Let’s Work These Out
On Page 4
Question 1. Developmental Goals of Different Categories of Persons –
On Page 6
Question 1. Why do different persons have different notions of development? Which of the following explanations is more important and why?
- Because people are different.
- Because life situations of persons are different.
Answer : 2. Different persons have different notions of development because life situations of persons are different. Developm ent goals of a girl from a rich urban family will be surely different from a farmer in Rajasthan. It is because their situations, lifestyle, and status are very different from each other. A goal that a person has entirely depends on his or her present life situation. Over a period of time, if the situation changes, au automatically goals of a person will also change.
Question 2. Do the following two statements mean the same? Justify your answer.
- People have different developmental goals.
- People have conflicting developmental goals.
Answer: Yes, these two statements mean almost the same, as different persons could have different as well as conflicting developmental goals, e g . ., in Gujarat, the government is in favour of the Narmada Project, while the people who are adversely affected by the project/dam are opposing this.
Question 3. Give some examples where factors other than income are important aspects of our lives.
Answer: Though income is one of the most important aspects of our lives, there are other important things, such as –
- People also seek things like equal treatment, freedom, security and respect.
- Women need safe and secure environment to take up a variety of Jobs or run a business.
- People also need political rights.
- People seek a pollution-free environment.
Question 4. Explain some of the important ideas of the above section (income and other goals) in your own words.
Answer. The above section is based on the income and the goals of the people. Here, besides seeking more income, people sometimes seek things like equal treatment, freedom, respect and security . People have important goals as above. The factor on which life depends is money or income but the quality of our life depends on non-material things also.
On Page 7
Question 1. Look at the picture given below. What should be the developmental goals for such an area?
Answer:
- Availability of loans for making pucca houses with own toilets.
- Ownership of land on which they live.
- Availability of municipal services like electricity, water and sanitation.
- Regular employment.
- Medical facilities in the locality like a dispensary.
Question 2. Read this newspaper report and answer the questions that follow –
A vessel dumped 500 tonnes of liquid toxic wastes into open-air dumps in a city and in the surrounding sea. This happened in a city called Abidjan in Ivory Coast, a country in Africa. The fumes from the highly toxic waste caused nausea, skin rashes, fainting, diarrhoea etc. After a month seven persons were dead, twenty in hospital and twenty six thousand treated for symptoms of poisoning.
A multinational company dealing in petroleum and metals has contracted a local company of the Ivory Coast to dispose the toxic waste from its ship.
- Who are the people who benefited and who did not?
- What should be the developmental goal for this country?
Answer:
- Those who dumped the toxic waste have benefited while the people of Abidjan in Ivory Coast were not benefited.
- Pollution awareness.
Question 3. What can be some of the developmental goals for your village, town or locality?
Answer: Sanitation, security, per capita income etc are developmental goals for our locality.
On Page 9
Question 1. Give three examples where an average is used for comparing situations.
Answer: Average income of two countries, average speed of two vehicles over a distance, average height of the students in two different classes of a school.
Question 2. Why do you think average income is an important criterion for development? Explain.
Answer: It is an important criterion because it tells us what an average person is likely to earn and also gives some idea about the rising standard of living. Prosperity of a country depends not only on its national income but also on the number of people who would share it. In case the number of people is large, the average income will be less. This is the case in India.
Question 3. Besides size of per capita income, what other property of income is important in comparing two or more societies?
Answer: Average income, i e . ., per capita income, is important but not the only criterion for development. Along with average income, equitable distribution of income in a country should also be considered.
Question 4. Suppose records show that the average income in a country has been increasing over a period of time. From this, can we conclude that all sections of the economy have become better? IIIustrate your answer with an example.
Answer: All sections of the economy have become better cannot be concluded because different sections of the economy may have become better or worse. An example is the current situation in India , where the average income has increased every year; the services sector has increased very much, but agriculture is having virtually no growth.
Question 5. From the text, find out the per capita income level of middle-income countries as per WDR 2006.
Answer: Per capita income level of middle-income countries as per WDR 2006 was between ` 37,000 and ` 4,53,000 per annum.
Question 6. Write a paragraph on your notion of what should India do, or achieve, to become a developed country.
Answer : To become a developed sovereign state, India should achieve the following –
- A highly developed economy.
- Have advanced infrastructure facilities like better roads, better telecom network, better transportation facilities, etc.
- Higher per capita income, matching that of other developed countries.
- A higher general standard of living with enough food to feed the poorest people adequately.
