-The Times of India   Faced with fierce criticism over the Planning Commission’s new criteria for poverty line, the Government has asked the Plan panel to revise its affidavit. The Planning Commission had said that that those spending more than Rs. 32 a day in urban areas, or Rs. 26 a day in villages, would no longer be eligible to draw benefits meant for those living below the poverty line. The new tentative...

In a significant move, prominent economists on Monday made a forceful plea to delink food entitlements from the “faulty” poverty measures put out by the Planning Commission. Asserting that under-nutrition was much more widespread in the country than income poverty “however defined,” the economists sought restoration of the universal Public Distribution System (PDS) “as the best way forward'' in combating hunger and poverty. “This is not only feasible within the available fiscal...

Updating the poverty line cutoff figures, the Planning Commission said that those spending in excess of Rs 32 a day in urban areas or Rs 26 a day in villages would no longer be eligible to draw benefits for those living below the poverty line. TOI broke down the overall monthly figure for urban areas and used the CPI for industrial workers along with the Tendulkar committie report figures to see...

-The Business Standard   After generating much controversy back home on the Planning Commission's “unrealistic definition” of poverty line, India had to field some tough queries in Washington over the matter. Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu said the government was looking at various parameters of poverty estimates to provide better coverage to the vulnerable section through a proposed food law. "...now we are going to go into a new food security programme, where we...

-The Times of India   Two Planning Commission members, Abhijeet Sen and Mihir Shah, came out in revolt on Wednesday against the panel’s affidavit to the Supreme Court that those spending Rs 32 a day in urban areas or Rs 26 a day in villages would no longer be deemed poor by the government. Sen and Shah told TOI that the Planning Commission had avoided answering the critical question that the SC had...