The New Year began with very good news about the Indian economy. During the last five years, 2004 to 2009, India’s most backward states have shown remarkable growth. Bihar, which grew at 4.5 per cent a year between 2001 and 2005, showed a growth rate of 11.3 per cent between 2005 and 2009. Similarly, Odisha increased its growth performance from 4.94 to 8.74 per cent between these two periods; Jharkhand...
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Every Breath We Take by Madhu Purnima Kishwar
Why is the government aggressively attacking and destroying inexpensive eco-friendly technologies and promoting pollution-friendly ones? Are we obliged to repeat all the mistakes that the West committed in its pursuit of economic growth? While it makes sense to corner First World countries into investing in eco- friendly technologies to control carbon emissions, as was attempted at Copenhagen, the stand of the Indian government that India cannot afford to enforce better...
More »If You Pay Them Peanuts...by Gautam Sahni
Matriculate Trained Teachers, who make up 87% of school teachers in India, get Rs 775 in UP Rs 892 in Assam and Rs 1,507 per month in Punjab. Even in the most highly rated schools, the average salary is Rs. 7,225 p.m. Nearly 200,000 teachers in Bihar draw a salary less than that of a peon in the government. Teachers with post graduate degrees teaching primary to higher secondary levels, draw...
More »The gap widens by Shailaja Chandra
Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development. SHAILAJA CHANDRA “By and large the attitude of a man towards his wife is possibly worse than his attitude towards his buffalo.”--Colin Gonzalves, Human Rights Lawyer The World Economic Forum, in a report titled the Global Gender Gap 2009, has quantified the magnitude of gender-based...
More »New miracle economies: Bihar, poor states by SA Aiyar
India achieved record annual GDP growth, averaging 8.45%, in the five years, 2004-05 to 2008-09. But was this inclusive, and did it benefit the poor masses? We have no data on poverty beyond 2004-05. But the CSO has current data on the economic growth of the states. Historically, the chronically poor states were Orissa plus the BIMARU quartet (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh), of which three have been sub-divided....
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