- The service sector should provide more wealth/income than the industrial or agricultural sector.
On Page 12
Question 1. Look at data in Tables 1.3 and 1.4. Is Punjab ahead of Bihar in literacy rate etc as it is in terms of per capita income?
Infant Mortality Rate ( IMR ) indicates the number of children that die before the age of one year as a proportion of 1000 live children born in that particular year.
Literacy Rate measures the proportion of the literate population in the 7 and above age group.
Net Attendance Ratio is the total number of children of age group 6-10 attending school as a percentage of total number of children in the same age group.
Answer: Yes, Punjab is ahead of Bihar in literacy rate.
Question 2. Think of other examples where the collective provision of goods and services is cheaper than individual provision.
Answer: In factories, in mining, in manufacturing etc, where an activity is carried out on a mass scale.
Question 3. Does availability of good health & educational facilities depend only on amount of money spent by the government on these facilities? what other factors could be relevant?
Answer: No, It does not only depend on amount of money spent. It also depends on the capabilities of the doctors and quality of the medicines in the case of health facilities. In education, the quality of the teachers is important.
Question 4. In Tamil Nadu, 75% of the people living in rural areas use a ration shop, whereas in Jharkhand only 8 % of rural people do so. Where would people be better off and why?
Answer: The health and nutritional status of people depend on availability of cheap and reasonable quality foodgrains, sugar and other item from the PDS system. So, in Kerala, the people will be better off, since more people there utilize the facilities provided by the PDS system.
On Page 12
Study Table 1.5 carefully and fill in the blanks in the following paragraphs. For this, you may need to make calculations based on the table.
(a) The literacy rate for all age groups, including young and old, is —— for rural males and —— for rural females. However, it is not just that these many adults could not attend schools but that there are —— who are currently not in school.
(b) It is clear from the table that —— % of rural girls and —— % of rural boys are not attending schools. Therefore, illiteracy among children in the age group 10-14 is as high as —— % for rural females and —— % for rural males.
(c) This high level of illiteracy among —— age group, even after more than 60 years of our independence, is most disturbing. In many other states also we are nowhere near realization of the constitutional goal of free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14, which was expected to be achieved by 1960.
Answer :
(a) 52 %, 19 %, 36 % males, and 69 % females.
(b) 69 %, 36 %, 61 %, 32 %.
(c ) 10 – 14.
Exercises
Question 1. The development of a country can generally be determined by –
(1) its per capita income (2) its average literacy level
(3) health status of its people (4) All of these
Answer : (4) Development of a country can generally be determined by its per capita income, its average literacy level, and the health status of its people.
Question 2. Which of the following neighboring countries of India has better performance in terms of human development than India?
(1) Bangladesh (2) Sri Lanka
(3) Nepal (4) Pakistan
Answer : (2) Sri Lanka has better performance in terms of human development than India.
Question 3. Assume there are four families in a country. The average per capita income of these families is ` 5000. If the income of three families is ` 4000, ` 7000 and ` 3000 respectively, what is the income of the fourth family?
(1) ` 7500 (2)` 3000 (c) ` 2000 (d) ` 6000
Answer : (4) Total income of four families = 5000×4 = 20000.
Total income of three families = 4000+7000+3000 = 14000
Income of the fourth family = 20000- 14000 = 6000
Question 4. What is the main criterion used by the World Bank in classifying different countries? What are the limitations of this criterion, if any?
Answer: The criterion used is per capita income.
Limitations
- t covers only the economic aspect ignoring factors like infant mortality rate, literacy rate, no attendance ratio for class I-V, etc which are important indicators for development.
- This method also does not provide us the distribution of different levels of income.
Question 5. In what respects is the criterion used by the UNDP for measuring development different from the one used by the World Bank?
Answer: World Bank
- Per capita income is the base for comparison.
- It is a narrow concept of development.
- Countries have been divided into three categories, i e . ., the rich countries, the middle-income countries and the poor countries.
UNDP
- UNDP has taken education, health and the per capita income as the base.
- It is a broader concept of development,
- Countries have been ranked.
Question 6. Why do we use averages? Are there any limitations to their use? Illustrate with your own examples related to development.
Answer: Averages are used to compare different countries, states, or regions. Since countries have different populations, comparing total income will not tell us what an average person is likely to earn. Aver ages have many limitations.
- They don’t give us the true picture regarding the distribution of income.
- Averages don’t give us any information regarding non-materialistic goods and services.
