Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty in India

Even after 60 years of Independence, India has the highest number of people under the poverty line. Independence hasn't helped - rulers of the nation were poor implementers of the policies and the policies themselves were lopsided to favor a few of the billions. But we also have people who are the richest in the world ! They tend to flaunt their money rather than do social work, may be in a limited way, but a pittance considering that they can afford.

It is not that easy to eradicate poverty in this country however. There is significant level of illiteracy that makes it very difficult to educate people and makes these people very vulnerable as well. Also even literates are sucked into superstitions and customs that have no basis except "it has been done that way" culture. This is a real inhibitor in many circumstances and exploited by others.

One of the consequences of being born in a poverty stricken family is that the childrens health are affected due to poor nutrition. There are many more physically challenged people in a poor household than others. I have been associated with a charity organization that helps the physically challenged children in poor households - The The Association of People with Disability. You can contact them directly or can donate online and see how you can help.

Eradicating poverty cannot be achieved in a one off activity, it needs a consistent effort at a large scale. So we need the blog authors to work on this in a consistent fashion, not just a day in a year!