Asian Culture, Geography & Politics to understand Asia economies today
Winston Churchill once described India as a mere geographical expression that cannot be taken as a single country than the equator.
It seems he was right since there is no other country in the world that has embraced an extraordinary mixture of ethnic groups with incomprehensible languages living in a variety of topography and climates exhibiting varying cultural and religious practices with ranging levels of economic developments than India (Tharoor, 1997).
This is what describes India. It is country with a mixture of ethnic groups which are held together by invisible threads which are like a myth, a dream or a vision held for generations. India is a country with more than 940 million individuals from different ethnic backgrounds but living together in a land of snow peaks and tropical jungles.
The country has more than 51 percent of its population illiterate but at the same time it has the world’s second largest pool in terms of trained scientist and engineers who have been the backbone of its economic growth. India has teaming cities overflowing with people but four out of five Indians earn their living by scratching the soil.
The culture religious life of the people is rich. It boasts with an ageless civilization which gave birth to four major world religions with different traditional classical dances which attract millions of tourist. The food and drinks culture cannot be compared to any other in the world with more than three hundred ways of cooking potatoes.
We still don’t understand how, but the cultural life of India resisted two hindered years of British culture imperialism to remain intact as it is today. From colonialism India has risen to become the world’s largest democracy with more than 85 political parties but all competing in one country.
It is the combination of al the cultural, geographical, and political life of the people that has led to great economic development. To understand the soaring economy of India, one has to understand the contribution of the three spheres of life.
Soaring economy of India
Since the country gained independent from British, it has been bracing to position itself in the world economy. It has been improving its pace of economic development. In the last few decades, all the major cities in India have undergone radical infrastructural change which is in preparation for more economic development.
The county has diverse economy which encompasses traditional village farming, modern agriculture, modern industries existing along handicrafts, and a highly developed service industry. The service sector has developed to be an important sector in the economic growth with more that50% share of India’s output. But with less that a third of the labor force. Agriculture is another important sector which employs more than three fifths of the workforce.
The economy has been recording a growth rate of more than 7% since 1997 which has led to poverty reduction by more than 10%. In 2006 and 2007, the country achieved an economic growth of about 9.6%. From the 2007 estimates, the country has a GDP of about $2.965 trillion measured by the purchasing power parity while it stands at $894.1 billion measured by official exchange rate. However due to the large population, the GDP per capita still remains low at $2,700.
The service sector contributed 55% of the GDP with the industry sector following with 28.4% while the agriculture sector contribute only 16.6% but employing more that 60% of the labor force. The rate of unemployment remains at 7.2% while 25% of the population lives below the poverty line (CIA world Fact book, 2004).
India has the twelfth largest economy in the world and third largest in Asia after Japan and China. This has seen an emergence of a middle class of about 325-250 million people with a large disposable income. The growth of Indian economy has been contributed by enabling growth atmosphere contributed by the political, geographical and political life of the country (Sankara, 2004).
