Development of a country can generally be determined by
(i) its per capita income
(ii) its average literacy level
(iii) health status of its people
(iv) all the above
ANS (iv) all the above

Which of the following neighbouring countries has better performance in terms of human development than India?
(i) Bangladesh
(ii) Sri Lanka
(iii) Nepal
(iv) Pakistan
ANS (ii) Sri Lanka

Assume there are four families in a country. The average per capita income of these families is Rs 5000. If the income of three families is Rs 4000, Rs 7000 and Rs 3000 respectively, what is the income of the fourth family?
(i) Rs 7500
(ii) Rs 3000
(iii) Rs 2000
(iv) Rs 6000
ANS (iv) Rs 6000

Per Capita Income is the main criterion used by the World Bank in classifying different countries.The limitation of this criterion are:
→ It doesn't show distribution of income.
→ It also ignores other factors such as infant mortality rate, literacy level, healthcare, etc.

World bank only uses per capita income for measuring development while UNDP uses many other factors like infant mortality, healthcare facility education level which help in improving the quality of life and helps in making the citizens more productive.

We use averages because they are useful for comparing differing quantities of the same category. For example, to compute the per capita income of a country, averages have to be used because there are differences in the incomes of diverse people. However, there are limitations to the use of averages. This does not show distribution of thing between people. For an example, if a country has very high per capita income then we can't say that citizen living in that country are very rich because we are not knowing about the distribution of wealth in that country. Some people might be richer while other people are very poorer in that country.

No, I do not agree with the statement that per capita income is not a useful criterion at all. Kerala, with lower per capita income has a better human development ranking than Punjab because, human development ranking is determined using a combination of factors such as health, education, and income. So, this does not imply that per capita income is not useful. Rather, per capita income is one of the development factors and can not be neglected. The World Bank uses per capita income as the criterion for measuring development and comparing states. But this criterion has certain limitations because of which determination of Human Development Index (HDI) is done using this criterion along with some other development factors like health, education etc.

The present sources of energy that are used by the people of India are electricity, coal, crude oil, cowdung and solar energy. Other possibilities fifty years from now, could include ethanol, bio-diesel, nuclear energy and a better utilisation of wind energy, especially with the imminent danger of oil resources running out.