This year marks the 75th anniversary of India's independence. In the past 75 years, India has indeed made great progress since its independence. For example, by the end of last year, India's total GDP surpassed its former suzerain country, the United Kingdom, and the Indians are very ambitious. They believe that it will soon surpass Japan and Germany quickly, and rank in the top three in the world in terms of economic output.
Especially in the Russian-Ukrainian war in the past eight months, the appreciation of the US dollar has caused the economy of the entire Europe and Japan to be severely damaged. It is very likely that India will quickly achieve their goals under the rapid depreciation of the yen-euro currency exchange rate.
And just two days ago, another good news that excited Indians came, that is, The Prime Minister of the British Empire has been replaced again, and now he has replaced an Indian-born young man. It can indeed be said to be a young man. The Prime Minister of Sunak was born in 1980 and is only 42 years old this year. Indians finally feel proud.
The former suzerain country now needs an Indian to manage the country after colonizing them for hundreds of years. However, is the Indian economy really developing so rapidly? Has the living standards of Indian people really improved a lot? uncertain. In the past two days, the annual Global Hunger Index was released again. According to this report, India scored 29.1 points in all 121 participating countries, at the level of severe hunger, ranking only one hundred and seventeen, basically at the bottom of the dozens.
And through data comparison, India's ranking among its neighbors is only slightly higher than Afghanistan , and much hungry than typical poor countries such as Nepal , Bangladesh, and Pakistan . Of course, the Indian official immediately refuted this number, and they believed that this was a means by Western developed countries to discredit India. They said that India has a population of 1.4 billion, but some investigative agencies only select 3,000 people as samples in each country, and then concluded that India was severely hungry. This is very irresponsible and it is a slander of India's development achievements.
Although the investigation process of this report is flawed and the sample data is not that much, I think the matter of Indian hunger is also a fact. What is the measurement of a country's development level? Of course, there are many parameters. We can look at the total GDP of this country, and we can look at the number of per capita GDP of , and the number of purchasing power parity. But the problem is that many numbers have limitations. Once the exchange rate is adjusted, the number may change very much. Therefore, sometimes, those who truly measure a country's living standards may really look at how much food consumed by the people of this country and how much energy per capita are.
For example, we often complain that although our neighbor South Korea is also a developed country, its per capita GDP exceeds US$30,000, it is obvious that the Korean people are quite a loss when it comes to eating, and they are not like developed countries at all. For the same problem, we can also take a look at India to see if India is hungry.
numbers are actually easy to compare. In the past, we have talked about it. China and India also have a population of 1.4 billion. Judging from the natural conditions of the land, India's territory area is about one-third of that of my country. However, because a large amount of territory is in the subtropical region and abundant rainfall, India's arable land area is more than my country.
Although my country has a vast territory, 9.6 million square kilometers, there are a lot of land that is not suitable for cultivation. Therefore, over the years, we have attached great importance to the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land. No matter how the city's margins expand, we must guard this red line of arable land so that 1.4 billion Chinese people can solve the self-sufficiency of staple food.
This is a national security consideration that a big country must have, so what about India? China and India also have a population of 1.4 billion. India has much more agricultural population than my country. Today, my country's urbanization rate is about 70%, but you can go to the vast rural areas to see how many young people are still in the countryside.
The vast rural areas are only aging elderly people and the few left-behind children. The number of people who really engage in agriculture in our country today is very small. You should know that just a few decades ago, we had 1 billion people with 800 million farmers. Now, agriculture accounts for 10% of the total employed population.
However, this is not the case in India. There are still a large number of farmers in India tied to the land and they have to rely on their own hard work to produce food. The population of India engaged in agriculture is far more than that in our country, and India has much more arable land than in our country.
However, India's grain output does not even have half of that of my country. India's grain output per year is about 600 billion jin. In the past 10 years, my country's annual grain output has exceeded 1300 billion jin, which is more than twice that of India. The cultivated land area is larger than ours, and the population engaged in agriculture is more than us, but the grain output is only half of us.
This is not the end. We produce so much grain every year. We don’t have enough food to eat. We also import a large amount of it from overseas every year. We not only import soybean and rice agricultural products, but also import a large number of livestock products. We also import a large amount of seafood, such as beef, mutton, or even pork. We also import a large amount of fresh fruits. We have imported a large amount of food over the years.
However, India's grain production is only half of ours, but not only does not import, they also export. You are right. With a population of 1.4 billion, we produce more than 1.3 billion kilograms of grain every year. We are not enough to eat, and we also need to import a large amount of grain. India produces a total of 600 billion kilograms of grain every year. Isn't it funny?
