India is celebrating its 75th Independence today. It has been 75 years since India got freedom from the slavery of the British. India made a lot of progress in these 75 years of Independence. Today it has become the fastest growing economy in the world. But in many aspects, we are still behind our neighbors.
Now let’s talk about the neighboring countries. Pakistan got independence a day before us i.e. on 14th August 1947. At the same time, China became independent two years later i.e. in 1949. India is the second largest country after China population wise. Both are also neighbors of each other.
There was a time, when there was not much difference in the GDP of India and China. In 1980, India’s GDP was $186 billion and China’s was $191 billion. Now the difference in the GDP of both the countries has come about the manifold. Not only GDP, but in many other ways, China has gone far ahead of us.
Let us know where India and its neighboring countries stand today in the 75th year of independence.
1. Population
There is not much difference in the population of India and China. The population of China is 142 million and that of India is 141 million. According to a report, India will overtake China in terms of population by 2023. There is also a slight difference in the male-female population in both countries. The biggest difference is between the educated and the uneducated population. About 34 percent of India’s population is illiterate, while in China this figure is just 2.5 percent.
In terms of population, both the countries may be seen around, but in terms of population density, India has overtaken China. Actually, the area of China is 96 lakh square kilometer, while the area of India is less than 33 lakh square kilometer.
2. Economy
China’s GDP in 2021 was US $ 17734.06 billion, while the GDP of India was recorded at US $ 3173.40 billion. China is five times ahead of us not only in GDP but also in capita income. The per capita income of China is more than US$ 9020.00 and the annual income of every person in India is only US$ 1850.00.
The economic growth rate in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2021-22 was 4.1%, which is the lowest in four quarters. The third wave of the Corona pandemic, the supply challenges due to the Russia-Ukraine war, the rapid rise in commodity and crude prices affected GDP growth. Despite this, the country’s GDP grew at a rate of 8.7% in the financial year 2021-22. This is the highest in 22 years. With this, India became the fastest growing economy in the world in the financial year 2021-22.
3. Defense
These days the defense budget is the most focused in China. In the midst of tensions many countries including India, Taiwan, America, increased their defense budget drastically. China has increased the defense budget by 7.1% to $229 billion. Earlier its defense budget was 6.8%. The US has the largest defense budget in the world.
Its defense budget in 2022 is $768.2 billion. The US spends 3.4% of its GDP on the military. India is at number four with a defense budget of $61 billion. Saudi Arabia is at number three. Their defense budget is $67 billion. In this matter, Pakistan is not even in the top-10 countries. Pakistan’s defense budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 is $1.52 billion, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year.
4. Education
Keeping in mind the importance of literacy in the world, the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) of the United Nations had fixed 8 September as World Literacy Day on 17 November 1965. The first World Literacy Day was celebrated in 1966 and since then it has been a tradition to celebrate it every year. It was started by the United Nations to make the global community aware of literacy. World Literacy Day is celebrated every year with a new purpose.
India has also made many efforts to educate everyone, which has also shown its effect. Where India’s education rate in 2001 64.83, it increased to 74.04 percent in 2011. It improved in 2022 and now it is 77.7%. Despite this, we have to intensify our efforts, because in terms of education, we are far behind neighboring countries like China, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.
So, instead of 75 years of our Independence, we have to work more in order to compete with our competitors. Let us see, what our government will do in the coming years to get us on par with our neighbors.