ABSTRACT
India is a federal republic with an area of 3,287,590km2; the population in 2002 stood at about 1.052 billion persons with a population density (people per km2) of 320. At the turn of the century, GDP totaled about US$440 billion. This aggregate figure is the fourth largest in the world, but its per capita counterpart is less than US$450. Poverty remains an enormous problem: according to the World Bank, India has some 433 million people living on less than US$1 a day, 36 percent of the total number of poor worldwide. Non-income poverty also represents a huge problem and many social indicators are worsening. This notwithstanding, India’s economic performance has been impressive over the last two decades. Total GDP grew yearly at about 6 percent, per capita GDP at about 4 percent.
