| Jobless Growth | |
| Average number of jobs created annually in five years between 2009 and 2013 in lakhs | 7.6 |
| Average number of jobs created annually between January 1, 2014 and October 1, 2016 (latest available figures for last 2.5 years) in lakhs | 2.7 |
| Welfare Schemes | |
| Reported number of welfare programs announced by Narendra Modi government till April 2017: | 105 |
| Reported number of these that were renamed versions of programs announced by earlier governments | 23 |
| Shrinking Numbers… | |
| Size of India’s Parsi population in 2011, down from 1,14,000 in 1941 | 57,264 |
| Year and month in which ‘Jiyo Parsi’ scheme was launched with the campaign ‘Don’t use a condom tonight’ | September 2013 |
| Number of babies born under the scheme till June 2017 | 101 |
| … and Shocking Numbers | |
| Ratio of 2016 take-home pay of top 10 American CEOs ($9bn) to 2016 GDP of Rwanda ($9bn), a country with a population of more than 12 million | 1:1 |
| 2016 take-home salary of Tim Cook, CEO of Apple and No 1 on the list, in million dollars | 145 |
| Cow Cess | |
| Amount of ‘Cow Cess’ on petrol proposed by BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramaniam Swamy at ‘Glorious Indian Cow’ conference held at BSE building in June 2017, in Rs | 1 |
| Projected amount this Cess could generate annually, more than the budgets of some ministries, in Rs crore: | 3,224 |
| Annual budget of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change or Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, in Rs crore: | 2,675 or 1,943 |
| Corruption | |
| Bribery rate in India, the highest among 16 countries of Asia-Pacific region, in per cent | 69 |
| Bribery rate in Pakistan and China, in per cent | 40 & 26 |
| Percentage of Indians who say that level of corruption has increased in last one year | 43 |
| Prison-breaks | |
| Number of recorded helicopter prison escapes that have taken place worldwide between 1971 and 2016 | 45 |
| Number of these which were successful | 32 |
| Number of 32 successful escapes that occurred in France, making it No 1 country worldwide in terms of helicopter prison escapes | 9 |
| Health | |
| Age at which one should start smoking since the “body is fully developed” to offset any harmful effects, according to Czech President Milos Zeman | 27 |
| Average number of tobacco-related deaths reported in Czech Republic every year | 18,000 |
| Average number of Americans who die every year while awaiting a kidney transplant | 4,500 |
| Number of American soldiers killed in Iraq War in 10 years between 2003 and 2011 | 4500 |
| Manufacturing | |
| Number of crematoriums Dutch metal recycler OrthoMetals has signed up worldwide to recycle and recover metal implants from cremated bodies for reuse in various industries | 750 |
| Projected volume of body implants collected by OrthoMetals by end-2015, in kgs | 4,50,000 |
SOURCES: 1&2 Labour Bureau reports quoted in DNA, April 2016 and Times of India, March 2017 3&4 www.sarkariyojna.co.in and statement by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, Business Standard, Mumbai, July 2017 5,6&7 Indian Express, Mumbai, July 2017 8&9 Bloomberg and World Bank, July 2017 10,11&12 Indian Express, June 2017 and Livemint, July 2017 13,14&15 ‘People and Corruption: Asia Pacific’, Transparency International, March 2017 and CMS India Corruption Study, April 2017 16,17&18 Wikipedia 19&20 News reports and WHO Convention on Tobacco Control 21&22 National Kidney Foundation, USA and US Department of Defense 23&24 The Guardian, London Compiled by Anoop Babani. He is a former journalist and a founding member of The Beacon. Back to Top^
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