A recent World Bank report placing India among the most equal countries globally may present a limited view of inequality, with economists suggesting that broader data sets could tell a different story. According to the report, India's Gini index (or coefficient/ratio), a key measure of inequality, stood at 25.5 in 2022-23, placing the country fourth globally in terms of equality, behind only the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Belarus.
India is set to become the world's fourth-largest economy in 2025, but slow income growth, lack of structural change, and rising inequality highlight the gap between progress and real transformation.
While India should be concerned about disparities, the fact is that whereas three decades ago about half the people had incomes greater than $2.15 a day, today seven out of eight do, notes T N Ninan.
The Gini coefficient, which reflects the wealth gap between rich and poor, was at 0.474 level for China in 2012 -- well above the warning levels, a report has said.
The rich-poor divide has been growing despite the economic boom in several countries.
Covid-19 pandemic that brought life to a near standstill in 2020 has left Indian adults poorer by 6.1 per cent in 2020, suggests the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2021. Wealth per Indian adult in 2020, according to the report, dropped to $14,252 by 2020-end compared to pre-pandemic levels. On a cumulative basis, Credit Suisse estimates the drop in the wealth of Indian adults at $594 billion.
The widening gap between rich and poor continues to pose a challenge to stability in China, with the latest figures showing that the Gini coefficient reached 0.438 in 2010, which exceeds UN warning levels, the International Institute for Urban Development said in its report in Beijing.
Have inequality levels, as represented by the Gini coefficient, risen from 30.3 in 1983 to 34.3 in 2004-05?
Gini & Jony Apparel Pvt Ltd, which owns the 'Gini & Jony' kid's lifestyle brand, is planning to hit the capital market with an initial public offer by the end of the current fiscal.
The report also points out that a larger section of the poor and vulnerable households achieve middle-class status in urban areas in India despite the presence of a large urban informal sector.
At the end of 2014, 70.17 million of China's rural residents lived below the country's poverty line.
The wide gap in national income held by the ultra-rich and the poor is striking.
Technology infrastructure solves many problems, but it cannot build roads or bridges and provide clean water. However, such activities are essential for human progress, and their creation provides jobs, says R Gopalakrishnan.
'The world is going to be more insular.' 'What India needs to do is develop the domestic market for domestic consumption.' 'The emphasis has to be on Bharat as against India.'
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
'He is the man,' US President Barack Obama had said at a G-20 gathering, enhancing Lula's stature. Six years later, has Brazil's impressive economic growth turned to sand? Will a President, who enjoyed an 80 per cent approval rate in his country, be arrested? Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil, explains what has gone wrong in one of India's BRICS partner nations.
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