 Welcome to Dispatches from India, Show by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from the country. Today we will try to look at what explains the inequality in India, the plight of displaced slum dwellers in the city of Chennai, and the struggles of students in the Ladakh region. Our first story is about inequality in India, the pandemic, especially the second wave has brought upon all sorts of economic woes on the people of the country. Unemployment, salary cuts, retrenchments, the list is quite long. On the other hand, the one small section of the country that seems to have done quite well is the super-rich. A report from the beginning of the year says that India's billionaires increased their wealth by 35 percent during the lockdown last year. A lot of this has to do with the policies of this government, which according to many favors the super-rich and the big corporates. But inequality in India is also a long-standing issue. Senior journalist Paranjay Guha-Takurtha and renowned academic Pranab Bhardhan discussed the issue. There have been several studies that in recent years, the inequalities of income, wealth and ownership of capital, that is, have widened in India. According to one report, the World Inequality Report, the top 1 percent of India's population holds 30 percent of their total wealth of the country, while the bottom half, the bottom 50 percent of the population owns barely 6 percent of the total wealth. And we know that these, there are many other studies, Oxfam has made a study, others have made a study, but all of them have shown that India's, which is already a very unequal country, very, very unequal country has become even more unequal. Especially in the last recent past, the anecdotal evidence also indicates that post-COVID, post-lockdown. And Professor Bhardhan, what are the economic, social and political implications of the widening of inequalities of income and wealth in India? Yes, thank you Paranjaya. I think many people in India, including many economists, are not aware, are not fully conscious that India for a long time, not just in the last eight years, for a long time has been one of the most unequal countries in the world. This, by the way, this inequality from the world inequality report that you indicated, it's actually not the latest data. But usually in India, first of all, data-wise is a problem on inequality, because India does not collect, officially it does not collect income data. So you cannot get income distribution. It only gets consumption data. Yes, India does collect wealth data. And this world inequality report has taken the India, there's not their data, is the Indian National Sample Survey data. Now, which tells us that Indian inequality of wealth has now reached the Latin American range. Latin America is one of the world's most unequal. And Indian wealth inequality has now reached there. I mean, we have to be on par with South Africa as well, and the United States, where you live. United States is in fact not as unequal as Latin America and South Africa. South Africa and many parts of Latin America like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, these are more unequal than United States. And India is reaching the Latin American range in wealth inequality. But let me add something to that, which will tell you that inequality actually is even higher than that. It's because these data, as I told you, the World Inequality Report got it from National Sample Survey. These are National Sample Survey data. It's from household survey. They go to a household and ask them about their wealth. Now, household surveys always underestimate wealth inequality. Why? Because various reasons. One is that one major reason. I could give you five other reasons. But one major reason is that people's wealth takes different forms. Some wealth is land, some is houses, buildings, some other kinds of real estate, and some in jewelry and some in financial wealth, investment in stock markets. Now, land and buildings, you can't really hide that much. But financial wealth, people underreport. And since the rich have the more financial wealth, is there is tremendous underreporting. And that's not just in India. Everywhere, household surveys underreport wealth inequality. So even the data that you mentioned is an understatement of inequality. More than that, this data about physical wealth, I already gave you the example, land, buildings, real estate in general, jewelry, and financial wealth. It does not count a very important part of our wealth, which you and I have, and many others have, is what economists call human capital. We carry in our brain human capital, because we have been educated. So education gives you some kind of human capital. And it turns out, we have data on this now, it turns out in educational capital, India's inequality, educational wealth, I'll tell you in a minute how are them crudely measured, but in educational wealth, Indian inequality is even worse than Latin America. Because Latin America, even the common people have more education than Indian common people. So how do they measure it? They go to a household and ask people about how many years of schooling you had as an adult. And every adult, they ask the question, not the children, but adults, they ask the question, how many years of schooling you had. So then they make a measure of inequality. And that measure, India is one of the worst in the world, much worse than Latin America. So if you take all kinds of wealth, including educational wealth, in my judgment, India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. For our next story, we go to the other end of the spectrum. That's the urban poor. Over the past decade or so, there has been a large-scale displacement of slum dwellers in the city of Chennai. These people are moved from their ramshackle homes, where some of them have lived for decades to the outskirts of the city. The displacement, which in many cases has been opposed by residents, puts them in a very difficult situation. This is because the new accommodation often has bad amenities and is away from their source of employment and education. We bring you a report from one such locality in Chennai. The Tamil Nadu government is continuously evicting slum dwellers from the city for various reasons. According to a report, in the important cities of Tamil Nadu, such as Chennai, Konbathur and E-Road alone, 2,579 people have been resettled in the first wave of the pandemic, when people are hapless. The livelihood of the people living in such resettlement areas is at risk. In the past two decades, more than 10,000 slum dwellers have been evicted and resettled in areas like Kannagi Nagar, Perumbakkam and Chenminjheri, which are 40 kilometers away from Chennai city. The news click team reached out to the women in a resettlement area at Perumbakkam in Chennai to understand their issues during the lockdown. We have done a couple of studies during the pandemic to find out how it has impacted. We have realized that people, when it comes to the other areas, people had jobs and they lost it during the pandemic. But in this case, people already