howl at pluto: Two faces of India

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Harley-Davidson is breaking into the Indian market, selling its bikes starting at $14,000 each, while in the state of Orissa people are dying from contaminated water supplies.

LFC said...: I don't have to be deeply, deeply knowledgeable about every aspect of India to know that poverty in a 'developing' country is different (that is, more severe and widespread) than poverty in a 'developed' one. Of course there are a number of places in the U.S. where you can find extreme poverty. The difference is one of scale and spread. Some of the basic indicators in India (extent of child under-nutrition or malnutrition, life expectancy etc) are still more typical of a 'developing' country than a 'developed' one. There is a also a large and growing middle class of course, but it's still a minority of the population. In a very large country with more than a billion people one is going to find contrasts -- that was the only point of this post.

I think if you look at more of my posts having to do with India you will see that 1) I actually do know something about India (not as much as I might, of course, but something); and 2) I have no interest in insulting India or its people, contrary to what your comment suggests. If this little post gave a contrary impression, that was certainly not my intention.; October 9, 2009 at 2:39 PM

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