StatsGuru-27-January-2014

The highs and lows of the Republic

On the 65th Republic Day, it is worth looking at some indicators of how far India has come since January 26, 1950, and how far it still has to go. One of the most dramatic performances for free, republican India must be, as shown in Table 1, life expectancy; in the first 15 years and then again in the past 10 years, life expectancy has risen sharply. Literacy rates, shown in Table 2, have also steadily increased every decade; on the first anniversary of Republic Day, less than a fifth of Indians could write. The most recent years have also seen a jump in enrolment ratios in middle schools, as demonstrated in Table 3. Demography-wise, developments are mixed. Table 4 shows how the growth rate of the population finally began to decline in recent decades. The problem with India's sex ratio continues to be noticeable - though, as Table 5 shows, it has recovered slightly from a low in the early 1990s. And, all these people can be fed, too, as Table 6 shows; India produces 5 times as much foodgrain today than it did in 1950. The past 15 years have also seen a big jump in the number of doctors per 10,000 people, as Table 7 reveals. Finally, one thing worth noting: How the Republic of India has built roads, but ignored railways. Tables 8 and 9 show the vast expansion of the road network; at the same time, the rail network has remained near-stagnant.