In a statement, the Azim Premji Foundation said: “The Foundation’s extensive fieldwork in education has been in some of the most disadvantaged parts of India, to help contribute to the improvement of quality and equity of the public (government) schooling system. All this work has been in close partnership with various State Governments. Currently this fieldwork is spread across Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh, along with some work in the north-eastern states of India.”
It is worth noting that a new report called ‘Time to Care’ by Oxfam published in January this year revealed startling facts on economic divide between India’s rich and poor.
According to the report, top 1% of Indians hold more than 4 times the amount of wealth held by 953 million people (or the bottom 70% of the population).
Also, women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day—a contribution to the Indian economy of at least Rs 19,000 lakh crore a year; which is 20 times the entire education budget of India in 2019 (Rs 93,000 crores).
On a global front, the report states that “In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people. The richest 22 men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa.”
“Economic inequality is out of control,” says Oxfam in the new report.
The disparity stems from a flawed and sexist economic system.
“The gap between rich and poor can’t be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these,” said Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar, according to media reports.