The Planning Commission, headed by the prime minister, has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court quantifying the daily poverty line for an adult as Rs 26 in rural, and Rs 32 in urban India. At today’s relentlessly increasing prices, Rs 26 will not get a manual worker even one nutritious meal a day — leave alone the 2,400 calories he is required to eat to enable him to work,...
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Government in damage control mode; no decision on BPL yet by Smita Gupta
Planning Commission affidavit not to be taken as the last word' An embarrassed government swung into damage control mode on Wednesday, in response to widespread criticism of an affidavit filed by the Planning Commission that suggested that an individual income of just Rs 25 a day constituted adequate “private expenditure on food, education and health,” at a time when even the minimum wage was pegged at over Rs.100 a day, the...
More »Spend Rs 32 a day? Govt says you can't be poor by Dhananjay Mahapatra & Nitin Sethi
The Planning Commission told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that anyone spending more than Rs 965 per month in urban India and Rs 781 in rural India will be deemed not to be poor. Updating the poverty line cut-off figures, the commission said those spending in excess of Rs 32 a day in urban areas or Rs 26 a day in villages will no longer be eligible to draw benefits...
More »Aruna Roy flays new BPL norms
-The Times of India National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy lashed out at the Planning Commission's new criteria for poverty line submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. "This affidavit reflects the government's deep lack of empathy for the poor and a perspective completely divorced from reality," she said. Roy was reacting to the Plan panel's submission to the Supreme Court, saying if a person's spending exceeds Rs 32 a day in...
More »Bihar's new tool to fight corruption - YouTube
-IANS Bihar, for years a metaphor for backwardness, will now harness modern communiction tools to nail corruption. It will expose officials seeking bribes in welfare schemes by uploading clips of complaints against them on the video-sharing website YouTube. "The state government has decided to use YouTube as a new tool to expose corrupt and bribe-seekers," Bihar Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra told media as graft becomes a nationwide concern, particularly with...
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