Latest census reflects grim living standards in rural India

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/latest-census-reflects-grim-living-standards-in-rural-india/a-18560404

India hasn't studied caste data since 1932, when the country was still under British rule. The latest census from the country paints a bleak picture of life in rural India, with the majority living in extreme poverty.

Latest census reflects grim living standards in rural India
03.07.2015

For the first time since 1932, India released on Friday a socio-economic and caste census, revealing the widespread poverty and grim living conditions in the country's rural areas.

Based on data collected between 2011 and 2013, the census showed that more than 70 percent of India's 1.2 billion people live in villages. One in three rural families was landless and dependent on manual labor for its livelihood.

In around 75 percent of rural households, the highest-earning member earned less than 5,000 rupees ($79, or 71 euros) per month. Barely one in 10 homes has a refrigerator, the report showed.

~snip~

Although living standards in some Indian cities and towns have improved rapidly in the past two decades, the census - covering nearly 245 million households in India's 640 districts - highlights how many of the poorest states are lagging far behind.

[MisterP]

1. this is actually a big factor in many of our current crises

Man with a capital M had seized His destiny and would control the very levers of the cosmos itself: we'd triple our population and our food, dam every river, and catch up with Europe in a decade (maybe two): this was promised in South Asia, China, Mexico, Turkey, Africa, Egypt, etc.; technocrats of a less apocalyptic stripe ran on the promises of oil Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and maybe Argentina

and every time they failed--some indicators have gone up, but the promises that could be kept dried up and the numbers were fudged way harder than even in the USSR (Lenin basically ran the country as HG Wells would)