-Business Standard Says the actual poverty is much higher than suggested by the multilateral lender, adding there is lack of scientific basis in computing the poverty line The government has contested the World Bank's recently released data that showed only 12.4 per cent of India's population was poor in 2011-12, considering an expenditure cut-off of $1.9 a person a day on purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. It said the actual poverty was...

-The Hindu Rural Indians do not seem to have benefitted as much from falling inflation as their urban counterparts. While inflation has been slowing both in rural and urban areas of the country, there is a widening difference between the two as rural inflation is decelerating at a much slower pace. The resultant gap between rural and urban inflation has more than doubled over the last one year, data analysed by HSBC...

-Livemint.com More than 80 million people eat beef/buff in India, including 12.5 million Hindus The lynching of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly storing and consuming beef a few weeks ago has sparked a heated debate about banning the meat. Predictably, battle lines have also been drawn around religious groups. But data from the latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) round shows that around 80 million people—around 1 of every...

-The Economic Times Is publicly funded health insurance pushing poor households to actually spend more on hospitalisation? A study conducted by three public health experts of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) suggests that this could be happening. The study found that a larger proportion of the poorest households are having to make "catastrophic spending" (defined as more than 10% of household expenditure) on hospitalisation and that the amount spent by...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Until recently, Rajni, who lives in Tilak Nagar in west Delhi, used to work in a boutique. Now, she has decided to have her own setup, for which she has borrowed Rs 50,000 from Punjab National Bank. "I haven't decided whether I will take up a place or do it from home," she said. In Bawana, on the outskirts of Delhi, Kamla has taken a loan from...