The idea of progress: why is India a country of contradictions?

The idea of progress

Introduction

I'm going to talk about the notion of the idea of progress. To define this notion, we can say that the progress is an evolution of a whole field or something specific, which then can make the world evolve.

In relation to the notion, my topic is modern-day India.

India is a country situate in Asia, beetween Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal.

India is compose of 28 states and 7 union territories. The capital is New Delhi, one of the most important cities in the country with Goa, calcutta, Bombay …

It is the second most populated country in the world, the first is China. Indeed, India counts more than 1 billion inhabitants .

Currently, we can notice that India is evolving : it's an emerging country, more and more developed, but there are still many disparities inside the population. Therefore we can wonder : Why is India a country of contradictions ?

My presentation will fall into 2 parts : Firstly, I am going to talk about the economical differences, and then I will talk about the social differences in this country.

I Economics contradictions

We studied a document that represents a dual image of India. Indeed, it is a picture showing Indian people on a the bank of a river, they are looking at the skyline of a modern city. One the one hand, the city's skyscrapers and modern buildings highlight how India has become a booming country. On the other hand, women arewearing the Saris, which indicate that traditions remain.

An other document “High-tech-cities” studied shows the booming of India. We realized that India, in a short time, has developped high-tech cities, with buildings, becoming the headquarters of many companies. Bangalore is a city which will accomodate international entreprises. India is a country on the march, a business orientated country because of its hi-tech sector which developps rapidly. Moreover, Indian's GDP has been increasing at an anual rate of 8% since 2004.

We worked on a text entitled “Is microcredit changing India ?” (from a magazine) which explained us what microcredit is. Microcredit is an economical tradition in India. It consists in granting money to poor people who can't get loans in traditional banks. This system has enabled many Indian people and particularly Dalit women to start their owen business. This tradition permits to reduce the economic gap beetween people of different social classes in India and the growth of the industry at 70% annually over the past 5 years.

The disparities between the Rich and The Poors are typical of emerging countries. But in India, these disparities are very stunning. We can see this on the document “A country on the march” (statistics study) : Some Indian still live below the poverty line, we learnt that only 17% people describe themselves as “thriving” while 64% believe they are “struggling” and 19% “suffering” ! This document shows the economical difficultie in India.

II Social contradictions

Many couples want to have a boy instead of a girl as a child, consequently, gendercide is a usal thing in India.

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