Inequality in India can be seen from outer space
Are night lights on earth captured by satellites from outer space a good way to measure inequality? Economists Praveen Chakravarty and Vivek Dehejia certainly believe so. They acquired images grabbed by satellites from the US Air Force Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme. These satellites circle the earth 14 times a day and record lights from the earth's surface at night with sensors. They superimposed a map depicting India's districts on their images, allowing them to develop a unique data set of luminosity values, by district and over time.
Using data generated by the night lights, they studied of 387 of 640 districts in 12 states. These districts account for 85% of India's population and 80% of its GDP. Some 87% of parliamentary seats are in these districts. Using the novel methodology, the economists documented income divergence in India.
[...] Some 380 districts in 12 states were on average just a fifth as bright as the big cities of Mumbai and Bangalore. Also, 90% of all the districts are just a third as bright in the night as the top 10% of all districts. And the ratio has worsened between 1992 - a year after India embraced economic reforms - and 2013.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:31AM (6 children)
I imagine some of the causes of inequality between states is much as it is in the US, bad/corrupt governance in the weaker states, and obstacles to moving from bad states to better states (such as high real estate costs in destination regions, abusive occupational/professional licensing, and high levels of state government employment).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @01:29PM
The left hates progress, there must always be a victim and oppressor class or their arguments are just too easy to debunk [moneycontrol.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)
You mean a study meant to quantify inequality is quantifying inequality and not something else completely? Shocking!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:41PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:15PM (2 children)
Equality is more important than poverty reduction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:16PM
Give up your personal wealth and go be equal with a homeless person then.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:42PM
Equality means little while poverty reduction means less suffering, lower fertility rates (and hence, less problems from overpopulation the key driver to many global-scale ills of humanity), and more resources for doing stuff that we value. You can only claim the above by ignoring some really big things.