-The Business Standard Terming the debate over poverty numbers of a poor quality, chief economic advisor in the finance ministry Kaushik Basu today said even if different yardsticks were adopted, roughly the same conclusions would be drawn on decline in the number of people below the poverty line, between 2004-05 and 2009-10, as was estimated by the Planning Commission. The decline in the number during the period was the sharpest in any...

-The Pioneer The Planning Commission will constitute an expert group in three months to revisit the methodology for estimating poverty amid demand for removal of its Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia for pegging the poverty line at Rs 28.65 daily per capita consumption for cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas. “The Government had taken a decision to set up a technical group to revisit the methodology for estimating poverty in a...

-The Economic Times Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Tuesday blamed faulty data provided by NSSO for the low poverty threshold in the country. The poverty line for 2009-10 has been pegged at Rs 29 per day per capita expenditure for urban population and at Rs 22 per day per person for rural population, which has invited widespread criticism. NSSO could be severely understating national consumption expenditure, Ahluwalia said. “Earlier, the NSSO...

-The Economic Times The country's main planning body on Thursday said it will take a re-look at the just-released poverty figures, which have drawn widespread criticism for its criteria and even elicited concern from the prime minister. The Planning Commission said it will set up a new technical group in the next three months to re-visit the Suresh Tendulkar methodology of estimating poverty and devise a new measure of poverty that will...

-The Business Standard Public discussion on falling poverty hits a new low The Lok Sabha was adjourned for a short duration on Wednesday following an uproar over the government’s latest figures for poverty. This follows widespread public outrage at those figures. A dispassionate observer of this discussion may be led to conclude that either poverty has risen dramatically or the government has somehow fudged the figures inexcusably and obviously. Elsewhere perhaps,...