India's progress - A myth

A great article, given that it is posted on rediff it is quite unlike that website to post articles of such profoundity.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/06utop.htm

Looks at all the negatives of the so-called demographic dividend. This article exposes the crisis we also call "demographic dividend". A few quotes from the article to elucidate the point -

Who will create the jobs to absorb the net increase of 71m young people of working age over the next five years? Most are poorly educated and only a fraction will find regular work. Who will feed them and supply them with water and fuel? India has 18 per cent of the world's population but only 4 per cent of its fresh water and just over 2 per cent of its land area. Many of the country's groundwater aquifers are already in critical condition. Available per capita water supply has declined since 1975 and water demand is set to exceed all usable sources of supply by 2050. The bulge of young people today, furthermore, will in time become a bulge of pensioners in a country where only 11 per cent of the working-age population have formal pension arrangements. India will thus face the same problems of ageing and high dependency ratios as Japan and Europe today, only on a larger scale.

India does not have much time to shape up....