Although only recognized as an independent country since August 1947, India has been widely known throughout history. Starting as early as the 27th century BCE with the birth of one of the world’s first highly sophisticated civilization, namely the Indus Valley Civilization, India has been recognized for its rich historical and cultural heritage. While it was only a lot later in its history, specifically during the rule of king Ashoka in the 5th century that the country started to unify; it was during the during the two hundred years of British colonization when this big mass of area in South Asia accepted a unified national flag and became the country that it is today. A country that is home to over 1.2 billion people. A country where its long history has left different layers of deposit that have neither totally merged nor ceased to influence the Indian people. India is one of the world’s most complex societies in which “centuries coexist”, however, this greatness in diversity and culture also seems to hinder development in this country. India has thus been labeled a “third world”, but before we go any further let us try and find out what that means. What is a third world country and how does a country like India fit the image? By 1921, about 84 percent of the world had been colonized since the sixteen century with approximately 168 colonies. During past two centuries the world has seen an increasing number of new nations being born due to the process of decolonization. As the numbers were increasing, especially after 1945, political theorists sought to find a term to categorize these new nations that were considered qualitatively different from older countries of Europe and Northern America and thus termed them as “Third World...
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...an HDI of 0.36. These discrepancies in levels of development have led to an exodus of people, from less developed areas to the areas that have been benefitted by development. This situation seems to depict that predicted by the Dependency theory in which the developed countries progressed due to the exploitation of peripheral nations; the same seems to be happening in India. The states that are wealthier are exploiting the poorer states. It would be difficult to imagine India having the economic status that it now has, if it was not for the terrible working conditions and wages at which the Indians are willing to work and the massive work force available in the country. Now that India has seen economic growth the government should start taking care of its citizens by implementing policies that protect the labor rights of the workforce.
Works Cited
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Though the world economy as a whole has grown in recent years, a factor that is not taken into account is that the number “of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million” (Roy 3). In other words, the gap between rich and poor is widening. For India, this has startling implications. Though it is a nation that is developing in many ways, it also is a nation blessed with over one billion citizens, a population tally that continues to grow at a rapid rate. This population increase will greatly tax resources, which can create a setback in the development process. The tragedy, of course, is that the world is full of resources and wealth. In fact, Roy quotes a statistic showing that corporations, and not even just countries, represent 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world (Roy 3). For a country struggling to develop, such information is disheartening. However, there is also a more nefarious consequence of the growing disparity between rich and poor, and power and money being concentrated in the hands of multinational corporations: war is propagated in the name of resource acquisition, and corruption can reign as multinationals seek confederates in developing countries that will help companies drive through their plans, resulting in not only environmental destruction but also the subversion of democracy (Roy 3).
Globalization, or outsourcing, has been a hindrance on the American economy for the better part of twenty years. Outsourcing has cost millions of jobs in the United States over the past twenty years, and continues to create problems for the families in the United States. Outsourcing is a hindrance on the American economy, and will create a lasting effect on the college graduates and younger children of today. While outsourcing is bad for the American economy, it has been a growth factor for the economies of the countries such as India. However, India has a social caste system. The caste system determines what social class one is born into, and that person has to stay in that social class for their entire life. Therefore, the economy of that country would be better, but it would only help the rich get richer and politicians have a stronger effect on the poorer classes.
The Indian government is corrupted and makes promises it is unable to keep. In The White Tiger, Balram describes that the government is “...the world’s greatest democracy. What a fucking joke.” (Adiga 145). When Balram lived in Laxmangarh his right to vote for the prime minister was taken from him, due to the fact that running candidates pay the current government to make sure they are elected. The government system also enables the rich to get richer. They do this by immensely taxing the poor and enforcing the caste system on the poor. The caste system is a labeling system you were born into and of what you are expected of in life. For example Balram had the caste of Halwai, which is derived from “sweet-maker”. This meant Balram was expected to work...
Poverty in Developing and Less Developed Countries The world includes less developed countries and developing countries. Less developed countries are countries considered to be poor and often contain many people who are in absolute poverty. Developing countries are countries like India, which are gaining in wealth. There are two types of poverty within the world.
This is necessary as the vast majority of individuals migrating from rural to urban centers has been steadily increasing with the level of economic growth seen within the past twenty years as mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, this situation has further shown the structural issues and inequalities of cities, as most migrants end up having a poor quality of life living in informal settlements as highlight substantially by Boo. As a means of tackling this, however, the Indian government has turned its focus on investing rural regions, developing the agricultural sector. Specifically, Boo mentions that “the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had come down from Delhi to express his concern for the farmers’ hardships, and the central government’s determination to relieve it” (p. 138). While this is definitely important funds are not being divided justly. For starters, between rural and urban areas almost all investments are being targeting towards rural regions, which is only addressing issues of inequality in one section of the country. Furthermore, across rural areas inequalities of investment are quite often overlooked. Although, “one of the governments hopes was to stop villagers from abandoning their farms and further inundating cities like Mumbai, but Asha’s relatives knew nothing of these celebrated relief programs” (p. 138). Therefore, even though
Gender and race discrimination are major causes which have led to income inequality in these countries. India has caste system, which is s...
