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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]After I travelled to India and Nepal I stopping giving to beggars in the US. Give me a break! We don't know real poverty here. An old lady living in basically a cardboard box invited me into her 'home' and asked me to drink chai with her. These people have nothing and still want to give. Americans are so ungrateful and there's so many programs here for the poor. I will never give to beggars in the western world. [/quote]

I just.

1) India isn't tourist poverty porn. It's not a land of tragedy that exists to make you feel good about yourself; in fact, it's quite wealthy and corrupt.
2) India is the industrial capital of fake beggars. I'm speaking as an Indian. This thread amuses me because all the panhandling described here has been an established thing in India for DECADES.[/quote]

I partially agree with the above.  But India isn't wealthy on a per capita basis, and the corruption means that there's quite a bit of wealth inequality.  No doubt there is organized begging (and a lot of it), but there is still a lot of poverty there.  It's gotten better in recent decades, but it's silly to pretend like the corruption means you should ignore the acute suffering.

That being said, I agree about the ways Westerners treat it as "poverty porn".[/quote]

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