> Was just about to ask whether you could provide relative performance
> of various states as well as all-India average; also some baselines.
Infant mortality is at 72 per thousand, average life expectancy is 62-65 years and literacy is at 65%. While famines have vanished, levels of moderate/acute malnutrition are too high. One can roughly say that Southern and Western parts of India plus West Bengal are relatively advanced. Northern and Central India are relatively less developed. There is a fair chance that states such as Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka would catch up with Kerala over next couple of decades if indian economy continues to grow at 5 to 5.50% per year. These states account for about 300-350 million people. India's Planning Commission has produced a report on the state of human development for 2001. The full text is available at: http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/reportsf.htm
> All-India comes out low on the HDI rankings, below even Nicaragua!
Nicaragua (and cuba as well) are too small for a valid comparison. We could compare India with other major countries in Asia: China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh,Vietnam and Iran. UNDP Report on HDI ranks places China at 96, Iran at 98, Vietnam at 109, Indonesia at 110, India at 124, Pakistan at 138 and Bangladesh at 145. It may be worth looking at these ranks.
> One of the few things I know is that female enrolments in Kerala are
> very high, by all-India standards, whereas they are relatively low in
> West Bengal.
Gender inequality is a primary factor behind low levels of human development. e.g. All-India male and female literacy is 75% and 55% respectively.
> The absence of males in
> Kerala -- all gone to work in the Gulf and elsewhere -- leaving women
> to decide whether girls go to school?
There are not so many of them in the Gulf, that no males are left in Kerala!
> Also Arundhati Roy's novel points to the caste-ism of Kerala.
Casteism is rampant all over india.
>here was an interesting discussion on Kerala in the Bull
> of Concerned Asian Scholars in 1998 -- a lead article raising some
> issues of Kerala development, and a number of comments. The lead
> article was provocatively titled social development without economic
> development -- shades of Cuba, without the labour migration?
Kerala is emerging as a tourism hot spot. Kerala is a beautiful place.
Ulhas