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Even after becoming the third largest economy in the world by 2029 as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India may still be a poor country and therefore there is no reason for celebration, former Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao said here on Monday. Addressing a gathering at a book launch programme, Subbarao also said, citing Saudi Arabia, that becoming a rich country does not necessarily mean becoming a developed nation. Recalling PM Modi saying that if he returns to office, India will become the third-largest economy before 2029 -- before the end of his third term, he said many economists predict that the country would become the third largest after the US and China, much sooner. In my view, that is possible (India becoming the third-largest economy), but it's not a celebration. Why? We are a large economy because we are 1.40 billion people. And people are a factor of production. So we are a large economy because we have people. But we are still a poor country, Subbarao ..
Many countries are bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the poorest are not and a significant number are seeing conditions deteriorating, a report from the UN Development Progamme said on Wednesday. Achim Steiner, head of the agency, said that after two decades during which rich and poor countries were coming closer in terms of development, the finding is a very strong warning signal that nations are now drifting apart. The Human Development Index that the agency has produced since 1990 is projected to reach record highs in 2023 after steep declines during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. But development in half of the world's poorest countries remains below 2019 pre-pandemic levels, the report said. It's a rich person's versus a poor person's world in which we are seeing development unfolding in very unequal, partially incomplete ways, Steiner said at a news conference. Why does this matter? Not only because it creates more vulnerability, it creates also more misery a
Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said the focus of the Narendra Modi government in its third term would be on putting India in the higher-income category for it to be counted amongst the developed countries of the world. In a video interview, Rijiju told PTI that a per capita income of USD 18,000 would be required for India to be counted among the world's developed countries and it would be the Modi government's endeavour in its third term to put the nation in the higher-income category. He said despite lagging on many counts, the prime minister's "aggressive and inspiring" leadership has catapulted India into another league in the global comity of nations. "The whole world looks at India as a leader except that we are not a high-income country yet. But our status has reached here," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said. Rijiju slammed the previous Congress governments for "not delivering" on basic necessities, such as toilets, bank accounts for people, food security,
India has emerged among top countries with high income and wealth inequality but the share of the population living in multidimensional poverty fell from 25 to 15 per cent between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the UNDP said in a new report. The 2024 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report, launched on Monday, paints a qualified picture of long-term progress but also persistent disparity and widespread disruption, foreseeing a turbulent development landscape and urgently calling for new directions to boost human development. In India, between 2000 and 2022, per capita income soared from USD 442 to USD 2,389. Whereas, between 2004 and 2019, poverty rates (based on the international poverty measure of USD 2.15 per day) plummeted from 40 to 10 per cent. Titled Making our Future: New Directions for Human Development in Asia and the Pacific', the new report argues that unmet aspirations, heightened human insecurity, and a potentially more turbulent future create an urgent need for change. Moreover,