The Planning Commission drew flak when it calculated that if an urban person spent 28 per head every day and someone in rural areas spent 22, that was enough to consider them to be above the poverty line. These figures are based on consumption expenditure data collected in the 66th round of NSSO for 2009-10. From these new estimates, using the Tendulkar Committee methodology, the number of poor in 2009-10 was...
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Instead of celebrating the fall in poverty numbers, critics within & outside UPA keep carping-Arvind Panagariya
Evidence that poverty has declined since India began to liberalise in the 1980s, that the acceleration in growth to 8-9% range since the mid-2000s has resulted in accelerated poverty reduction and that these trends hold for each broad social group rather than just the aggregate population is as irrefutable as it gets in social sciences. In the accompanying graphic, taken from a recent study by Megha Mukim and the author, show...
More »Lessons from Melghat’s health crisis-Pramit Bhattacharya
-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...
More »Government reaches out to Corporate India to participate in improving livelihood of tribals
-Press Information Bureau In a first major initiative of involving corporate India in developmental work, the Government of India has sought its partnership in setting up the Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF). Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has written letters to corporates like Tatas, Reliance, Wipro and Infosys to join the Foundation as contributing partners, to improve the livelihood of tribals, mostly living in Central and Eastern India. Public sector NABARD...
More »Starving in India: A Scribe Tries to Save a Life-Ashwin Parulkar
Amit Kumar, an Indian journalist based in the eastern state of Bihar, received a tip in 2009 from a village called Manan Bigha just two kilometers away from his home. There was a man there dying from starvation, he was told. The situation was urgent. Mr. Kumar rushed off to visit the man, Kangresh Manjhi, and exhaustively documented his story. He learned how Mr. Manjhi, a lower-caste, landless laborer, was forced...
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