South Asian Business news and information

economic growth must benefit for all including people live in poverty. If economic get better but the poor still poor, it means improvement only for the rich and middle class.

If economic can benefit all people, then the country will also get better human resources.

Alan Sleeman, an economics professor at Western Washington University in the USA, argued that the key to economic growth is educating young women. He offered evidence of this having been effective in certain developing countries with specificity that currently escapes me.

Educating young women (of all socio-economic backgrounds) has the added bonus of raising the standards of living across society. My understanding is that economists widely view women as being in control of the majority of household budgets. If true, focusing on female education may indeed be the cheapest and most effective means of improving everyone's lot.

Micro-financing is often often implemented with the goal of making small loans available to women as a way of providing sustainable means for households to achieve income. As you may know, micro-financing has been tested more in South Asia than any other market, as of yet, and is heralded as being very effective at lifting many out of poverty. This suggests that Alan Sleeman may have been right: give women the tools to succeed and we are all better off.

So perhaps Singh could take one out of old-man Sleeman's book. This could not only support further economic growth and spread the benefits widely, but it could also take some wind out of the sales of the Naxilites and those sympathetic to them. Additionally, educating women would improve India's ability to compete with China in services outsourcing, which China is said to be targetting. Thus, investing in India's women would be economically and politically advantageous. Are there any drawbacks?