What's new

Why Does India Lag So Far Behind China?

impressive!

It would take modern China a decade to convert it. You cannot convert all lines at the same time. You will bring down the whole system

Yes, but the power was for the British sections in Delhi and Calcutta and for running British office and clubs.

Also because India had COAL.

But pakistan and bangladesh (east pakistan) was the food basket of India & India lost its food source at partition.



Actually India had 5 different gauges when the britsh left.

Because each region was developed by a different railway company (british) and they did not bother about inter-connectivity.

I do not know about 5. There are three - one of them is narrow which is for hilly regions
The real achievement is do it without foreign $$$ @K_Bin_W

 
It would take modern China a decade to convert it. You cannot convert all lines at the same time. You will bring down the whole system



I do not know about 5. There are three - one of them is narrow which is for hilly regions
The real achievement is do it without foreign $$$ @K_Bin_W


Broad Gauge - 5'6" (1676mm)
Meter Gauge - 1m
Narrow Gauge - 2'6" (762mm)
Narrow Gauge - 2' (610mm)
Standard Gauge (4'8½" or 1435 mm)

 

Indian mainstream media headlines suggest that Pakistan's current troubles are becoming a cause for celebration and smugness across the border. Hindu Nationalists, in particular, are singing the praises of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some Pakistani analysts have joined this chorus. This display of triumphalism and effusive praise of India beg the following questions: Why are Indians so obsessed with Pakistan? Why do Indians choose to compare themselves with much smaller Pakistan rather than to their peer China? Why does India lag so far behind China when the two countries are equal in terms of population and number of consumers, the main draw for investors worldwide? Obviously, comparison with China does not reflect well on Hindu Nationalists because it deflates their bubble.




China was poorer than India until 1990 in terms of per capita income. In 2001, both nations were included in Goldman Sachs' BRICs group of 4 nations seen as most favored destinations for foreign direct investment. Since the end of the Cold War in 1990, the western nations, including the United States and western Europe, have supported India as a counterweight to China. But a comparison of the relative size of their economies reveals that China had a nominal GDP of US$17.7 trillion in 2021, while India’s was US$3.2 trillion. India invests only 30% of its GDP, compared with 50% for China; and 14% of India's economy comes from manufacturing, as opposed to 27% of China, according to the World Bank.



A recent SCMP opinion piece by Sameed Basha titled "Is India ready to take China’s place in the global economy? That’s just wishful thinking" has summed it up well:

"Comparing China to India is like comparing apples with oranges, with the only similarity being their billion-plus populations.......China is transforming itself into a technologically driven economy in order to exceed the potential of the US. In contrast, India is attempting to position itself as a market-driven economy utilizing its large population as a manufacturing base to compete with China........In its 2022 Investment Climate Statement on India, the US State Department called the country “a challenging place to do business” and highlighted its protectionist measures, increased tariffs and an inability to adjust from “Indian standards” to international standards".
With growing Washington-Beijing tensions, the United States is trying to decouple its economy from China's. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Biden administration is turning to India for help as the US works to shift critical technology supply chains away from China and other countries that it says use that technology to destabilize global security.
The US Commerce Department is actively promoting India Inc to become an alternative to China in the West's global supply chain. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo recently told Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money” that she will visit India in March with a handful of U.S. CEOs to discuss an alliance between the two nations on manufacturing semiconductor chips. “It’s a large population. (A) lot of workers, skilled workers, English speakers, a democratic country, rule of law,” she said.
India's unsettled land border with China will most likely continue to be a source of growing tension that could easily escalate into a broader, more intense war, as New Delhi is seen by Beijing as aligning itself with Washington.
In a recent Op Ed in Global Times, considered a mouthpiece of the Beijing government, Professor Guo Bingyun has warned New Delhi that India "will be the biggest victim" of the US proxy war against China. Below is a quote from it:
"Inducing some countries to become US' proxies has been Washington's tactic to maintain its world hegemony since the end of WWII. It does not care about the gains and losses of these proxies. The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a proxy war instigated by the US. The US ignores Ukraine's ultimate fate, but by doing so, the US can realize the expansion of NATO, further control the EU, erode the strategic advantages of Western European countries in climate politics and safeguard the interests of US energy groups. It is killing four birds with one stone......If another armed conflict between China and India over the border issue breaks out, the US and its allies will be the biggest beneficiaries, while India will be the biggest victim. Since the Cold War, proxies have always been the biggest victims in the end".
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
South Asia Investor Review
Do Indian Aircraft Carriers Pose a Threat to Pakistan's Security?
Can Washington Trust Modi as a Key Ally Against China?
Ukraine Resists Russia Alone: A Tale of West's Broken Promises
Ukraine's Lesson For Pakistan: Never Give Up Nuclear Weapons
AUKUS: An Anglo Alliance Against China?
Russia Sanction: India Profiting From Selling Russian Oil
Indian Diplomat on Pakistan's "Resilience", "Strategic CPEC"a
Vast Majority of Indians Believe Nuclear War Against Pakistan is "Winnable"
Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network



It is a simple answer. China knows its path and the action it needs to do to accomplish it....We have the chance to make history at the time of partition by making the right choices. But we have not done it...So even after 75 years, we are still trying to prove ourselves with useless stuff like how secular we are than West unline China which has a clear goal to accomplish its objective...

