-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 Times of India The Centre on Thursday junked the Planning Commission's poverty definition with PM Manmohan Singh saying that there was a need to devise another method. "We need a multi-layered approach to assess poverty estimates. The Tendulkar Committee estimates have been followed for 30 years but not an inclusive estimate. It (Tendulkar report) is not satisfactory," Singh said on the sidelines of the Padma Awards function. A new team will devise...

-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,...

Montek Singh says he is willing to revise poverty estimates on the basis of expert opinion Though the incidence of poverty has come down over five years from 2004-05 to 2009-10, it is a startling fact that inequality has increased, with fewer people controlling income. Union Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia admitted on Tuesday that income distribution was not at the desired level and inequality increased in both rural and...