Wednesday 17 September 2014

10 RECOMMENDATIONS TO COMBAT RURAL POVERTY: 1ST SUNSHINE MILLENNIUM ONLINE ESSAY CONTEST

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday  and the first day of Chinese President Xi's visit to India I share the top points that emerged to combat rural poverty (an issue of concern in both Asian powers) as postulated by the entrants of the inaugural Sunshine Millennium Essay Contest.




Q. How can rural India be made prosperous? Ideate and write on how to raise the livelihoods of the millions to above the poverty line standards at least?

(1)    Improve effectiveness of government schemes aimed at alleviating rural poverty
 
(2)    Ensure that the “real poor” get access to the provisions of government schemes

(3)    Equivalent development must be the aim

(4)    Tackle gender inequality 

(5)    Make the development of women synonymous with rural prosperity building 

(6)    Ensure access to resources, educational and medical

(7)    Access to and training in sanitation – health is wealth, good sanitation is good health

(8)     Power and the Internet to the villages to energize growth 

(9)    Tie ups with industries and educational institutions to sustain and support activities that increase the productivity of rural India – know-how to improve yield, know-how and access to sustain village, tribe, and folk enterprise free of exploitation

(10) Make rural India eco-tourism destination – market the uniquely Indian village experience – bring the world to the village and the Indian village to the world. 

  ***
In the course of my research I came across a great article offering solutions to India's poverty problem:
Polak, Paul “How to Solve India's Poverty Crisis”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-polak/how-to-solve-indias-pover_b_4086236.html
Please do read it if you get the time, highlights include the following:

  • Nobel Prize winner and Harvard professor Amartya Sen urges greater government investment in programs to aid the poor 
  • Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia professor and leading trade economist, insists on the need to fuel the growth of industry and the middle class. 

  • economic growth reflected in per capita GDP is overwhelmingly commercial, industrial, and urban, with little direct impact on rural areas, where most extremely poor people live. India has experienced almost eight percent annual GDP growth over the past decade, but according to the World Bank, two-thirds of the population still lives on less than $2 a day, and there are still 300 million people who go hungry  ... increased investment either in conventional economic growth or in government assistance programs is likely to do any better.
  • effective large-scale answer to extreme poverty is to stimulate rapid scalable growth centered specifically in the villages   
a) helping poor people develop income-generating businesses of their own; 
(b) providing jobs that allow them to increase their incomes through wages or salaries; or
 (c) selling them products that enable them to earn or save money.

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