Plan India.

Position of the women of India also came in a UNDP report which said that women were respected more in Pakistan and Bangladesh than in India.

Open defecation – India’s shame: A report by WHO-UNICEF said that Indians comprised 58 percent of all people who defecate in the open despite decline in open defecation worldwide. A UN University study said more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet and improved sanitation.

Also, inadequate sanitation costs a whopping $54 billion in 2006 - close to 6.4 percent of the country's GDP - according to a World Bank study. The Mumbai suburban rail network has a shortfall of 12,000 toilet seats, said an Observer Research Foundation (ORF) report.

India's metros cut a sorry figure in global rankings: The best rank in a list of 65 cities across the world that an Indian city has managed is 45 - Delhi, followed by Mumbai at 46. Bangalore and Kolkata are at the fag end, at 58 and 63 respectively. Thesurvey was conducted by Foreign Policy, a US journal, in collaboration with A T Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

India lacks surgical facilities: This report may take the shine off as India being preferred medical tourism destinations. A study done by Harvard School of Public Health showed that the surgical facilities in India and Pakistan are very poor, as two countries have just 1.3 OTs per 100,000 people. There is an acute absence of basic surgical equipments in the operation theatre in Indian hospitals, said the study.

Indian can’t even treat pneumonia patients as per this report by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) which said pneumonia claims the lives of 3,70,000 children aged under five in India.

India lags behind on MDGs: Ten years after the signing of the Millennium Declaration, “India appears to be seriously off-track on a number of MDGs including those on hunger, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and women’s empowerment,” said a report by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA), a civil society effort to track government performance in alleviating poverty.

India’s budgetary allocations for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are inadequate, said a study by the Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA), which questioned India’s will to achieve goals.

Child marriages rampant in India: Even as India makes significant progress in many areas, child marriages continue to be rampant in some states. At least 50 percent women in the country get married before attaining the age of 18 years, says astudy done by the Population Council of India.

India's slum population swelling: India’s economic growth may or may not be a white elephant but the slum population in the country is reaching a mammoth size. The slum population has risen by as much as around 23 percent since 2001, said astudy prepared by the government of India.

So all the reports above mentioned contradict the rosy growth story of India in terms of GDP. A lot needs to be done before India could fancy a leadership chance at the international forum.