We are going from bad to better

When a bunch of retirees get together and start talking the only place they go to is memory lane I am not retired in any sense of the word but most of my friends are They have grandchildren I have teenagers they have gout I walk 7000 steps a day they dont work any more I dont get enough sleep and they stopped learning years ago I just joined a UX design course They feel senior When Im with people my age I instinctively call them sirOver tea the talk will mostly drift towards the good old days Life was better everyone would agree The air was cleaner the food fresher the girls prettier No one was fat or had osteoporosis Countries had real statesmen for leaders and people said quotable things We had the best cricket teams you could see the stars at night and everyone was happyNow we have wars refugees global warming Ebola paedophilia corruption and Donald Trump Whats happening to the worldSo I did what good journalists are supposed to went facthunting Were the good old days actually better than today Here are my unadorned findings Mind though these figures are for the entire planet not India And the worlds population in 1900 was just 16 billion Its 77 billion nowLiteracy In 1800 only 10 of adults over 15 could read and write In 2016 its 86 That would be 10 of 1 billion people 1800 and 86 of 76 billion nowGirls in school In 1970 65 of girls of primary school age were enrolled Today its over 90Immunisation In 1980 only 22 of oneyearold infants got any kind of immunisation That percentage has quadrupled to 88Mobile phones In 1980 00003 of the worlds 45 billion people had mobile phones That number is a terrifying mindnumbing 65 of 77 billion people nowWomens vote In 1900 only one country in 195 had equal voting rights for women Now its 194 The exception is Vatican CityNew movies In 1906 one new movie was released every year Over 11000 were released in 2017Democracy Only 1 of humanity enjoyed democracy in 1816 Thats up to 56 nowEndangered species In 1959 only 34 species had been assessed to be endangered That number is 87967 now mdash and counting Oh and adding our own miserable species its 87968Scientific papers If the number of scientific researches conducted and written up is a good measure of human advancement the number is up from 116 in 1695 to 2550000 in 2016Thats just a list of good things getting better Let me give you an equally long list of bad things that are decreasing dramaticallyOil spills In 1979 636000 tonnes of oil spilled from oil tankers Three years ago A mere 6000 tonnesPlane crash deaths Between 1929 and 1933 there were 2100 deaths per 10 billion passengermiles That was down to 1 in the five years from 2012 Yes even including the recent Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashesDisaster deaths In the 1930s 970000 deaths were from disasters In the years from 2010 thats been down to just 16000 And yes despite the most horrific cyclones tsunamis wars and earthquakesNuclear arms In 1986 there were 64000 nuclear warheads Believe it or not that is down to 15000Solar power Back in 1976 a solar photovoltaic cell costs 66 per peak watt That has become a trifling 60 cents nowBattle deaths In 1942 and through the world wars 201000000 people died Though it feels like we are surrounded by wars there have been no more than 1000000 deaths in and because of battleOzone depletion In 1970 the world released 1663000 tonnes of ozonedepleting chemicals through air conditioners refrigerators and so on Today even with a much higher population and many many more of those gadgets we released only 22000 tonnes of those chemicalsLeaded gasoline In 1986 193 out of 195 countries in the world allowed leaded gasoline Today only six countries do mdash Algeria Iraq Yemen North Korea Myanmar and AfghanistanChild labour In 1950 28 of children between 5 and 14 went to work most often in abysmal conditionsBy 2010 that number had come down to 10Child deaths Around 1800 44 of children died before their fifth birthdays Nearly half the worlds children just died as children Only 4 underfives die todayBut the number that literally sings to me is guitars In 1962 only 200 people in every million had guitars By the time we reached 2014 there were 11000 guitarists per million That should be sweet music to your earsPS If you want the rest of the good news go buy a book called Factfulness by Hans RoslingHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates