WSJ! PARDON, YOUR SLIP IS SHOWING!

This article is a shining example of : 

1. Wall Street Journal (WSJ) never misses an opportunity to put down India even if it has to twist the news like a contortionist does his body. 

2. It proves the axiom: When your head is in ice and feet on fire, statistically your body temperature is normal.

The way data has been twisted in this article, I will not be surprised if WSJ compares the amount of food  eaten by an elephant and a human and says world poverty is all because of elephants eating away all the food! India's population in the year 2000  was the second highest in the world, next only to China! India: 1040 million (Withinn brackets Projected for July 1, 2015: 1299 Million) In comparison Pakistan: 140 (191), Nepal: 27 (28) Sri Lanka: 20 (21) and Bangladesh 130 (158). These figures from Wikipedia show that the TOTAL increase in the population of the other four countries compared was 81 million while the increase of INDIA ALONE was 241 million, almost 300%! Now tell me, is it fair to compare thus elephant and ant feed?

Let's see how much improvement in sanitation was achieved: India (From 19% to 40%) Pakistan (21% to 61%), Nepal (1% to 42%), Sri Lanka (63% to 84%), Bangladesh (36% to 61%) as shown in the WSJ graph. That is the percentage of people who now have sanitation facility. ACTUAL number (in millions with percentage increase within brackets) of people ADDED to the list of those with sanitation facility : India (169.19  / 59.07%) Pakistan (49.11 / 17.15%) Nepal (6.02 / 2.10%) Sri Lanka (12.81 / 4.47) and Bangladesh (49.28 / 17.21%). This analysis, which is more fair, will show that of the 286.41 million of those who newly acquired sanitation facility, 169.19 million (or 59.07%) were Indians s compared to 117.22 million (or 40.93%) of all four other nations combined.

By hiding the actual numbers for readers to work out for themselves and only highlighting the percentages, WSJ is doing a disservice to readers instead of enlightening them. If WSJ has been fair, it would not have appreciated PM Modi's aims in the first paragraph only to conclude in the second that "new data show India is lagging behind its neighbors...". Mark the words "New data show..." which follow immediately the first paragraph about PM Modi's announcement on sanitation hardly a year back. WSJ probably seem to forget conveniently that the data relate ONLY to the period BEFORE the present government took over.

WSJ is known for publishing analyses with great insight. But it should tighten up its senior editors to ensure that the draft report does not carry the imprints of likes and dislikes of its author, which may be the case in this instance also. If so, I am sure a correction will follow.

 http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/07/01/india-lags-behind-pakistan-nepal-on-sanitation/?mod=e2fb