When the roots are rotten.

Poverty has risen during the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration "based largely on reduction in average per capita expenditure", wrote Kukarni and Gaiha. However, since this is an average figure, it does not give a true picture of the depth of poverty which is provided by income inequality. "India's richest 1 percent hold more than four times the wealth held by 953 million people who make up for the bottom 70 percent of the country's population, while the total wealth of all Indian billionaires is more than the full year budget, a new sturdy said on Saturday." "According to Global Wealth Report 2018, since 2000, wealth in India has grown at 9.2% a year, faster than the global average of 6% even after taking into account population growth of 2.2% annually." But, this rise in wealth is because "market capitalisation rose by close to 30%, house prices by about 10%, and the rupee 4% against the dollar", while "92% of India's adult population has wealth below $10,000". Wealth in stocks and real estate do not create jobs for the poor. Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world because he owns 16% of Amazon whose stock price has increased 97,000% since its initial public offering (IPO) on 15 May 1997. Amazon employs near 700,000 employees and its cloud business is worth $18 billion. "Last fiscal, average annual remuneration of a CEO of a Nifty 50 company stood at 249 times more than the median remuneration of the company's employees according to data from nseinfobase.com." Figures are misleading. This government has jacked up fees of IITs to Rs 200,000 per year, a jump of 900%, and fees for IIM have skyrocketed to Rs 2.2 million per year, as a kind of advance tax because these people are expected to earn big salaries. On the other hand, unemployment among ordinary graduates has risen to over 13%, so many will be thankful to work for any salary. The answer is "inclusive and environmentally sustainable growth" which is a picture of "bottom-up growth and mass entrepreneurship", wrote Arun Maira. The government has a multitude of schemes from rural employment to right to education, skill development to loans for setting up new business and health insurance to pensions. Modi has added 25 schemes to pre-existing ones. The whole population, apart from taxpayers, have been included already. The answer is education. "Net primary enrolment is now over 92% and secondary enrolment is also around 75%. However, scant attention was paid to learning outcomes," wrote Sudipto Mundle. "At least 25% of school children in the four-eight age group do not have age appropriate cognitive and numeracy skills," according to a report by ASER. Children are given excessive marks. "Marks are inflated via setting easy exams, asking factual recall questions, liberal marking schemes which give 100% marks for pre-specified keywords and wholesale raising of marks in the name of 'moderation'," wrote Geeta Kingdon. When the roots are rotten the tree will fall.