Inequality in India can be seen from outer space.

Pedro_P

Are night lights on earth captured by satellites from outer space a good way to measure inequality?

▼ Economists Praveen Chakravarty and Vivek Dehejia certainly believe so. They acquired images grabbed by satellites from the US Air Force Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme. These satellites circle the earth 14 times a day and record lights from the earth's surface at night with sensors. They superimposed a map depicting India's districts on their images, allowing them to develop a unique data set of luminosity values, by district and over time.
Using data generated by the night lights, they studied of 387 of 640 districts in 12 states. These districts account for 85% of India's population and 80% of its GDP. Some 87% of parliamentary seats are in these districts. Using the novel methodology, the economists documented income divergence in India.
Most of India is dark at night because there is little economic activity going on. But the delicate tracery of lights as seen from space also showed that the states are becoming more unequal between and within them.
Some 380 districts in 12 states were on average just a fifth as bright as the big cities of Mumbai and Bangalore.
Also, 90% of all the districts are just a third as bright in the night as the top 10% of all districts. And the ratio has worsened between 1992 - a year after India embraced economic reforms - and 2013. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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vikpan1133

Wow...thats shows a completely different perspective ...never thought about something like that

soothsayer

fantastic metrics! indeed a very excellent approach to measure prosperity, of course with a note of caution uttered by Dr Dehejia that there is no silver bullet

me_martian

Interesting article! But wouldn't this be the same if we looks at other countries too? Industrialisation concentrates on selective locations due to economic and environmental reasons. That is also why we have Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and so forth. Also we need to account for 90%+ rural areas, forest, mountains and desert.

Shannu069

Lol might be also that most of them have switched off the lights and gone to sleep

divey

There are many places which are yet to receive electricity after so many years of independence. Though households with electricity is an indicator of economic development, i think the above study may have some flaws in it like most of us switch off Lights at night and the illumination is more due to street lights. For many districts  this may be a case as they dont have street lights in many villages though may have households with electricity. We often think of results and then mold facts to suit them instead we should first think about fact and then draw conclusions

eheske

Very thought-provoking article

samgmu

Interesting ! I saw this image earlier but never thought about this.

PK47

Yes, most of the economic activities are mostly concentrated on certain cities. There needs to be decentralisation. I think the current government is also trying to decentralise the economic activities, like currently the government has selected 100 potential cities in India to improve its infrastructure and attract investments.
And Most of the india is covered by forests, so the most of the forest area around the economic cities is wiped out in order to expand the city, which makes the city even more brighter when viewed from space. While the other places grow at slow rate making them pale in comparison. Since the main cities have more job opportunities, many people migrate to these places.

xbmcmu

PK47 8-6-2018 11:10 PM
Yes, most of the economic activities are mostly concentrated on certain cities. There needs to be de ...

very true