Celebrating The Million Revolutions That Are Powering A Better India

Let’s make India truly ‘sare jahan se accha’

Every day, the news te- nds to be dominated by stories of death, decay and destruction. The pandemic has devastated lives and livelihoods, the war in Ukraine has deepened human and economic misery around the world, and the echo chambers of social media have turned public discourse increasingly toxic. All around, there is a gnawing sense of anxiety and uncertainty.

In this obsession with doom and gloom, transformational endeavours tend to go unnoticed. That is unfortunate. Because even as we worry about everything that seems to be going wrong, there are enough and more people and organisations working quietly to improve lives, brighten futures.

Sometimes, it helps to step back and look at the big picture. India, with a GDP (gross domestic product) of $3 trillion, is today the world’s sixth largest economy; in purchasing power terms ($10 trillion) it is the third biggest, behind only the US and China. It is expected to hit the magic figure of $5 trillion GDP in a few years. These figures, coupled with the latest estimate in a working paper of the World Bank, show that extreme poverty is down to about 10% in India.