-The Telegraph The controversial poverty data from the Planning Commission has a message for Mamata Banerjee: the Marxists have brought down the number of destitute in Bengal but much more needs to be done. Latest data suggest that the number of poor has dipped by 7.5 percentage points in Bengal between 2004-05 and 2009-10, which covers the last five years of Left rule in the state. Poverty in urban areas in Bengal came...

The UPA-II has used the Budget to again play politics with hunger. But it has paid no heed to the ticking time bomb of growing social tensions as 58 million Indians living off agriculture slide deeper into poverty. The Economic Survey says more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking. The urban-rural income divide is therefore steadily widening, a tinder box that...

The Planning Commission had released a report, yesterday indicating reduced poverty line to Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas, scaling down India’s poverty ratio from 37.2 percent to 29.8 percent in 2009-10. Firstpost did an interview with Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission. Here are excerpts from the interview: When we say there is a 7.3 percentage points (from 37.2 percent in 2004-05 to 29.8...

The Planning Commission on Monday released the latest poverty estimates for the country showing a decline in the incidence of poverty by 7.3 per cent over the past five years and stating that anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively is above the poverty line. The new poverty estimates for 2011-12 will only add to the furore triggered by the...

India doubled the pace at which it has been reducing poverty in rural areas in the five years to 2009-10 by moving around 47 million over the so-called poverty line. Interestingly, the five years to 2009-10 also saw India grow the fastest in any five-year period in the past, at an average of 8.7%. In the same period, 5 million people in urban India moved above the poverty line. The numbers...