Excerpt from the Editorial of India Today, Aug.21, 2006 (Mr.Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief):
It is now 59 years since we made that historic tryst with destiny. Today, most Indians can take pride in the enormous strides we have made. There is, of course, the downside. Nothing illustrates the dual face of 59 years of Independence, the gains and losses, as forcefully as numbers. Our Independence Day special is a statistical snapshot of India. When our research team started compiling the statistical bedrock for the stories in this issue, we unearthed some startling facts. To make the exercise more meaningful, we collected data to show where we stand compared to the rest of the world.
Some of our findings are troubling. We are, for example, a young nation: our median age is 24.9 compared to 32.7 years for China. Yet, their life expectancy is 72.58 years compared to 64.71 years for India. Some of the data is fun: 23 million people watch Indian movies every day, compared to 20 million in the US but Indians are far less addicted to TV than the Americans. Some numbers demolish myths: It takes a business 264 hours to file taxes in India, much less than 325 for the US. India is a scientific superpower but the gross expenditure on R&D for every Indian is $ 19.8 compared to $56.2 for China and $ 1005.9 for the US. We are an IT superpower but have only 32 Internet subscribers per 1,000 people, compared to 73 in China.
From other pages inside the same issue:
There are 17,189 colleges and universities in India, while the US has 4,182.
India has held 14 general and 283 state assembly elections so far.
Indians watch 2 hours of TV every day, while it is 6 hours in the US.
86% Indians have access to clean water, in comparison to 77% in China.
The Indian Railways covered 576 billion passenger-kilometres in 2004-05, compared to 571 billion by the Chinese Railways.
125 Fortune-500 companies have research bases in India, while 400 are in China.
1050 movies are produced annually in India, compared to 250 in the US in 2005.
Rs.13,200 crore is the advertising revenue in India which is 0.34% of the GDP, while the global average is 0.98%.
64.9% men read English newspapers, which is less than the percentage of men who read English magazines (67.3%).
The percentage of women who read English newspapers is 35.1, while those who read magazines is 32.7.
4 billion tickets of Indian movies sold annually compared to 3 billion in the US. In 2004, the box office collection was $ 1.3 billion in Bollywood while it was a whopping $ 51 billion in Hollywood.
108 million homes with television sets in India. It is the same as in the US. But while India has only 51% TV penetration, the US has 100% TV coverage.
86% is India's success rate in treating tuberculosis, which is better than US record of 70%.
94.1% is the literacy level among Jains, the highest for all communities in India. The Muslim literacy rate is lowest at 59.1%.
5,00,000 soldiers guard the borders of north and north-eastern India. That is equal to the number of soldiers in the US Army.
47% children are malnourished in India, compared to 25.2 in China.
2.73 million international tourists visited India in 2004, compared to 5.3 million in Indonesia.
India's rank on the Happiness Index based on a study of 178 countries is 125. Denmark is the happiest country and China, at 82, is happier than India.
5.7 million people have HIV/AIDS in India, the highest in the world, according to WHO.
The number of Indian students in the US in 2005 is 80,466, compared to 62,523 Chinese.
51.6% Indian Americans have high skill jobs, compared to 21.4% white Americans.
33,608 murders in India as against 16,137 in the US in 2004. There were 18,233 rapes in India in the same year and 94,635 in the US.
1.88 million Indian-Americans reside in the US, the largest Asian community after the Chinese.
28.3% of India's total labour force is female. 36.1% of them are in the age group 15-64.
133 million is the number of Muslims in India, more than the number in Pakistan, which stands at 125.4 million.
308 million people live in urban India which is 29% of the total population. The US has 80% of its population in urban areas.
10,500 students studied at the world's first university at Takshila in 700 BC.
2,00,00 science degrees are awarded every year. It is 6,00,000 in China.
13 million children do not attend school in India according to an SRI-IMRB survey.
93,000 elementary schools with computers in India, compared to 1,10,000 in the US.
8,00,000 complete MBA every year, compared to 2,00,000 in the US.
5.7 million school teachers in India as against 2.2 million in China.
400 medical colleges in India. The US has 125 colleges.
3,50,000 engineers are produced annually, compared to the highest in China, 6,00,000.
9070 doctoral degrees were awarded in 2005, less than 42,700 in the US but more than 6,000 for China.
334 number of Airports in India compared to 14,883 in the US. AAI handles 59 million passengers annually, Atlanta airport alone serves 80 million.
5,58,000 sq km was the total land under irrigation in India in 2003, compared to 5,45,960 sq km in China.
260 million Indians live on less than Rs.50 a day.
100 million mobile phone users in India in 2006, compared to 194.5 million in the US in 2005.
Rs.7,85,000 crore is the value of India's forex and gold reserves. It is Rs.43,00,000 crores for China.
93 amendments in the Indian Constitution, compared to 27 in the US Constitution in 217 years.
Grateful thanks to Mr.Aroon Purie and India Today.
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