Do you think India is an overall 'poor' country?

With a population of umteegagillion….d’yeah!

India is really two differnt countries: “Village India” is very poor and only slowly advancing. “Urban India” is a rapidly advancing society but still has massive problems with poverty, caused in large part by too high a birth rate.

I think of it as a country where the poverty is highly visible, whether or not that represents the actual overall situation. The people I’ve known who’ve traveled there inevitably return with stories of being besieged by beggars at every turn. That certainly colors the perception.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land yup, you are right. The population thing is going to drag us down though,. But I feel a tourist must go around India for atleast an year to get the full picture. I mean there’s just too much too see and experience

@Harp yeah it is highly visible, won’t deny that. I guess we Indians are habituated to it and it must stand out blatantly to tourists

You want perceptions, so I am not Googling for statistics.

I think most Indians are very poor. And I know there is a large, well-educated middle class.

I work in IT in the US, so I have a lot of Indian co-workers, and I have worked for an Indian-owned company.

On the other hand, the economics are just one part of the picture. I marvel at India’s cultural wealth. Not all aspects of that culture are praiseworthy, of course, but life certainly seems to run deep there. I fully understand the dismay of Indian immigrants to the US at the shallowness of our culture, its lack of “soul”.

I don’t think that India is a poor country, but I think that a lot of Indians are poor.

After watching Slumdog Millionaire and a documentary or two about call centers, I did find myself drawing conclusions about there being extensive poverty in India. However, the university I attend has a large population of international students, and my interactions with students from India have helped me overcome that tendency to stereotype.

There is a very compelling novel called White Tiger by Aravind Adigo which portrays India in a very cynical light. It details the difference between rural India and the burgeoning middle and upper classes in the cities. I haven’t been to India so I can’t say firsthand if it is an accurate portrayal; I wonder if you have readit @anoop66? It certainly gave me an impression of a society in flux but with many underlying class issues still.

Is India poor? Absolutley Not!
They are rich in Culture!
They are rich in History!
They have a vibrant movie industry!
They have incredibly beautiful music!
They have colorful clothes and beautiful people!
They are rich in Reglious temples and statues!
They are truly blessed!
Thank you India!

No. The wealth could stand to be distributed a little differently, but India is filled with resources.

India is like any other country it has its rich and its poor!

India is poor in the same way that Trinidad & Tobago is poor. Both countries are rich in resources, but the distribution of the national pie (to borrow a phrase) is very unequal, governance is poor and corruption endemic. In other words they are Third World countries with Third World problems – which we will solve in time, Deo volente.

My perception is similar to @bea2345 – great disparity between haves and have nots, seems not a large middle class.

@Harp – Why do you find American culture shallow?

Most of you guys are sort of correct. Maybe its just not possible to generalize such a big country

I don’t know about the country as a whole, but I went to India in June. We were mostly around Delhi and Agra. We went to the little rural villages, and those were very, very poor. No clean water, no medical care, lots of diseases… So when I think of India, yes, I think of it as being very poor, but that’s just what I’ve seen.

India was never a poor country. We are rich in every thing. Sundar Pichai-Google, Satya Nadella – Microsoft, Nikesh Arora – SoftBank,Rakesh Kapoor – Reckitt Benckiser, Ajay Banga – MasterCard, Indra Nooyi – PepsiCo and many more from India. Not only this, India has rich heritage and culture. India is a developing country, hence it will take time to remove all the poverty and other problems… And the fact is India is the fastest developing countries in the world.