Goals
• Different persons have different developmental goals.
• What may be developed for one may not be developed for other. It may even be destructive for other. For example, to get more electricity, industrialists may want more dams. But this may submerge land and disrupt lives of people who are displaced such as tribals.
• People desire regular work, better wages, and decent prices for their crops or other products that they produce. In other words, they want more income.
• People seek things like equal treatment, freedom, security, & respect for others. They resent discrimination. All these are important goals.
• developmental goals that people have are not only about better income but about other important things in life.
• Average income having some limitation. Hence, while average income is useful for comparison, it does not tell us how this income is distributed among people.
Public Facilities
• money in our pocket cannot buy all goods and services that we may need to live well. So, income by itself is not a completely adequate indicator of material goods and services that citizens can use.
• For example, normally, our money cannot buy us a pollution-free environment or ensure that we get unadulterated medicines unless we can afford to shift to a community that already has all these things.
• Kerala has a low Infant Mortality Rate because it has adequate provision of basic health and educational facilities. Similarly, in some states, Public Distribution System [PDS] functions well. health and nutritional status of people in such states are certainly likely to be better.
Comparing Different Countries
• For comparing countries, their income is considered to be one of most important attributes.
• Countries with higher income are more developed than others with less income. It is based on understanding that more income means more of all things those human beings need.
• However, total income is not a very good way to compare different countries. Since each country has a different number of people, comparing total income won’t tell us how much average person makes. We compare average income, which is a country’s total income divided by number of people living there. Per capita income is another name for average income.
Human Development Report
• Human Development Report published by United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] compares countries based on educational levels of people, their health status, and per capita income.
• Many improvements have been suggested in calculating Human Development Index [HDI] and many new components have been added to Human Development Report. By pre-fixing Human to Development, it has made it very clear that what is important in development is what is happening to citizens of a country. This is people, their health, and their well-being, that are most important.
Sustainable Development
• We would certainly like this level of development to go up further or at least be maintained for future generations. It is obviously desirable. However, since second half of twentieth century, a number of scientist have been warning that present type and levels of development are not sustainable.
• Groundwater is an example of a Renewable resource. These resources are replenished by nature, as in case of crops and plants. However, even these resources may be overused. For example, in case of groundwater, if we use more than what is being replenished by rain, then we would be overusing this resource.
• Non-renewable resources are those which will get exhausted after a few years of use. We have a fixed stock on earth that cannot be replenished.
• Consequences of environmental degradation do not respect national or state boundaries; this issue is no longer region or nation-specific. We would certainly like this level of development to go up further or at least be maintained for future generations. It is obviously desirable. However, since second half of 20th century., a number of scientist have been warning that present type and levels of development are not sustainable.
Important Terms
• Infant Mortality Rate [or IMR] indicates number of children that die before age of one year as a proportion of 1000 live children born in that particular year.
• Literacy Rate measures proportion of literate population in 7 years and above age group.
• Net Attendance Ratio is total number of children of age group of 14 and 15 years attending school as a percentage of total number of children in same age group.