By the way, you can find loads of disgustingly miserable poor places in the rich USA too. Maybe they all have sewers and electricity but that's about all that separates parts of the rural US (deep south) or bad urban poverty (right nearby me in NYC) and some villages in India.
Please, just stop. You have no clue. I've lived most of my life in poor parts of the US. Now I live in a posh area of Pune and jog through slums fairly regularly. There is no comparison.
Just one stat for comparison. In the US, 70% of poor people own a car, and 25% own two cars. In India, 1.5% (as of 2006, it's probably more like 2-3% now) of all people have a car, and marginally more own a scooter.
This is one of my favorite topics, discussing poverty in India and the US.
In India (maybe every developing country), as you mentioned, poverty is lack of stuff. You literally don't have enough to eat.
In US (maybe every developed country), poverty is the lack of HOPE.
Its very very weird. I cannot understand why some "poor" person in USA feels poor when they get to eat, have shelter, drive a car, get to rant at their Congressman/woman etc.
Please, just stop. You have no clue. I've lived most of my life in poor parts of the US. Now I live in a posh area of Pune and jog through slums fairly regularly. There is no comparison.
Just one stat for comparison. In the US, 70% of poor people own a car, and 25% own two cars. In India, 1.5% (as of 2006, it's probably more like 2-3% now) of all people have a car, and marginally more own a scooter.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_p...
The 5'th percentile in the US is richer than the 95'th percentile of India.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...