Can India Become A Developed Nation By 2020

Outline:

• Introduction
• hindrance in developement
• strengths
• solution and conclusion

CAN INDIA BECOME A DEVELOPED NATION BY 2020

Mission: 2020   “A developed India by 2020, or even earlier, is not a dream. It need not be a mere vision in the minds of many Indians. It is a mission we can all take up – and succeed. 

                                                                  ...A.P.J Abdul Kalam Azad       

Sixty five years of Independence! What did we achieve in these 65 years is a rhetorical question for which answers can be affirmative and negative. No doubt that India is a safer country, a country where the living cost is cheaper. This is the place where you can have the speech freedom complaining the system without providing any suggestions or alternative. India is fast developing and all Indians dream of becoming a developed nation by 2020, it’s high time for we Indians to think whether we can achieve this target within a short span of about eight years. We all Indians started dreaming about this prestigious target a couple of years ago and it was fueled by the words of our former president APJ Abdul Kalam. But the present day happenings in our country and the world as a whole, force the Indians to rethink and analyse on our present economic conditions and our journey towards the status of a developed nation.

In India most of the people (about 60% of nation’s population) are living in villages. There they are not able to fulfill their basic needs of life. In those villages youth is unemployed; they follow unhygienic activities, which lead to serious health hazards. Youth is turning towards crime because of unemployment. In such scenario it seems very difficult for India to become a developed nation till 2020. It's been observed that crimes committed by illiterate ones are more in number as compared to the literate ones. Because uneducated people have no skill in their hand nor they have education to earn money. So it seems easy to them to commit a crime because it's the easiest way to earn money. So illiteracy gives birth to crime. Tihar Prisons reveal that 92 per cent of the prisoners lodged there are from the lower income strata of society .Indian literacy rate grew to 74.04% in 2011 from 12% at the end of British Raj in 1947. Although this was a greater than six fold improvement, the level is well below the world average literacy rate of 84% and India currently has the largest illiterate population of any nation on earth.

Another encumbrance in the development of country is terrorism. Every border of our country is facing this problem. In the north, Jammu & Kashmir has the biggest terrorism problem in the form of “Indo-Pak issue”. In south, Andhra-Pradesh is facing the problem with “People’s War Group”. In the east, Assam has its own problem against the “Ulfa-militants” and in the west, Mumbai; the Industrial capital of India is at the center of terrorist attacks. Terrorist attacks have a great impact in the society, in the economy, in the ethnic values. Being an anti social and destructive activity, it halts the economic and social development of a nation. These points to the fact that India must modernize its army and intelligence. After 9/11, the U.S invested a ton of money in its intelligence and now there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack in America. If India invests money in its technology and army, there will be none of this terrorism in India.

The next snag in development of India is corruption. Although India is not the most corrupt nation in the world but the roots of corruption in India are so deep that it is the biggest obstacle to overcome for the development of nation. Nelson Mandela aptly put it, "corruption in government - that is the plaque that must be erased from every regime in every place in the world." It will not be possible to realise any serious development goals if corruption is not eradicated from government business. Where there is corruption, it becomes very costly for government to deliver services to the people. Corruption increases the costs of providing services. Therefore to cherish the dream of transforming India into a super power, the malaise of corruption has to be rooted out from our society and body politics.

Poverty is another ball and chain to India’s progress. Even after 65 years of independence, large scale poverty remains the most shameful blot on the face of India. The division of resources, as well as wealth, is uneven in India - this disparity creates different poverty ratios for different states. As of 2010, more than 37% of India’s population of 1.35 billion still lives below the poverty line. How can a man, who doesn’t have sufficient money for his next day’s meal contribute in the development of nation? The government has planned and implemented poverty eradication programs, but the benefits of these programs are yet to bear fruits.

With ever growing population, we might end up with shortage of food-grains. The situation we faced in the 1960s and the counter-measures we have taken were good enough but this will not take us any further. With the population expected to reach 1.4 billion by next decade, what we are doing is insufficient. On one side we have people starving while on the other side we allow the grains to rot. There is no point every farmer going in for cultivating wheat and rice. Farmers should go in for other cereals and crops where water is a rarity. A well planned logistics would help in this regard. We should take leaf from the books of Israel, a country excelled in agriculture despite having no water resources.

Education is another area where we need to make a lot of improvement. It has become a money-minting industry and quality education has become rare. Unless some radical steps are taken, the literate population would shrink despite huge people force.Apart from the above-mentioned major problems, there are also some other problems like lack of energy resources, brain drain , casteism , communal rights which dampers country’s development.

But, India also has some strength to its name. India has made a lot of developments, from launching satellites to green revolution, operation flood to atomic power plants.The major strength for India is its man power as India is the second most populated country of the world. If we consider Uttar-Pradesh as a separate country, then it will become the world’s sixth most populated country very next to China, India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil. So India’s huge population can occupy any big industry which requires a large number of people.

Rapid economic growth has resulted since the removal of the license raj. For instance, the Indian economy has sustained an average growth rate of over 6% annually, with the gross domestic product or GDP being around 9.2 % between 2006 and 2007. In the past decade, India's GDP has also arisen from 21 % to 33 %, and India's foreign exchange reserves have reached over $200 billion. Domestic markets have also grown substantially to support innovation. Worldwide, India's vast economic success is recognized by many national and international corporations who have not only taken advantage of its pool of high-quality scientific talent but have also established many research and development facilities (R&D) throughout India. Tourism and Network Marketing with eCOM are the power of our Nation which will shift India from developing to developed.

Our another strength is Information Technology which is the most dominating technology in today’s scenario and because of its highly intellectual minds, India is dominating throughout the world in this technology. The revenue of the India-based software companies are in thousands of corners and they are able to squeeze a lot of foreign money from international market. So they are contributing greatly in the development of nation.

Oh Almighty, bless all my people to work and transform
our country from a developing into a developed nation.
Let this second vision be born out of sweat of my people,
And bless our youth to live in Developed India.
 

The above lines are from ‘My National Prayer ‘written by ’A.P.J Abdul kalam’ who points out to the face that there are no readymade solutions. Only when people realise the importance of being a developed country and will the people follow all the rules and remove corruption from their midst then only we can be blessed to live in developed country. In other words, this cannot be imposed from without but the changes must come from within each individual.

I would like to conclude by saying that India to become a developed country till 2020 is highly probable, but not impossible.