What is Meant by Unity in Diversity ?

India holds claim to 17% of the world’s population, and one-third of the world’s poor. The World Bank estimates that 41% of Indians live below the poverty line, in situations of abject scarcity. While the majority of us reading this have seen birthday celebrations, and gifts from family and friends, many in India are born on the streets, without medical help or sanitation. They are not celebrated; instead their births are a burden, and their lives are hardship, ignored by most, on the pavements of India.

Cricket is the closest thing India has to a single, unifying experience. The children in slums share the same mad passion for the game as do the gray-haired gentlemen enjoying a match at the cricket clubs. The game lends itself to many forms, and gully cricket, in its most basic avatar, has been the initiation of many of India’s finest batsmen, who left the narrow lanes of their childhood behind, to play under the bright lights of the IPL, a professional cricket league whose brand value is now estimated at $3.6 billion.

India’s universities and placements boast of international standards, and the country is seen as an emerging new academic destination globally. Yet, India has one of the largest illiterate populations in the world, with the highest number of labourers under 14 years of age. A UNESCO report estimates that 72 million primary school children are not in school, with a staggering 12.6 million children engaged in hazardous occupations.

India’s vision of becoming a world leader in nuclear power technology, with ambitions to supply 25% of the nation’s electricity through nuclear plants by 2050, falls in sharp contrast to the whopping 35% of population that live without access to electricity today.