What is the biggest problem that India is facing?

India is facing many issues. Some of them are major issues and need immediate attention. However, we cannot pick one issue as the biggest problem of India. Because all the major issues are equally important and mostly interlinked. The following problems are the major issues that India is facing. You can choose any of the following to speak on this GD topic, and can support your stance with the impact it has on India.

1. Poverty :-

Causes :-

• Lack of education.
• Lack of employment opportunities.
• Natural Calamities such as floods and earthquakes can make people poor.
• Disease outbreaks.
• Expenditure on health. This is the most important reason for many middle class people slipping into poverty.
• Government’s failure in uplifting the economic status of people.
• Disguised employment in agriculture.
• Agricultural crisis. Due to this, many farmers are slipped into poverty.

Impact :-

• Malnutrition, which impacts overall health. Again they have to spend their meagre earnings on hospitals and hence forever stuck in the cycle of poverty.
• Illiteracy.
• Lack of skills.
• Unemployment due to lack of skills.
• Impacts country’s economy.
• Increase of crimes.
• No happy childhood.

Solutions :-

• Providing them support to improve their economic status.
• Providing access to quality education.
• Creating employment opportunities.
• Raising minimum wages.
• Affordable healthcare services.
• Keeping prices of basic necessities in check.
• Providing nutritious food to all for nominal prices.

2. Unemployment :-

Causes :-

• Lack of skills.
• Lack of access to quality education.
• Lack of employment opportunities, which can be attributed to the failure of government.
• Overpopulation leads to more competition for the same number of jobs. Even if the number of jobs increases, number of unemployed youth will not decrease.
• Rise of automation and declining number of labour-intensive industries.
• Agricultural crisis.
• Seasonal jobs. For example – agriculture provides seasonal employment.
• Some people stay unemployed willingly. For example, many educated women are choosing to be homemakers.
• Lack of proper employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Impact :-

• Poverty.
• Slow economic growth.
• Burden on government to provide unemployment allowance and other benefits etc.
• Low wages. As competition for jobs will be high, employers may offer less salary because people will be ready to work for less.
• Perceived negligence can turn people into anti-social elements. This can result in increase of violence, robberies etc.
• As of 2018, India has 60 crore young people. With the problem of high unemployment rates, a part of human resources will be wasted.
• Family and marital disputes will be increased. Financial difficulties can create conflicts in relationships.
• Unemployment problem can push people into depression and some may even go for suicide.

Solutions :-

• Create employment opportunities.
• Provide skills for the young and unskilled population.
• Encouraging and supporting people that opt for self-employment.
• Providing better access to loans.
• Solving agricultural crisis. Farmers income should be improved. And the problem of seasonal employment should be solved by encouraging multiple cropping.
• Taking steps to control population growth.
• Investing in labour intensive industries.
• Maintaining better relations with other countries to increase employment opportunities for Indians in other countries.

3. Pollution :-

Causes :-

• Pollution from industries.
• Vehicular pollution.
• Releasing industrial waste into water bodies, without treating it first.
• Dust particles on roads. Low quality roads will worsen the situation.
• Household pollution such as cooking by burning wood etc.
• Deforestation.
• Cutting trees for constructing roads and buildings.
• Using pesticides will pollute soil.
• Household waste will got to landfills causes land pollution and also releases methane gas causing air pollution.

Impact :-

• Health problems and thereby impacting economy.
• Reducing life expectancy.
• Impacts environment negatively.
• Causes Global warming.
• Impacts agriculture.

Solutions :-

• Investing on clean energy.
• Providing awareness.
• improving public transport facility.
• Afforestation.
• planting more trees in cities.
• Investing in technologies to absorb pollutants to cleanse the air & to convert the pollutants into harmless elements.
• Imposing heavy fines on industries that dispose industrial wastes without treating.

4. Illiteracy :-

Causes :-

• Poverty.
• Lack of access to schools.

Impact :-

• Increasing gap between illiterates and literates in economic status & employment opportunities.
• Digital literacy needs basic literacy. Increasing digitisation in India makes them feel left out.
• Vulnerable for money scams.

Solutions :-

• Improving access to education.
• Providing incentives such as midday meal scheme to attend schools.

5. Overpopulation :-

Causes :-

• Illiteracy
• poverty. Generally, poor people give birth to more than two children in the hope that atleast few will survive. Lack of nutritious food and access to healthcare services is the cause of high infant mortality rates.
• Better medical facilities increased life expectancy and reduced the mortality rates.
• Allowing Immigrants to our country is also another cause of overpopulation.

Impact :-

• Poverty.
• Unemployment.
• Stress on natural resources such as land, water, food etc.
• Low wages.

Solutions :-

• Providing awareness.
• Improving literacy rates.
• Women empowerment
• Availability of birth control methods at affordable rates
• Attractive incentives for small families.
• Solving the issue of child marriages can help in reducing population growth.
• Providing better medical facilities to give assurance that children will survive. Better child health care and providing nutritious food to children can help in gaining the trust of couples.

6. Intolerance :-

Causes :-

• Politically motivated speeches. For example, speeches on beef ban, Ram temple in Ayodhya caused intolerance.
• Some politicians are creating fights between communities.

Impact :-

• Mob lynching. Recently some innocents were killed due to the issues of beef ban, anti-Hinduism etc.
• Fear in minorities.
• Some people created the term Love jihad and are threatening youngsters that fall in love with a person of different religion.
• Some narrow minded people are trolling and cyber bullying those who express views on religion and Indian society.
• Mere publishing tweet on controversial issues can attract violence and death threats etc.

Solutions :-

• Imposing severe punishments.
• Political parties should remove those from their parties who gives hate speeches and creates conflicts between communities.
• Increasing empathy and understanding on other cultures by awareness programs and adding it as a part of syllabus in schools and colleges.

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