Kudos to China and proving to the world that they are better than India
 
1.9 $ in 2011 was Rs. 82.5

1.9$ in 2021 was Rs. 156

1.9 $ in 2023 is ~ Rs. 157
2.15 $ in 2023 is ~ Rs. 178

However in 2011 the poor had to purchase their Rice and Food and Fuel.

In 2022 the poor got FREE FOOD. 4 kg Rice and 1 kg Pulses.

So NO, India has almost eradicated extreme poverty in India.

The dollar figures are PPP based, with a conversion factor of 3.4, which means the absolute poverty line is only 52 rupees per day. Regardless how you want to twist the numbers using the famous Vedic mathematical methods, the World Bank lists 10% of Indians as living below the absolute poverty line, and that is the bottomline.

Screenshot 2023-03-21 at 2.02.50 AM.jpg
 
The dollar figures are PPP based, with a conversion factor of 3.4, which means the absolute poverty line is only 52 rupees per day. Regardless how you want to twist the numbers using the famous Vedic mathematical methods, the World Bank lists 10% of Indians as living below the absolute poverty line, and that is the bottomline.

View attachment 921460

LOL. The pension for farmers and old people in china is 15$ a MONTH.

That is 50 CENTS a day.

So anyway you and your govt. want to twist it, the facts will always come out.

Those impatient you can jump to 29 mins.

 
Indians are

1) Dumb
2) Lazy
3) No work Ethics
4) Unclean and dirty
5) Unskilled
6) Lack Dsicipline
7) Fascists
8) Liars
9) Pagans
10) Ugly
11) Slaves

Forgot to Add Cowards to the list

Indians are

1) Dumb

2) Lazy

3) No work Ethics

4) Unclean and dirty

5) Unskilled

6) Lack Dsicipline

7) Fascists

8) Liars

9) Pagans

10) Ugly

11) Slaves

12) Cowards
 
How shameless does pakistani mulims have to be when their Hindu population has reduced from 20.5% in 1947 to less than 1% today ?
You are banned so this is is more for the rest of your lot.
You are a liar, as are your kin.
 
Better to ask why Pakistan lag so far behind India???
In India case, we were a welfare state and to a large extent we still are. We have built up huge infrastructure to speed up growth and connected major industrial hubs. Next 15-20 years, we will see India in top 3 economies of the world. We have to double every 5 years to reach gdp of15 trillion dollars.
Because IMRAN’s goverment was overthrown by FSC barely pass retards. Who have no real idea about how to run a country.

K
 
Is India's Rise Actually Good for the West?


India has also used the moment (G20 summit) to finger-point at Europe, rather than condemn Russian aggression. Last year, India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said, “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems.”

Jaishankar’s critique of Eurocentrism has merit. It’s also shared by many in the Global South, who bristle as the West has committed well over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine, but falls short in addressing challenges like climate change, the debt crisis, and food insecurity that are hurting poorer countries. Many of these problems have been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war.

India has rightly put these issues on the G20 agenda this year. But it’s actually doing little more than paying lip service to them. The G20 finance ministers’ meeting last month concludedwithout any tangible commitments to debt-distressed countries like Sri Lanka.

In reality, India is using the G20 presidency and other global platforms to engage in sanctimonious posturing to gain space for the naked pursuit of its self-interest. It’s also leveraging them to project Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image as a Hindu strongman at home.

India is no ally of the West or the Global South. It is a selective partner only out for itself. It seeks a multipolar world order in which the power of the West is diminished. Paradoxically, the U.S. and its allies are aiding India in reducing their global influence.

Policy elites in Washington and other Western capitals must come to terms with this reality. Naively, they see India’s rise as a world power as an indisputable good in countering China, so much that they ask for little in return. They give India the benefit of the doubt, even when it so brazenly pursues its interest at odds with their own.

If the behavior of India isn’t telling enough, its words are loud and clear. Jaishankar — India’s chief grand strategist — writes in his 2020 book that India should focus on “advancing national interests by identifying and exploiting opportunities created by global contradictions.” A top advisor to Modi, Jaishankar promotes a commitment-free foreign policy, arguing that India should leverage “competition to extract as much gains from as many ties as possible.” In other words, India is playing all sides against one another.