did not have employment and the COVID lockdown has only exacerbated the negative impact of those. So there you had, you found that many people did not even have work for about four months, which simply means they were pushed to get into, you know, to take deaths. They were indebted because of this particular thing that had happened. And also one thing that we also noticed is how insensitive the government was. When the government was able to waver rent for the Tamil Nadu housing board, why didn't the government issue a statement saying that they will waver the rent for Tamil Nadu slum clearance board? Well, you have most vulnerable communities there. So the statement of the government itself did not include the Tamil Nadu slum clearance board in the first place. Secondly, we think Kukaia ration card is provided. Yes, these people will be entitled to, you know, relief process. When we have that almost 40% of those people inside the resettlement side do not have access to a ration card. So when they don't have a ration card, how is it that they will get the government's benefit? These are all things that we are grappling with and yet there is no solution. It's not that it is a new thing. People have been, there are multiple media reports about it. There are multiple research reports about it that it's actually it reflects on the will of the government to actually do something for the communities. For women, this has had a double impact because women are forced to give up on their employment because one, because of the distance, because of the time taken to travel, we have had cases of people living, living in Parampakkam who have said and even in Navadu who has said it takes about three hours one way to reach their previous place of habitation. So a person has to travel around four to six hours a day just to, you know, for commuting, which is completely not feasible. So women are saying our mobilities are restricted because one, there is no proper access to, you know, transportation. It's very costly. And third, we are not able to reach home on time to take care of our children. And another very important thing which is curtailing the mobility of women and children in these resettlement sites is the fact that some of these settlements not safe for women and children. So they're saying there is no safety. So I'd rather leave my job and take care of my child because, you know, I am placed in a settlement with so many people whom I don't know. There is hardly street lights. There is hardly the entire designs itself is rendering the entire housing program unsafe for women and children. So all these things have contributed to, you know, pushing women into an extreme vulnerable situation because women suffer worse in this entire livelihood crisis than happens. However, it was a Tamil Nadu slum clearance board in the government which went for 100% resettlement. So we can also understand this is a socio-spatial segregation which is happening. This is a discrimination of its own where the poor of the country, people from different particular caste groups have been completely, you know, moved out of the cities. They have been deprived of their right to reside in the cities. And finally, we go to the union territory of Ladakh, especially the eastern part, where the lack of internet access has been a huge blow to education during the pandemic. While schools remain shut like in many other parts of the country, the absence of connectivity means that even online classes are impossible. Here's a ground report from the region. We are facing some problems in education, sir. We don't have any internet access here. The problem is that we have a huge problem due to which we have to leave for 20 kilometers. And there, too, the internet is not running well. And we have a huge problem. We have Wi-Fi in Satow. But this is where the children come to take classes. But it was a bit of a problem for them that they have to walk very far from here, sir. So the problem is that if the other child comes there, they have to walk very far. Then they don't even have a good class there, sir. We wake up in the morning and go on the road and ask for a lift. Sometimes we don't even get a car. Sometimes we don't even get a meal. Sometimes the Wi-Fi doesn't work properly. Then the ma'am who sits inside the mobile, we have downloaded everything. We all come back home. This is the most difficult and difficult for the children, sir. You know, sir, the distance here is 150 kilometers. The problem here is that the rest of the people are walking. There is no place to walk on the internet. The internet is also sometimes running. But here, the internet doesn't run at all. It takes at least 20 or 25 kilometers from here to go down. There is no Panchatgarh here. There is Panchatgarh. There is a little bit of internet running in there. The children get hanged because of it, sir. The online system has started everywhere. But the problem is that our border area, which is in my constituency, doesn't have a 4G internet or 3G internet anywhere in the village. So, because of that, children either have to shift from the village to attend online classes. Because there is a complete lockdown since two years. So, there is nothing physically there. The classes are not happening. So, the children are getting online through their classes. So, there are a lot of difficulties in attending classes. I have raised these issues many times. Even today, I am saying that my border area has a lot more areas where there is no 3G internet or 4G internet. Some villages still don't have 2G internet or 2G facilities. So, in that case, our children are totally suffering. Right now, there is a Panchatgarh in the village where the reset has been installed. Children go there to attend online classes. But the fact is that in that Panchatgarh, maximum 8 to 9 to 10 users don't accept it. If more users come there, then it becomes closed. So, that's why there is a lot of difficulty. So, the rest of my area is to take education and suffer completely. That's why it has been continuing for the last two years. This BSNL phone is still running. Sometimes, it becomes closed. It becomes very difficult. We have just surveyed for some helpers. They don't know when Panchatgarh will reach. Because there are a lot of children here. Because of the net new honey, we are very tensed for that. The COVID-19 situation is also zero. So, it is very important to open the schools. In my constituency, there are 12 villages. There are 4-5 villages. But the maximum in my area, in my sub-division, there is no private school. All the rural students there are in the school of the government. So, it can be assumed that the involvement of the government in the maximum school is of the village. So, according to that, these problems are happening only in the village. And if we talk about the enrollment of the students, then at least, around 250 of them will be in my constituency. I don't understand when they will come to school. They are very good. That's all. We have time for today. We will be back next week with more news from India. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.