>Brad says
>
>>>Brad DeLong wrote:
>>>
>>>>Rates of growth of GDP per capita, India:
>>>>
>>>>1950-1980 1.1% per year
>>>>1980-1990 3.3% per year
>>>>1990-2000 4.2% per year
>>>>
>>>>At the pace of the last decade, India's real productivity is
>>>>doubling every seventeen years (compared to a doubling time of 65
>>>>years before 1980).
>>>
>>>Any evidence on how this growth has been distributed? Are the
>>>bottom 20-40% any better off, or is it mainly captured by a thin
>>>urban middle class and the IT sector?
>>>
>>>Doug
>>
>>Average life expectancy in India is 63 years, 44% of Indians over
>>15 are illiterate, 53% of Indians under 5 are malnourished. India's
>>poverty rate appears to have held constant over the decade of the
>>1990s. But I don't see how anything is going to push India's
>>poverty rate down until education improves.
>
>Were you an Indian, you would have to root for the Communist Party
>of India (Marxist), then.
>
>***** ...Despite overwhelming factors (cultural issues,
>population, resources), India's literacy is steadily improving.
>India's literacy rate at the time of independence (1947) was only
>14% and female literacy was abysmally low at 8%. In 1981 the
>literacy rate was 36% and in 1991 it was 52% (males 65%, females
>39%). The southern state of Kerala was the first to reach "100%
>literacy" for a city (Kottayam 1989), then a district (Ernakulam
>1990), and finally the whole state (1991)...
Yes. The CPI(M) has done amazing things as the government of Kerala...
Brad DeLong