To its detriment, the West gives India easy wins without asking it to make real sacrifices or protect human rights. Its indulgence of India’s grandstanding and flaccid responses to taunting by Jaishankar and others also furthers Modi’s domestic Hindu nationalist agenda.

It allows Modi to not only project India as a “vishwa guru” or “world teacher,” but also furthers his own image as a mighty Hindu who is humbling the West and can act with impunity. Indeed, as civic and religious freedoms erode in India, Western governments balk at condemnation let alone punitive action.

The domestic symbolism of India’s global theatrics is lost on Western leaders. This is partly because the U.S. and other Western countries have failed to develop the institutional knowledge of the Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) ideology, lexicon, and networks. By contrast, there’s tremendous work on the Chinese Communist Party.

Case in point, when Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong cited India as a “civilizational power” this month, she inadvertently endorsed the BJP’s idea of a Hindu civilization or a “Hindu Rashtra,” in which Muslims are debased and erased.

Sadly, Western officials allow themselves to imagine a world in which the Hindutva ideology does not exist. They continue to proclaim that they are bound with India by “shared values,” as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did last month, ignoring India’s very blatant authoritarian, majoritarian turn.

There is much to worry about when it comes to India’s future course. But the West is simply choosing to look away.
 
Can #India replace #China as a pillar of #global #economy? @NickKristof doubts it. A 9th grader in #Kolkata can not do simple multiplication. School absenteeism is rampant in #Rajasthan. China thrives because it made huge #investments in #humancapital. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/opinion/india-economic-growth.html

In conversations with young Indian women, I hear again and again about the barriers they face that their brothers don’t. It’s difficult for single women to rent apartments, it’s considered inappropriate for them to be out in the evening, and they are subjected to a blizzard of sexual harassment, which persists because of a culture of impunity.

Yet I wonder if that, too, isn’t changing. India has more strong, independent women than ever, and they are forcing change.


--------

As for the I.T. sector, it’s dazzling and in some respects ahead of the United States. Here in India, digital data on mobile phones is extremely cheap, and you can buy a mango from a street vendor with your phone. Digital transactions are everywhere, and people easily keep digital records securely on their phones.

Nandan Nilekani, a pioneer in information services, says that India’s digital public infrastructure enables a technology-led growth model, and there are indeed signs of a boom in entrepreneurial activity in the tech sector: India had 452 start-ups in 2016 and 84,000 last year.

But it is export-led manufacturing that traditionally has provided the path for economic breakout in Asia because it can employ an enormous number of people. In India, manufacturing’s share of the economy has stagnated, and international executives share horror stories about red tape and the difficulty of doing business.

“The point of manufacturing is really job creation,” noted Alyssa Ayres, an India specialist at George Washington University, and that isn’t happening much. “People are worried about why the needle isn’t moving.”

India has had false dawns before. For a while in the 2000s, it was enjoying economic growth rates of roughly 8 percent per year, and it seemed that it might become the next Asian tiger economy. In 2010, The Economist published a cover story, “How India’s Growth Will Outpace China’s.”

Today India has a new chance to lure manufacturers. China has an aging population, its brand is tarnished by repression, and global companies are eager to find new manufacturing bases. India has English speakers, a familiar legal system, low-cost workers and first-rate engineers emerging from the Indian Institutes of Technology.

--------

Arvind Subramanian, a former economic adviser to the government of India who is now at Brown University, is skeptical that India will change its policies enough to seize the opportunity presented by China’s difficulties. But he thinks Apple’s efforts to manufacture iPhones in India offer a ray of hope by encouraging other companies to follow.

“The entry of Apple is significant — that is the space to watch,” he said. “If Apple thinks India can be a competitive place from which to export to the world, there could be demonstration effects.”

-----------

If India can boost education, free its women to join the labor force and attract the companies that are desperate to find new bases for manufacturing, it can surprise us again.

If it can do that, it will recover its historical role as an economic powerhouse, and the past few centuries of poverty will be forgotten — a blink of the eye in the context of India’s ancient civilization. It would again be normal to think of India as a great power and one of the pillars of the global economy, and that would change the world.
 
@RiazHaq

Brofessor sb,

India will eventually get to provide proper education to its citizenry, regardless of caste and gender. The question really is how soon (or late)?

