There is no case whatsoever to construct a single poverty line based on a calorie or expenditure norm; all such lines are arbitrary and do not take into account the different dimensions of poverty. It is far better to focus on disaggregated information on a variety of parameters – education, housing, clothing, health, etc – which can give us unambiguous information about the different facets of poverty over the course...
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Delhi's irony: Urban Poverty-Srinand Jha
Each time 25 year old Salma takes her one year old son Zubair to the Batla Clinic (a private clinic in Delhi) for a shot of the DPT, the cost of transportation and the vaccine adds up to approximately Rs.500. When it is time for Zubair to take the next immunization dose, Salma may find that the expenses have entirely spiraled out of her reach. New vaccines and expensive brands of baby...
More »Child marriages least likely in Delhi by Kounteya Sinha
Women in Delhi are least likely to get married before reaching the age of 18 while those in Jharkhand are most likely. India's Capital recorded the lowest percentage of women (0.5%) who got married before 18 years of age in 2010 followed by Haryana (0.7%) and Jammu & Kashmir (0.9%), according to the Registrar General of India's latest Sample Registration System (SRS) survey, submitted to the Union health ministry on Saturday. Jharkhand...
More »Urban Indians shun doctors, risk death from cancer-Malathy Iyer
By selectively borrowing habits from the West, the urban Indian has worsened his chances with cancer. Doctors say that while the city-bred Indian has willingly adopted a western diet, lapping up high-fat foods and shunning high-fibre content, he or she hasn't picked up the healthy western attitude of detecting and treating cancer early. The end-result, as the India's Million Death Study (MDS) reported on Thursday shows, is that urban Indians are...
More »Poverty line: Myths, perceptions and reality by Sriram Balasubramanian
The Planning Commission is back in the news. The latest round of poverty levels that have been disclosed have created another debate in the country. Once more, people are stunned at the meager rate of Rs 28 that has been defined as the poverty line. Even though I addressed some apprehensions in an earlier post, this time around the issue seems to be more about myths, perceptions and lack of...
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