Man grew from the most unimaginable form to the most intelligent social being. As he grew,he also developed the things around him and gave them the wonderful lustre which are no more available for free in the nature but could only be bought by something called money. Money today is such an important term of life and the root of all the overwhelming things like economy, trade, revenue, growth, food, clothing, shelter and every single thing that exists in this world. It is the root for the basic needs of a human being. And the term poverty arises when people are not able to meet their basic needs.
The basic needs of the people in various countries differ with the cost of living in their respective countries. A term purchase power parity(PPP) is defined to match the basic needs of a human being in terms of money in various countries. Today world's population has grown to nearly twice in the last five decades and is just above 6.3 billion at present. Before stating the threatening facts, it is very important to know about the structure or the design of the world's economy scripted by the rich. The countries are divided as 1st 2nd and 3rd world countries depending on their economic condition. Or rather they call them the rich,the developing and the poor. As the elite section alone contributes to over 80% of the world's revenue,our major concern is the poor and the middle class people who are living their lives in poverty or are scared of falling into poverty.
The poverty line at present is drawn at 1.25$ per daywhich is regulated depending upon the PPP in different countries. In India it is around 21.6rs in urban areas and 14.6rs in rural areas. In todays world nearly 0.88 billion people earn less a dollar per day and over 3 billion people earn less than 2.5$ per day. The importance of these facts would be highlighted when compared with the spending of the rich countries on luxuries. Last survey in India states that nearly 27.5% of indian population fall under the poverty line which is nearly the population in the united states of america.
Further stating the facts, the lower 40% of the world's population account only for 5% of its revenue. Nearly 22,000 children die each day and nearly 27-28% of them in the developing countries are found to have underweight. 40 million people are suffering with HIV/AIDS and nearly 3 million deaths were recorded in 2001 alone. On a rather approximated calculation among 2.2 billion children on our planet nearly 1 billion of them fall under the poverty line that means every second child on this planet is born with the burden of poverty. Children devoid of education are nearly 121 million and in South Asia alone 706 million poeple live without electricity.
When poverty brings out light on such threatening facts, some other interesting facts should also be stated which would bring light on the luxury sepndings of the rich. Where basic education for all requires 6 billion $,providing water supply for all requires 9 billion $,giving basic health protection requires 13 billion$,the money spent by US alone on cosmetics is 8 billion$,revenue spent on icecreams in Europe is 11 billion$,on drugs is 400 billion$,alcohol 105 billionand on cigarettes is 50 billion $ every year.
The true understanding of the poverty may bring out the realization in people to help eradicate poverty. The last thing this world requires is war and artillery but the amount spend by the world wide countries on artillery and warfare is 1.1 trillion$ every year and less than 1% of it is required to to put all the children in schools While we should be proud of the 49 trillion $ economy of the world,we should also concentrate on the fact that only 20% of the population contributes to over 80% of the world's revenue. With 1.4 billion people not fulfilling their basic home needs, one cannot just rest but should help eradicate poverty or atleast try and contribute in their own way to decrease the poverty in our world.
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