NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT  

  • Different individual goals lead to different notions of national development as well.
  • National development involves thinking about how to ensure equality for all, resolve conflicting goals, benefit a large number of people, etc.

 State vs national development

  • Let us see how we can distinguish some countries as developed and under-developed.
  • Usually, we take one or more important characteristics of countries and compare them based on these characteristics.
  • For comparing countries, their income is considered one of the most important attributes.
  • Countries with higher income are considered more developed than those with less income. The rationale behind this is that higher-income means more of all things human needs.
  • The total income of a country is the income of all residents of a country. However, we cannot measure development using total income because the population of countries varies. This will not tell us what an average person is likely to earn.
  • Therefore, we use the concept of average income. It is defined as the total income of a country divided by its total population. It is also called per capita income.

  • According to World Development Reports brought by World Bank, India comes in the category of low middle-income countries.
  • While averages are used for comparison, they also hide disparities.
  • Even if two countries have an identical average income, it is possible that in one country, there is equitable distribution while in the other country most population is poor while a minuscule of it is rich.