Located in South Asia, India sits on a peninsula that extends between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea covering an area of 3287263 square kilometers. India is the seventh-largest country by land area. India offers astounding variety in virtually every aspect of life. Diversities of ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic, regional and caste groups, crosscut Indian society. It is also permeated with an immense urban-rural difference and gender distinction. For many centuries, the people of India have shown the strength in creating manageable order from complexity to benefit the wider society, encouraging harmony among people with divergent interests.
Indian society is multifaceted to an extent perhaps unknown in any other of the world’s civilizations ever. We can say it is more like an area as varied as Europe than any other single nation-state. In many ways, Europe and India have come to be perceived as the sick men of the regions. Kishore Madhubani said, “India has a wonderful open society but as a nation a very close mind”. Once full of spirits and vitality, now stagnating, struggling, and spluttering to overcome internal conflicts, trying hard to find a suitable space in the global order.
The burst of economic liberalization of 1990 and growth in the first decade of this century has given way to slow down, deadlock and complacency. There are many questions about the ability of 1.38 billion people to think and work together, to bring about inclusive development and socio-economic transformation required to revive India’s growth story. In India’s vociferous democracy, different groups are increasingly demanding their share of scarce resources. A competition of political, social, ecological, and economic issues is growing hot day by day. And the outcome is this table below, which places India, in not a good category in comparison to other countries in almost all the major indexes for calibration of quality of life.
As everyone knows that we are 2nd in terms of population, in life expectancy, we are 130/186, in the epidemiology of diabetes 2nd out of 194 countries, in global hunger index, we are at number 102 out of 117 countries. In the suicide rate, we are19th out of 176 countries. Our health expenditure per capita number is 141/190, human capital index 115/152, literacy rate 168/234, education index 145/191, world happiness 140/156, human development index 129/189, global youth development index 134/183, urbanization 161/199, international homicides 2/169, global slavery index 4/167. In the economy, per capita GDP 139/187, per capita GDP (PPP) 122/187, tax revenue to GDP ratio 109/180. Ironically we are 3rd in the number of billionaires out of the 71 rich nations, 2nd in gold reserve, 8th in foreign exchange reserve. We are 36/50 in intellectual property index, 45/63 in world competitiveness, 60/130 in global resilience index, 123/178 in economic freedom, 43/56 in quality of life index, 63/190 in ease of doing business. In IT industry competitiveness 18/66, ICT development index134/176, global innovation index 52/129, network readiness index 91/139.
In politics, we are 78/180 in corruption perception index, press freedom index, we are 140/180, rule of law index, 68/113. Although we are the largest democracy in the world, our democracy index is 42/167. We are as good as a flawed democracy. We are 20/ 38 in corporate governance. We have a legacy of Buddha and Gandhi, but our global peace index is 136/163.
In the environmental scenario, we are 3/214 in CO2 emissions, we are 145/214 in CO2 per capita emission, in the environmental performance index, we are 177/180. Our air quality average PM2.5 concentration index is 84/92, we are number one in freshwater withdrawals. Out of 1.24 million deaths in 2017, 12.5% were attributable to air pollution, including 0.67 million from ambient particulate matter pollution and 0.48 million from household air pollution, according to an article published in The Lancet Planetary Health on December 6, 2018. Even today as per the Times of India report, only 1 % of garbage is recycled in India. We are creating many Mount Everests and Kanchenjungas of garbage in India.
Read Also : Researchers in Kashmir develop new hybrid variety of tomato for Indian farmers,https://greenstories.co.in/researchers-in-kashmir-develop-new-hybrid-variety-of-tomato-for-indian-farmers/
Why India has underplayed its strengths in almost all the key sectors that potentially could have been the game-changer is a big question. For India to transform into a global superpower, the act of reimagination, whether radical or subtle is critically required to be propagated and promoted vigorously among the citizens. We have many positive sides that our legacy and assets are. Unity in diversity is our unique feature. Unity in diversity means “UNITY WITHOUT UNIFORMITY” and DIVERSITY WITHOUT FRAGMENTATION”. The problem is not of diversity per se, but the handling of diverse Indian society. The problem of regionalism, communalism, ethnic conflict, has arisen because the fruits of development have not been uniformly distributed.
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