Regards
 
Hype over #India’s #economic boom is dangerous myth masking real problems. It’s built on a disingenuous numbers game.
No silver bullet that will fix weak job creation, a small, uncompetitive #manufacturing sector & gov’t schemes fattening corporate profits

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinio...mic-boom-dangerous-myth-masking-real-problems

by Ashoka Mody

Indian elites are giddy about their country’s economic prospects, and that optimism is mirrored abroad. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that India’s GDP will increase by 6.1 per cent this year and 6.8 per cent next year, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
Other international commentators have offered even more effusive forecasts, declaring the arrival of an Indian decade or even an Indian century.
In fact, India is barrelling down a perilous path. All the cheerleading is based on a disingenuous numbers game. More so than other economies, India’s yo-yoed in the three calendar years from 2020 to 2022, falling sharply twice with the emergence of Covid-19 and then bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels. Its annualised growth rate over these three years was 3.5 per cent, about the same as in the year preceding the pandemic.
Forecasts of higher future growth rates are extrapolating from the latest pandemic rebound. Yet, even with pandemic-related constraints largely in the past, the economy slowed in the second half of 2022, and that weakness has persisted this year. Describing India as a booming economy is wishful thinking clothed in bad economics.
Worse, the hype is masking a problem that has grown in the 75 years since independence: anaemic job creation. In the next decade, India will need hundreds of millions more jobs to employ those who are of working age and seeking work. This challenge is virtually insurmountable considering that the economy failed to add any net new jobs in the past decade, when 7 million to 9 million new jobseekers entered the market each year.
This demographic pressure often boils over, fuelling protests and episodic violence. In 2019, 12.5 million people applied for 35,000 job openings in the Indian railways – one job for every 357 applicants. In January 2022, railway authorities announced they were not ready to make the job offers. The applicants went on a rampage, burning train cars and vandalising railway stations.

With urban jobs scarce, tens of millions of workers returned during the pandemic to eking out meagre livelihoods in agriculture, and many have remained there. India’s already-distressed agriculture sector now employs 45 per cent of the country’s workforce.

Farming families suffer from stubbornly high underemployment, with many members sharing limited work on plots rendered steadily smaller through generational subdivision. The epidemic of farmer suicides persists. To those anxiously seeking support from rural employment-guarantee programmes, the government unconscionably delays wage payments, triggering protests.
For far too many Indians, the economy is broken. The problem lies in the country’s small and uncompetitive manufacturing sector.

Since the liberalising reforms of the mid-1980s, the manufacturing sector’s share of GDP has fallen slightly to about 14 per cent, compared to 27 per cent in China and 25 per cent in Vietnam. India commands less than a 2 per cent global share of manufactured exports, and as its economy slowed in the second half of 2022, the manufacturing sector contracted further.
Yet it is through exports of labour-intensive manufactured products that Taiwan, South Korea, China and now Vietnam came to employ vast numbers of their people. India, with its 1.4 billion people, exports about the same value of manufactured goods as Vietnam does with 100 million people.
Those who believe that India stands at the cusp of greatness usually focus on two recent developments. First, Apple contractors have made initial investments to assemble high-end iPhones in India, leading to speculation that a broader move away from China by manufacturers will benefit India despite the country’s considerable quality-control and logistical problems.

while such an outcome is possible, academic analysis and media reports are discouraging. Economist Gordon H. Hanson says Chinese manufacturers will move labour-intensive manufacturing from the country’s expensive coastal hubs to its less-developed interior, where production costs are lower.
Moreover, investors moving out of China have gone mainly to Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia, which like China are members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. India has eschewed membership in this trade bloc because its manufacturers fear they will be unable to compete once other member states gain easier access to the Indian market.
As for US producers pulling away from China, most are “near-shoring” their operations to Mexico and Central America. Altogether, while some investment from this churn could flow to India, the fact remains that inward foreign investment fell year on year in 2022.

The second source of hope is the Indian government’s Production-Linked Incentive Schemes, which were introduced in early 2021 to offer financial rewards for production and jobs in sectors deemed to be of strategic value. Unfortunately, as former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram G. Rajan and his co-authors warn, these schemes are likely to end up merely fattening corporate profits like previous sops to manufacturers.
India’s run with start-up unicorns is also fading. The sector’s recent boomrelied on cheap funding and a surge of online purchases by a small number of customers during the pandemic. But most start-ups have dim prospects for achieving profitability in the foreseeable future. Purchases by the small customer base have slowed and funds are drying up.
Looking past the illusion created by India’s rebound from the pandemic, the country’s economic prognosis appears bleak. Rather than indulge in wishful thinking and gimmicky industrial incentives, policymakers should aim to power economic development through investments in human capital and by bringing more women into the workforce.
India’s broken state has repeatedly avoided confronting long-term challenges and now, instead of overcoming fundamental development deficits, officials are seeking silver bullets. Stoking hype about an imminent Indian century will merely perpetuate the deficits, helping neither India nor the rest of the world.
Ashoka Mody, visiting professor of international economic policy at Princeton University, is the author of India is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today. Copyright: Project Syndicate
 
India's weighting in MSCI Emerging Market Index is smaller than Taiwan's.



India%27s%20Weighting%20in%20MSCI%20EM%20Index.jpeg
 
Back
Top Bottom