When I started preparing for civil services I started reading news papers regularly and I wondered why is so much hue and cry about building roads, why primary education is given so much attention by government when private sector is doing reasonable job and what is need of having a dedicated "Nirmal Bharat" abhiyan when everybody i know have atleast one toilet in home.
It was arround that time I started asking myself "so what India is?".
Till then I was like a frog in a pond who sees only whats around him and concludes that this is what World is.
so What India is?
Ours is a country full of diversity and I think India is sum total of all this diversity of diverse kind.
Lets start with diverse topography which influences every other thing to a great extent.
We have The Himalayas, The Great Indo-Gangatic plain, The Great Desert, Deccan plateau and more than 7500km of coastline along with those of two groups of island.
I wont stress much on these topographic features, though they are very important. They may find mention latter while trying to understand need of India.
In terms of human settlement India can be classified into villages,towns,census towns and metropolitans. This classification is mainly based on economic activity, population and its density. A part of India lives in forests like tribals.
It will be to neglect the truth if we will not consider classification based on Income levels and religion.
We can be classified as Ultra rich (say Ambanis and Tata), rich (say CEOs and other top officers of Ambanis), middle class (say engineers working for them), poor(staffs at lowest level of hierarchy) and finally very poor(daily wage earners and landless) who normally finds it difficult to meet both ends.
I do understand that this is very crude classification for their exists a wide difference among middle class itself, and I have used a simple urban setup while very similar structure exists at rural level with landlords at top and landless daily wage earners at bottom who shares the bottom position with few untouchables who still are forced to do manual scavenging.
We have Hindus, Muslims, Christians. Sikhs, Parasi, Buddists, Jains and few more unclassified once among Tribals.
Though further classifications can be made like one on the basis of profession, I would stop here.
What do India need?
First lets think of what is the bare minimum necessity of any individual. Here am taking only those which are essential to lead a dignified life, not taking into account any luxury.
To my understanding food, a house, a source of reasonable income to buy cloths and medicine, primary education, access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation facility are the bare minimum requirements..irrespective of the type of human settlement the person live in.
Since more than 70% of us live in villages and maximum villagers are engaged in agricultural activity, lets see what actually this part of India need.
Seed, water for irrigation, fertilizer(chemical or organic),pesticide, agricultural equipment, electricity or diesel are the things which farmer would need apart from soil for agricultural activity.He will also need warehouse facilities to store harvested crops and would need a road connecting his field to the market.
They will also need technical know how to maximize the productivity. People engaged in other professions like livestock rearing and pisciculture need other sets of things like access to vetnary doctor and so on.
rest in part:2..am getting late for dinner :)
It was arround that time I started asking myself "so what India is?".
Till then I was like a frog in a pond who sees only whats around him and concludes that this is what World is.
so What India is?
Ours is a country full of diversity and I think India is sum total of all this diversity of diverse kind.
Lets start with diverse topography which influences every other thing to a great extent.
We have The Himalayas, The Great Indo-Gangatic plain, The Great Desert, Deccan plateau and more than 7500km of coastline along with those of two groups of island.
I wont stress much on these topographic features, though they are very important. They may find mention latter while trying to understand need of India.
In terms of human settlement India can be classified into villages,towns,census towns and metropolitans. This classification is mainly based on economic activity, population and its density. A part of India lives in forests like tribals.
It will be to neglect the truth if we will not consider classification based on Income levels and religion.
We can be classified as Ultra rich (say Ambanis and Tata), rich (say CEOs and other top officers of Ambanis), middle class (say engineers working for them), poor(staffs at lowest level of hierarchy) and finally very poor(daily wage earners and landless) who normally finds it difficult to meet both ends.
I do understand that this is very crude classification for their exists a wide difference among middle class itself, and I have used a simple urban setup while very similar structure exists at rural level with landlords at top and landless daily wage earners at bottom who shares the bottom position with few untouchables who still are forced to do manual scavenging.
We have Hindus, Muslims, Christians. Sikhs, Parasi, Buddists, Jains and few more unclassified once among Tribals.
Though further classifications can be made like one on the basis of profession, I would stop here.
What do India need?
First lets think of what is the bare minimum necessity of any individual. Here am taking only those which are essential to lead a dignified life, not taking into account any luxury.
To my understanding food, a house, a source of reasonable income to buy cloths and medicine, primary education, access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation facility are the bare minimum requirements..irrespective of the type of human settlement the person live in.
Since more than 70% of us live in villages and maximum villagers are engaged in agricultural activity, lets see what actually this part of India need.
Seed, water for irrigation, fertilizer(chemical or organic),pesticide, agricultural equipment, electricity or diesel are the things which farmer would need apart from soil for agricultural activity.He will also need warehouse facilities to store harvested crops and would need a road connecting his field to the market.
They will also need technical know how to maximize the productivity. People engaged in other professions like livestock rearing and pisciculture need other sets of things like access to vetnary doctor and so on.
rest in part:2..am getting late for dinner :)