Are all Chinese people big-bellied men? Are Chinese people's appetite several times that of Indians? Of course this is not the case, because with the development of the economy over the years, we have been replacing the issue of eating. 30 years, many families only eat meat once a week, and 20 years, we don’t know what imported fruits look like. 10 years, lobster king crab may only be seen in the video.
However, all this has become our daily delicacies today. Although we produce a large amount of food, we do not eat all the food ourselves. Our large amount of food is used to feed pigs, cows, and sheep. They are converted into animal protein and then we eat it. includes a large amount of foreign agricultural products we import. Some of them are used to press oil and some are also used as feed. In fact, in terms of per capita food consumption, we have not only not increased but have decreased over the years. This is because our dietary structure has changed a long time ago.
For most Chinese people, I think hunger is really not a problem anymore. What we need to consider is how to eat better, eat more nutritiously, and eat healthier, so we have talked to you about a number in the past. Today, the number of per capita energy and resources in China has been increasing in recent years. We not only occupy a large number of agricultural products, animal husbandry products, seafood, but also a large number of fruits and vegetables. In many individual items, our per capita share is the highest in the world, so we Chinese never need to consider the issue of hunger index.
But India is not the case. Not only can India import food in large quantities from overseas, but it is not even possible to think about agricultural products, animal husbandry products, seafood and fruits. India also exports a large amount of grain produced every year. Why do it export it? Indians are not rich to make money, and the price of large amounts of food exports is that India is really hungry. Even from 2019 to 2021, 16.3% of Indians have been undernutrition for a long time in the past two years, while the malnutrition rate of children in India is as high as 19.3%, the highest in the world.
This is in line with our usual impression. Indians are always thin and dry. Why? If you don’t have enough food, you will have no oil and water, and your face will be glorious. Of course, we have also said in the past why there are many soldiers with particularly big belly in the Indian army? That's because after entering the army, he was able to eat enough, and he mainly ate starchy food, with a spoonful of curry paste poured in rice and rice. When he was not in the army, he was really hungry and full. After joining the army, he could at least open it. Therefore, a large number of big-bellied soldiers appeared in the Indian army.
People who eat meat are strong, that is muscled. Only those who cannot eat meat for a long time can eat starchy food have a big belly. So it is obvious that although the Indian economy has made great achievements over the years, India is still very backward in the issue of hunger. No wonder the Indian government suddenly issued a rice export embargo in the past few months. Why?
Due to the influence of the Russian-Ukrainian war, many people have predicted that global food prices will soar in the future, and many countries will encounter food crises. Therefore, the Indian government is also a little worried that if a large amount of low-end rice produced by the country is sold, will the hunger index of the people in their own country be further increased?
In the past two years, Indians are proud to say that their overseas immigrants have made more and more achievements overseas. The CEO of high-tech companies in the United States, the US vice president is Indian. Today, even the British Prime Minister is Indian. Therefore, India is proud to say that they have a very smart mind and can lead Western world in both the political and business circles.
But on the other hand, there are still hundreds of millions of India's 1.4 billion people today struggling on the poverty line. India is much hungry than the poor and weak countries around Bangladesh Pakistan. However, the outstanding talents trained by this nation have gone overseas, taken root in the United States and the United Kingdom in the Western world, and even a large number of Indian immigrants have a second and third generation. They will not return to India, but will receive a complete Western education.
Then use their intelligence to serve the Western world. Although the CEOs of Silicon Valley are a large number of Indians, they are no longer Indians. In the future, there will be more and more Indian immigrants like He Jinli Sunak in the political arena of Europe and the United States. They have indeed received a complete Western elite education, and they work very hard and are very talented. They can also build a world in the political arena of Europe and the United States, but all this seems to have nothing to do with India.
And every year India will have a large number of outstanding talents going to the United States to study in the United Kingdom. Their dream is to not only study in the United States, but also take root in the United States. After graduation, find a good job and keep their second and third generations in the United States, receive American education, and become the masters of the United States, but all this seems to have nothing to do with India.
They are Indians and they are Indians in the future, but they have nothing to do with the hundreds of millions of Indians who are struggling online. On the one hand, the number of hungry people in their country has been increasing over the years. On the other hand, a large number of elite talents in the country were sent to foreign countries, which was just a name for Indians, but did not make any contribution to the construction of the country. To be honest, will India be more hungry if this continues?
