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...

Ashish Bose is a veteran demographer whose expertise in analysing population data persuaded the former Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi to make him an advisor on issues ranging from urbanisation to poverty alleviation. He is best known for coining the term Bimaru (shorthand for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) for states with the worst socio-economic indicators. An author of 24 books, he is now working on a...

The Budget provides proof of the United Progressive Alliance government having forgotten the importance of its own “flagship schemes”. BUDGET 2012-13 provides conclusive proof that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has lost its way. It has managed the remarkable feat of upsetting almost everyone and making no one happy. The Budget is highly regressive in both taxation and spending terms and will raise prices of essentials, so aam aurat and...

One man’s fiscal problem is another man’s lifeline. Trigger happy bureaucrats and economists may love shooting down subsidies because it bloats the fiscal deficit and burdens the government but the simple fact is that in a one billion strong nation, in which nearly one in every three live below the poverty line, one needs an effective and efficient method through which privileged tax payers can support the poor. Last week, finance...

-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...