Poverty, the Age Old Plague: A Comparison of Trends in India and China (1947 - 2010)
By Anokhi Desai & Aditi Mishra “Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in decision-making” (United Nations, n.d.). India and China are two countries similar in composition and origin, but different in eco-political strategies. And since they are both similar and different from each other, we economists draw comparisons. For starters, the two countries span a substantial geographical size, boast the leading population sizes in the world, and gained colonial independence in close proximity to each other (India in 1947, and China in 1949). India and China, thus, entered the new world-era post-WWII as primarily agrarian societies with widespread poverty and a dismantled societal structure. The two countries, however, embarked on different ...