THE RICH HAVE TO SPARE SOME TIME AND SHARE THEIR WEALTH

Poverty in India is widespread, with the nation estimated to have a third of the world's poor. In 2010, the World Bank reported that 32.7% of the total Indian people fall below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (PPP) while 68.7% live on less than US$ 2 per day.

According to 2010 data from the United Nations Development Programme, an estimated 29.8% of Indians live below the country's national poverty line.^[2] A 2010 report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) states that 8 Indian states have more poor people than 26 poorest African nations combined which totals to more than 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.

According to a 2011 poverty Development Goals Report, as many as 320 million people in India and China are expected to come out of extreme poverty in the next four years, while India's poverty rate is projected to drop to 22% in 2015.^[5] The report also indicates that in Southern Asia, however, only India, where the poverty rate is projected to fall from 51% in 1990 to about 22% in 2015, is on track to cut poverty by half by the 2015 target date.

The latest UNICEF data shows that one in three malnourished children worldwide are found In India, whilst 42% of the nation's children under five years of age are underweight. It also shows that a total of 58% of children under five surveyed were stunted. Rohini Mukherjee, of the Naadi foundation — one of the NGOs that published the report — stated India is "doing worse than sub-Saharan Africa."

The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report places India amongst the three countries where the GHI between 1996 and 2011 went up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries studied, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi, succeeded in improving hunger conditions.

India has to repay $172 billion debt by March 2014

THE HINDU HEADLINES

" India’s short-term debt maturing within a year stood at $172 billion end-March 2013. 

(Rs.1,02,37,95,60,000.00)

This means the country will have to pay back $172 billion by March 31, 2014. The corresponding figure in March 2008 — before the global financial meltdown that year — was just $54.7 billion. India has accumulated a huge short-term debt with residual maturity of one year after 2008. The figure has gone up over three times largely because this period also coincided with the unprecedented widening of the current account deficit from roughly 2.5 percent in 2008-09 to nearly 5 per cent in 2012-13. Much of this expanded CAD has been funded by debt flows.

This may turn into a vicious cycle.

More pertinently, short-term debt maturing within a year is now nearly 60 per cent of India’s total foreign exchange reserves. In March 2008, it was only 17 per cent of total forex reserves. This shows the actual increase in the country’s repayment vulnerability since 2008.

Theoretically, if capital flows were to dry up due to some unforeseen events and NRIs stopped renewing their deposits with India, then 60 per cent of the country’s forex reserves may have to be deployed to pay back foreign borrowings due within a year."