Voice from the Rooftop

Blog of Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Tag: Poverty

News and Statistics

India, Media
2 Comments

There are people who criticize media for its coverage of events. They say media ignores real issues like poverty, price rise, illiteracy and unemployment and gives importance to trivia. Farmer suicides are ignored. Death of Dev Anand and retirement of Rahul Dravid get prominence.

Those critics do not know what news is. One person dying is news. Thousand persons dying is statistics. When farmers die every day it is not news. Terrorist strikes in Kashmir are not news. When Anna Hazare fasts it is news. Irom Sharmila fasting is not news.

People like Dev Anand do not die every day. Dev Anand was in the film industry for 65 years. His films have entertained a large section of people.

Cricketers like Rahul Dravid do not retire every day. He played Test cricket for 16 years. He had the record of highest Test catches. He was second in the number of Test runs.

The job of the media is to report. It is not the job of the media to do social service. However media should not glorify crime and criminals. It should not publish or air interviews of criminals.

Media reports did not stop starvation deaths. Same is the case with malnutrition, child marriages in some parts of India and other problems. Media can make some difference but cannot work wonders.

Poverty alleviation

India
Comments

There is a debate about poverty line in India. NAC members have attacked Planning Commission. The debate is mainly about Rs.32 as poverty line in cities.

The definition of poverty changes according to place and time. Poverty can be absolute or relative. Absolute poverty may be removed but relative poverty will be there.

Planning Commission and NAC should be abolished. That will save lot of money. Auctioning of Yojana Bhavan will get crores of rupees.

There should be no subsidies and freebies. Various schemes meant to help poor increase poverty. There is corruption and wastage. Food grains rot in godowns.

Even when there is no corruption and wastage, expenses incurred on managing schemes lead to taxes and borrowings which harm the poor. Borrowings means RBI printing notes which leads to inflation which brings down the value of money. If any government buys rice for Rs.20 and gives it for Rs.2 the difference of Rs.18 has to be made up. Besides people employed for buying and selling need to be paid. There are transport and other costs. Either people pay more taxes to make up for shortfall or extra notes printed make the value of their money go down. If the government does not buy rice, people will buy it for Rs.20 or less and they will not have to pay indirectly for subsidy and other costs. Food grains will not be wasted in godowns. People will not have to starve.

Central and state governments should stop borrowing. That will end inflation and help the poor. Borrowing generally means RBI printing notes and giving to governments which do not return the amounts.

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