Resolve to make India a developed country

20 Aug 2022 Resolve to make India a developed country

• Recently, in his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister has set a target of completing Pancha Prana by the year 2047 (when India’s independence will be 100 years old).
• The first resolution is to make India a developed country in the next 25 years.
• The remaining pledges for the year 2047 are – eradication of traces of slavery, taking pride in our heritage, ensuring unity in diversity and performing civic duties.

Developed country:

• A developed country is industrialized, with a higher quality of life, a developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to less industrialized nations.
• Whereas developing countries are those which are in the process of industrialization or pre-industrial and are almost entirely agricultural.

The most common criteria for evaluating the amount of economic growth are:

 Gross Domestic Product (GDP):

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the monetary value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year.
• Countries with high GDP and per capita income (the amount of earned income per capita) are considered developed.

Dominance of Tertiary and IV Sectors:

• Countries that are dominated by the tertiary (companies providing services such as entertainment, financial and retailers) and the fourth sector of industry (knowledge-based activities such as information technology, research and development, as well as consulting services and education) to develop them. as has been described.

Post-Industrial Economy:

• In addition, developed countries generally have more advanced industrial economies, which means that the service sector provides more wealth than the industrial sector.

Human Development Index:

• Other parameters are infrastructure measurements, general standard of living and the Human Development Index (HDI).
• Since the HDI focuses on indices of life expectancy and education, and does not take into account factors such as per capita net wealth or relative quality of goods in a country.
• This is why some of the most advanced countries including G7 members (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US and EU) and others do not perform very well in HDI and countries like Switzerland are high in HDI.

Definition of developed country:

• There is no unanimous definition of a developed country.
• Agencies such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the World Economic Forum use their indicators to classify developed and developing countries.
• For example, the United Nations classifies countries into low, low-middle, upper-middle and high-income countries.
• This classification is based on the per capita Gross National Income (GNI) of a country.
• Low-income economy: up to $1,085 per capita GNI
• Lower middle-income: GNI per capita of up to $4,255
• Upper-middle-income: $13,205 GNI per capita
• High-income economy: GNI per capita above $13,205

Opposed to the United Nations Classification:

• The UN classification is not very accurate as it focuses on limited analytical value. Due to which only the top three countries – US, UK and Norway – are classified as developed countries.
• Whereas, there are about 31 developed countries, and remaining 17 (excluding transitional economies) are designated as developing countries.
• In the case of China, the country’s per capita income is closer to that of Norway than to Somalia.
• China’s per capita income is 26 times that of Somalia while Norway’s is almost seven times that of China, but still, it has got the tag of a developing country.
• On the other hand, countries like Ukraine, which has a per capita GNI of $4,120 (one third of China), are designated as transition economies (instead of a developed nation).

India’s position:

• India is currently far behind developed countries as well as some developing countries.
• India is the sixth largest economy in terms of GDP but India lags behind Bangladesh in terms of per capita income.
• Furthermore, China’s per capita income is 5.5 times that of India and nearly 33 times that of the UK.
• To map this inequality and compare it with scores from India and other countries, we look at the Human Development Index (HDI),
• India’s performance has been very good.
• Life expectancy at birth in India has increased from about 40 years in 1947 to about 70 years now.
• India has also made considerable progress in the enrollment of education at all the three levels of primary, secondary and tertiary.
• India needs to increase per capita income to be called a developed country because people as a unit matter more.
• Inequality in per capita income is often reflected in the overall quality of life in different countries.

Areas of lack of progress in India:

• According to the 2018 Diagnostic Report on India by the World Bank, despite being the third largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, most Indians are still relatively poor compared to people from other middle-income or wealthy countries.
• The consumption level of about 10% of Indians exceeds the commonly used limit of US$10 per day (PPP) expenditure for the global middle class.
• In addition, other groups such as the food share of consumption suggest that even rich households in India must see a substantial expansion of their total consumption to reach the level of poor households in rich countries.

India to achieve the goal of a developed country by 2047:

• According to a 2018 World Bank report, by 2047, the centenary of its independence, at least half of its citizens could join the ranks of the global middle class.
• This would mean that households would have access to better education and health care, clean water, better sanitation, reliable electricity, a safer environment, affordable housing and enough discretionary income to spend on leisure activities.
• In addition, the report significantly improved public service delivery along with preconditions for income above the extreme poverty line.

Achievements of India since Independence:

 Gross Domestic Product (GDP):

• India’s GDP increased from Rs 2.79 lakh crore in the year 1950-51 to an estimated Rs 147.36 lakh crore in the year 2021-22.
• India’s economy currently stands at US$ 3.17 trillion, which is expected to become the world’s fifth largest economy in the year 2022.

Foreign currency:

• India’s foreign exchange reserves have increased from Rs 911 crore in the year 1950-51 to Rs 45,42,615 crore in the year 2022.
• India now has the fifth largest foreign exchange reserves in the world.

Food production:

• India’s food grain production has increased from 50.8 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 316.06 million tonnes now.
• Literacy Rate:
• Literacy rate has also increased from 18.3% in the year 1951 to 78%. The female literacy rate has increased from 8.9% to over 70%.

Yojna ias daily current affairs eng med 20th August

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