Limitations of Average Income
While averages are useful for comparison, they also hide disparities.
For example let us consider two countries- A and B. For the sake of simplicity, we have assumed that they have only five citizens each. Based on the data given in the table, let us calculate the average income for both countries.
Will you be equally happy to live in both of these countries? Are both equally developed? Perhaps, some of us may like to live in country B if we are assured of being its fifth citizen, but if it is a lottery that decides our citizenship number, then perhaps, most of us will prefer to live in country A . This is because even though both countries have an identical average income, country A is preferred because it has more equal distribution. In this country, people are neither very rich nor extremely poor, while most of the citizens in country B are poor, and one person is extremely rich. Hence, while the average income is useful for comparison, it does not tell us how this income is distributed among the people.
Question 7. Kerala, with a lower per capita income has a better, human development ranking than Punjab. Hence, the per capita income is not a useful criterion at all, and should not be used to compare states. Do you agree? Discuss
Answer: Yes, I agree that money income or per capita income is not the only factor. Factors like Infant Mortality Rate, Literacy Rate and Net Attendance ratio are also very crucial for overall human development. In these factors Kerala is better than Punjab.
- Infant Mortality Rate in Kerala was 11 as compared to 49 in Punjab (in the year 2003).
- Literacy Rate (%) was 91 in Kerala as compared to 70 in Punjab (in the year 2001).
- Net Attendance Ratio from class I to V was 91 in Kerala as compared to 81 in Punjab (in 1995-96).
Due to these advantages, Kerala has a better human development ranking than Punjab, in spite of lower per capita income.
Question 8. Find out the present sources of energy used by people in India. What could be the possibilities fifty years from now?
Answer: Present sources of energy used by people in India are- coal, lignite, petroleum, natural gas, LPG, electricity, etc. Fifty years from now there is a possibility that people will be making more use of non-conventional sources of energy, nuclear energy, energy from motion, etc.
Question 9. Why is the issue of sustainability important for development?
Answer :
- Suppose presently a particular country is quite developed. We would certainly like this level of development to go up further or at least be maintained future generations.
- Since the second half of the 20th century, a number of scientists have been warning that the type and levels of development are not sustainable.
- Groundwater is an example of renewable resource. But if we use more than what is replenished by nature, then we would be overusing this resource.
Once the non-renewable resources would be exhausted we won’ t be able to use them in future. So, using the resources judiciously will help in maintaining the sustainability of the development of our eco-system.
Question 10. “The Earth has enough resources to meet the needs of all but not enough to satisfy the greed of even one person”. How is this statement relevant to the discussion of development? Discuss.
Answer: This statement implies that human beings are overusing the natural resources of the Earth in the name of development. Earth provides enough resources to meet the needs of all but today’s man has become so greedy that he for his progress and development he resorts to activities like deforestation, unsustainable fuel wood and fodder extraction, shifting cultivation encroachment into forest lands, indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals, extraction of groundwater in excess of recharge capacity, etc.
Question 11. List a few examples of environmental degradation that you may have observed around you.
Answer :
- Deforestation
- Use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
- Burning of coal and mineral oil.
Question 12. For each of the items given in Table 1.6, find out which country is at the top and which is at the bottom.
Notes
- HDI stands for Human Development Index. HDI ranks in above table are out of 177 countries in all.
- Life expectancy at birth denotes, as the name suggests, average expected length of life of a person at the time of birth.
- Gross Enrolment Ratio for three levels means the enrolment ratio for primary school, secondary school and higher education beyond secondary school.
- Per capita income is calculated in dollars for all countries so that it can be compared. It is also done in a way so that every dollar would buy the same amount of goods and services in any country.
Answer :
Question 13. The table shows the proportion of undernourished adults in India. It is based on a survey of various states in the country for the year 2001. Look at the table and answer the following questions.
- Compare the nutritional level of the people in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh.
- Can you guess, why around 40 % of the people in the country are undernourished even though it is argued that there is enough food in the country? Describe in your own words.
Answer:
- The nutritional level of the people of Kerala is significantly higher than that of Madhya Pradesh for both males and females as, the proportion of undernourished adults about half that of Madhya Pradesh.
- There is enough food in the country but even then 40 % of the people in the country are undernourished because of the following reasons.
- There is a lack of educational and health facilities in many parts of the country. So, many people remain backward and poor, and so , they are unable to get nutritious food.
- In most of the states, the Public Distribution System (PDS) does not function properly and the poor people cannot get cheap food items, so they remain undernourished.