-The Hindu   If Gujarat is a model, then the real toppers in development indicators, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, must be supermodels In an earlier article published on this page ("The Gujarat Muddle," April 11, 2014), I pointed out that Gujarat's development achievements were hardly "model" class. This is pretty firm ground: the same point has been made by a long list of eminent economists. Yet confusion persists, so I decided to...

-The Financial Express The Indian success story increasingly looks like a tale of naivety and optimistic complacency. The Indian success story increasingly looks like a tale of naivety and optimistic complacency, with the fantasy of ‘India Shining' obfuscating the reality of widespread deprivation. Despite rapid economic growth during the past decade, millions continue to live in poverty and hunger. The Indian government aims to address abject hunger and malnutrition with the National Food...

-Down to Earth   This defies logic. Despite rapid economic growth, India has often been placed below sub-Saharan African countries that have very high number of malnourished children. But the government has no data to clarify its position. In the first week of September, Parliament’s Committee on Estimates criticised the government, saying: “The committee is surprised to note that in the modern era of Information and Technology, there is no recent official...

-The Hindu There is absolutely no methodological relationship between the Tendulkar poverty line and the one dollar poverty line. Mihir Shah has defended the poverty line recommended by the Suresh Tendulkar Committee in 2009 in his article in The Hindu (editorial page, "Understanding the Poverty Line", August 5, 2013). Mr. Shah makes two claims. First, he argues that "Tendulkar [...] computed poverty lines for 2004-05 at a level that was equivalent, in...

-Frontline Once more, without feeling: the government's latest poverty estimates. YET again the Central government has mired itself in controversy by releasing its latest poverty estimates based on the consumption expenditure survey of the NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) Survey of 2011-12. The Planning Commission's poverty line, using methodology suggested by the Tendulkar Committee in 2010, is now apparently defined as the spending of Rs. 27.20 per capita per day in rural...