From Shashi Tharoor´s Article

This is a member comment in response to Shashi Tharoor´s article in Newsweek. The link to the article itself can be found at the end.

All points are valid except the last para. India has pulled out great number of people from poverty but we have pushed even more into poverty. At birth India had a population of 450 Million and today we have almost 40% of population that is almost 400 Million plus under poverty line. Mumbai continues to be the city of slums with more that 60% of population living in slums. It is true that Indians are rich but India is poor. We are still the world of poor with 40% of the world's total poor living here. And that tag we need to over come if we have to become a world power. The status of the house is decided by the Toilet and Kitchen and not alone by the drawing room.One important reason for poverty is exploitation. The CEO who earns a salary of 10 crores may be just paying maximum of Rs 5000 to his maid servant; wages of Rs 500 per month is common too. It is because there is no concept of social security in India. In India we have subsidies. BPL cards , NREGS are all forms of these subsidies which finally end up as black money in wrong hands. If we want to remove exploitation then we need to have unemployment allowance. This becomes then our minimum wage and a viable alternative to fight exploitaiton.A second option is to encourage Social Business. Like the way Mohammed Yunus started his Grameen enterprises. Our own AMUL started by Varghese Kurien was no exception.CK Prahlad in his book Fortune at the bottom of pyramid indirectly mentions that "Poverty is proportional to corruption". So, do every thing that will rmeove corruption and we will have poverty eradicated from the face of India. India has the wherewithal but not the attitude.


Link to the article:- http://www.newsweek.com/id/225619