The debate over the poverty numbers in India is oddly impoverished. Judging from the vociferousness with which India’s press and English-speaking upper-middle-classes are debating the latest poverty figures, those who chide the wealthy for a lack of concern for the poor are barking up the wrong tree. And no doubt much of the breast-beating about the “absurd” poverty cutoffs and the declines in poverty (exaggerated! inadequate!) is extremely well-intentioned. Unfortunately, the...

While it has made progress on water supply, a high percentage continue to defecate in the open   Going by the present pace of progress, India will achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) on sanitation only by 2054. While some States had already achieved the target and some are close to it, other populous States such as Madhya Pradesh and Orissa will reach the target only in the next century, according to...

-The Telegraph The Mamata Banerjee government’s move to appropriate the financial powers of the zilla parishads in North 24-Parganas, Nadia and Murshidabad has set the stage for battle in next year’s panchayat elections. Senior Trinamul leaders said with the financial powers gone, these three zilla parishads have effectively been wrested from the Left. Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee said the move to take away the financial powers was an “administrative necessity” as in the...

Consumption-based measures don’t accurately estimate poverty Since the publication of poverty estimates purportedly based on the Tendulkar methodology and the 2009-10 consumption survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), many in Parliament and outside, from different political parties, have questioned its conclusions. Concomitantly, media reactions have speculated on poverty’s relationship with fertility, growth, specific schemes, et al. But, India’s poverty, like itself, refuses to classify itself in simple boxes. Beyond the...

Tata Memorial Hospital, Lancet, Centre for Global Health Research and University of Toronto jointly releases study findings on cancer mortality in India in 2010.  The findings are:  There were 5.56 lakh cancer deaths in India in 2010.  71% (3.95 lakhs) of these deaths occurred in people aged 30-69 years (2 lakh men and 1.95 lakh women).  Cancer deaths accounted for 6% of deaths across all ages, but among the 30-69 years age group, this...