Income Disparity is a growing problem globally with Gini’s coefficient increasing dramatically both in rich and poor countries.USA has seen a sharp rise in poverty with almost 1 in 7 people depending on government grant of food stamps even as the rick grow richer.The Disparity is even more pronounced in developing countries like India and China where the growing ranks of billionaires happily exist with the millions of hungry and destitute.Two recent news stories highlights the crushing income disparity faced by the Indian population where 70% of the population is said to survive on less than $2 a day.However mainstream media has little time for India’s poor constantly celebrating India’s 9% GDP Growth and rising stock markets.
First Billion Dollar Home Completed in Mumbai
India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani is finished constructing a 17 story home for his family in one the most expensive localities in the financial capital of Mumbai.The price of the home is so high that analysts have a difficult time in estimating it with price ranging from a $1 billion to $2 billion depending on different assumptions.Forbes has estimated that Mukesh Ambani who is the owner of India’s biggest private oil company Reliance will become the richest man by 2014.The 27 storey house has a stunning 9 elevators and parking for 160 cars.
Mukesh Ambani all set to move into luxury home – Zee
Mukesh Ambani, the richest Indian, is all set to move into his new, 27-storey luxury home – Antilia – in South Mumbai soon, reports said on Wednesday.Constructed in Mumbai’s Altamount Road, the palatial building took seven years to complete. It has three helipads on the top floor, a swimming pool, a health club, a salon and a mini-theatre.
The first six levels of the glass tower, which stands 570 feet, has a garage where more than 160 cars can be parked and has nine elevators.The building, named after an island in the Atlantic Ocean, will become the world’s first billion dollar home and also the largest home in the world.
42% of World’s Hungry Children Live in India
In contrast to the exponential growth of wealth of India’s upper classes,the poor continue to eke out a miserable existence mired in hunger and constantly facing starvation.Globalization of Agriculture has further increased Food Price Inflation making their positive even more precarious.According to International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI),India slipped 2 places to be ranked in the 67th place amongst 88 nations in the Hunger Index.Despite a stellar economic performance over the last 20 years or so and sharp rise in per capita GDP,India remains one of the poorest nations on earth.It ranks below even Nepal,Pakistan,Sudan with 48% of India’s children stunted due to lack of food.The report is a strong indictment of growth policies which has made its children mostly hungry and stunted.Other strongly growing economies like Brazil and China have performed much better than India.Time for India’s government to radically change the structure of India’s economic growth.Despite promotion of policies like NREGA and midday meals for poor,rank corruption and leakage has led to India being the hungriest nation on earth.
India ranks below Pak, China on hunger index – TOI
Faring worse than lesser developed countries such as Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the neighbourhood and underdeveloped nations like Sudan, Lesotho, Uzbekistan and Rwanda elsewhere, India is home to 42% of the underweight children under the age of five in the world.The food insecurity is so rampant across the country that India is clubbed with minor economies like Bangladesh, Timor-Leste and Yemen, recording the highest prevalence of underweight in children under five.While China has done better than expected as its income has grown, the IFPRI notes that India has considerably higher hunger levels than what its gross national income per capita levels would suggest. It is presumed that better economic performance and hunger levels are inversely correlated.
