NPR
An Indian girl with her face painted begs on the outskirts of New Delhi. Despite India’s rapid economic growth, poverty and begging are still common. PHOTO/Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Years after leaving his small village in northern India, journalist Siddhartha Deb set out to explore the true impact of globalization on his homeland by working undercover in an Indian call center.
That experience paved the way for The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India, a book in which Deb follows the lives of a rural farmer, an ambitious hotel worker and an affluent movie producer to expose the dark side of Indian prosperity.
Deb joins NPR’s John Donvan to discuss how the globalization that helped make India an international player continues to leave millions behind.
Interview Highlights
On the wealth disparity in India
“You have at the very top end of the country … something like 66 billionaires. And these numbers might be slightly old, but there are probably a few more billionaires since I last checked. But 66 billionaires who seem to have something like 30 percent of the country’s wealth.
“On the other end, you have like 800 million people — over 800 million people — living on less than $2 a day. When you have a country where 40 percent of the children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition, it seems to me that these contrasts aren’t really healthy. They’re not just differences. They are really like living different worlds within the same country.”
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