India Poverty Reserach | Course Paper

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Jay Patel

Global Poverty by Dr. Kathy Rowell

May 2, 2016

The End to India’s Poverty

While the world sits in comfortable couches watching television on flat screens and

eating a full meal, behind that blanket of disguise is the worlds poorest people wondering what

they are going to eat tomorrow or are they going to live through the night. This curtain has

blocked many eyes from seeing the truth about the slums of India and how they are portrayed.

The world has many views on how to eliminate poverty globally, but I see a different picture. I

see a path of ways we can reduce poverty in India as a whole by looking at a few causes. The

causes that I would like to relate are those of government corruption, lack of foreign aid (on a

major scale), and the demanding overpopulation rate in the country. In my opinion, these three

causes are the biggest issues to be dealt with to overcome the tragedy of poverty in India. Along

with these causes come some consequences too, those being the lack of infrastructure within the

parliament, the malnutrition to children, and the use of child labor due to the overpopulated

country. While I have your attention on what I think the issues are, lets take a brief moment and

contemplate on some of the cures I believe that can help reshape the poverty look in India. With

the cause of government corruption, I believe that eliminating the “black money” from wrong

spending would improve the area’s that are suffering the most. Providing the proper education to

government, communities, and children to live a better future will help the dire the

overpopulation rate. Last but not least, assist in micro-financing the poorest people first to help

them grow to be better people. If we can focus on just three causes, consequences, and cures I

believe we can start a change to help eliminate the absolute poverty state in which India resides.

Causes are the diseases of poverty. Once that disease has settled in, there must be a way

to fight it. India’s diseases are the government corrupted parliment, lack of foreign aid on a major

level, and the overpopulation rate. Government corruption is a nasty ordeal, it has infected

everyone including politicians and law enforcement especially. Most locals are aware of the

corruption and cannot do anything but to partake in the action itself because it has become a way

of life in India. It is known now by most locals and westerners that the only way to get from the

airport to home is to bribe the law enforcement to get out from “random” inspections. Even some

high school students have learned that bribery is the way to get the best grades to pass onto a

certain level. Just last year in July 2015, a scandal uncovered a group of students who allegedly

paid off the teachers who paid off politician campaigns to hide the money flow, which gave the

students the leverage to pass in their high school with flying colors.

Foreign aid has recently declined in India because the economy has been growing around

7% a year while still “~300 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day.” This source is from the

British government which feels they shouldn’t be providing poverty relief to a country which has

sent a mission to mars in the recent year. Well we know the British is out, but what about the

United States? The US is a big source of foreign aid helping large to small countries during

disasters and such. The US contributed in assistance about $1.3 billion dollars in 2014 to India.

That assistance money has been distributed into the public sectors and multilateral organizations

such as other domestic neighboring countries. India has collectively made their budget to be

around $1.6 billion dollars to be distributed in the help of South Asia’s foreign aid epidemic.

None of which has gone to NGOs or poverty communities for the proper assistance within India.

The money is being sent to Sri Lanka for foreign aid relief, around $80 million to be exact.

However, India itself cannot bring a suitable plan to the table to eliminate poverty in their

country.

Now the last cause that I feel we should know about is the demanding growth of the

population, also known as mass overpopulation. According to a study done in India only

including three major cities; Bombay, New Delhi, and Chennai these cities are the largest in all

of India. It is known that in these cities reside close to 20 million people (give or take a million),

and about 15 million of those people either sleep on the sidewalks or in a mud-tin hut. If that is

not overpopulation then what is? When the country does not have a homeless shelter for those

poor people to sleep in at night, there is a huge problem with the population index. The two sub-

causes of overpopulation is that the birth rate is increasing, death rate decreasing, and the fertility