India Day 1

I finally made it to New Delhi, India! I am in with a group of nine other people all excited to learn about the Indian culture.  Today was our first day walking around the city and we saw the one of the largest mosques in India called the Mecca Masjid. This is where Indians worship several of their 330 gods. We also visited the Salar Jung Museum which has a lot of bright tapestries, jewelry and has ancient weaponry and sculptures. It was fascinating to learn more about Indian culture and history.  I was talking with our group leader today and he told me some shocking facts about India that I didn’t realize before; he said that India is number one on the world poverty list and that it holds a total of 41.1% of the world’s poor(1), which is unbelievable. He also said that the life expectancy for men is 66 and women is 64 which is ten years lower than in the U.S.(3)  

Photo: Nitin Sethi

As we were on our way back to our house for the night we passed a woman and her infant by a corner begging for money or food, so I stopped and gave her some money. As I continued to walk by one of the group member informed me that 44% of the children in Indian suffer from malnutrition(2) and that the infant mortality rate is 55/1000(3) which is heartbreaking to think that the child she was holding may not even make it to its 5^th birthday. 

As I got back to our house I looked up some more information on Indian employment because I wanted to learn more about the poor in India. I found out that 40% of Indians live on $1.25 per day(2).  Also, that 8.9% of the population is unemployed(3).  I began to realize that there is a lot more to Indian poverty than just a few statistics and that this is a problem that has been deep rooted in their society, and I am looking forward to learning more about this growing problem in the weeks to come.

photo: Gerry Popplestone

(1)Nation Master, (2003-2010). Economy statistics. Retrieved from http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_pov_sha_of_all_poo_peo-poverty-share-all-poor-people 
(2)Wikipedia. (November 16, 2010). Poverty in India. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India
(3)Compassion. (2007). India Facts. Retrieved from http://www.compassion.com/poverty-map/