All the countries deemed as third world has had a history of colonial rule, most were exploited through colonialism, imperialism, neo colonialism etc. while the third world countries were annexed and had direct government of a first country through colonialism; it was seen as a cost by the imperial powers rather than a benefit and one that was unavoidable. Imperialism was creating the condition for industrial capitalism and a modern nation-state and would produce the same consequences as it had of the colonizers i.e. the development of the society’s productive force s and misery and degradation for its workers. It failed to complete the institution of private property, and drained the colonies of capital while enforcing the dependence on agriculture to supply the needs of the industrial world. Neo – colonialism appeared on the outside to grant the c...
I chose to investigate the topic of global poverty. Global poverty is a very important and pressing issue. About 1.2 billion people are living in extreme poverty, a term that is defined as living on $1.25 or less (The World Bank 2013). Poverty is the lack and deprivation of basic necessities. With poverty, comes a wide range of difficulties and hardships. The story of one of these 1.2 billion people was recorded by Brittany Aubin in 2013. Bon, a seven year-old Burmese refugee in Thailand, is noticeably small. When faced with the question of his size, he replies with a smile, “It’s because I drink Coke and not milk, because Coke is cheap, and more delicious.” Many families are faced with a similar problem in regards to meeting the needs of their children. Many of those needs must remain not met due to poverty.
“…increasing international trade and financial flows since the Second World War have fostered sustained economic growth over the long term in the world’s high-income states. Some with idle incomes have prospered as well, but low-income economies generally have not made significant gains. The growing world economy has not produced balanced, healthy economic growth in the poorer states. Instead, the cycle of underdevelopment more aptly describes their plight. In the context of weak economies, the negative effects of international trade and foreign investments have been devastating. Issues of trade and currency values preoccupy the economic policies of states with low-income economies even more than those with high incomes because the downturns are far more debilitating.1”
four adults in ten who can read and write and less than one in four
A Third World Country is a term used for developing countries, and least developed countries. These countries are economically underdeveloped. Characteristics of a third world country are poverty, agriculture economy, disease, high birth and infant mortality rates, over-population, poor infrastructure, unstable governments, poor health care, environmental problems, non educated people, starvation, and death. Those characteristics are the first thing that comes to someone’s mind about a third world country. Most third world countries are located in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The populations of third world countries are generally very poor but with high birth rates. In general they are not as industrialized or technologically advanced as the first world. The majority of the countries in the world fit this classification. Seventy percent of the world population is third world, which is a large part of the population.
As developed countries quench their thirsts for petrol, developing countries around the world are left behind, force to watch on without any help from the outside community. Being poor means to be disadvantaged in every single way. It means not being able to support yourself or your family or have the basic necessity to life. Without substantial help for these helpless people then we should be feeling guilty that we are living lives far better than what others are experiencing. Poverty may because by wars, disease or lack of education and infrastructure and the resulting consequences may be hunger, starvation, crime and ultimately death. If poverty is not eradicated then injustice will continue, increasing death tolls and lives.
The global issue I am focusing on is poverty. Poverty has become a growing problem. It interest me to learn how people under poverty tend to survive under society and how they are different from others. Poverty has grown drastically all around the world while we turn our heads away from it at the moment ,I believe that in the future it will be a problem that will be harder to solve than it already is. Poverty is a global issue because all around the world their are people who depend on little money to survive the day, over 3 billion people live on less than 2.50 a day. It amuses me the amount of people that manage to survive with that amount of money when in america with that much money all you can buy are some chips. The topic interest
in relation to development. Development is explained by the Oxford Dictionary as the process of developing or developed in a specified state of growth or advancement. Underdeveloped as according to the Oxford Dictionary is ‘not fully developed or not advanced economically’ which is meant for a country or a region. We can certainly see the difference between underdeveloped and developed where the changing situation emerges from the economic point of view. To be more specific, worlds within world were created i.e. the nomenclature of First World and Third World came into picture. The First World is said to be the industrialised, capitalist countries of Western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand who are developed (as explained in the definition). The Third World includes the developing countries of- Asia, Africa and Latin America who are still in the mode of developing. Normally we understand the situation of underdevelopment is because the third world was under the colonies or the colonial rule for a certain period of time and lags behind the first world in every aspects like- social, economical, political, technological advancements which are yet to be seen in the third world fully like the first world. In this paper we will talk about various theorists from - Karl Marx (capitalism and class conflict), Kay and Amin (merchant capitalism, colonialism and neo-colonialism), Vladimir Lenin (imperialism), Andre Gunder Frank (third world dependency), Lipton (urban bias) and dependency theory. Here in this paper we will try to explain and understand the relevance of the various underdevelopment theories and different attributes related to it terms of the Indian Context.
In recent years people often suppose that the hunger might be understood as weakness caused by not enough nutrition. Actually, there are some different meanings between hunger and malnutrition. In general, they are existing as complex difficulty and people can not solve them separately. In some countries the percentage of hunger index is so high like in case of India. Moreover, the study of global hunger was shown that a great deal of humanity suffer from this issue every year. In order to fight with hunger it is important to understand basic principles which lead to happening of hunger. The main reasons for hunger occurring are environmental, political and economic conditions. To my mind, the environmental cause is the most important as land scarcity leads to poverty mostly in comparison with other ones. The purpose of this essay is to struggle with hunger by using agricultural project.