WELL before Budget 2010-11 was presented, inflation had emerged as the principal economic problem in the country. With food-price inflation running at close to 20 per cent, even the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre had been forced to recognise it as a problem that deserved as much attention as the objective of achieving a 9 or 10 per cent rate of growth, if not more. In fact,...
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A methodology deeply flawed by Madhura Swaminathan
The poverty line that the Tendulkar Committee proposes depends on reduced calorie consumption, and fails to provide for reasonable household expenditures on schooling and health. For some years, the Government of India has been under pressure to change the norms for calculating the official poverty line. Current norms have resulted in gross and manifest underestimation of the numbers of the poor, and, consequently, in the exclusion of hundreds of millions...
More »Poverty, beyond calories by Savvy Soumya Misra
New method finds India is 9 per cent poorer india is poorer than previously estimated. A revised estimation of poverty for 2004-05 using new methodology showed the number of people below the poverty line was 37.2 per cent and not 28.3 per cent, as estimated earlier. The new estimate took into account expenditure on food, basic health and education, unlike the earlier estimation based on per capita calorie consumption. The inclusions...
More »How Bihar can rise as a developed state by Kailash Nautiyal
It is presumed that the industrial development in Bihar is hampered by lack of investments. Is it because of 'unproductive' government policies or an unpredictable law and order situation? And how to increase the flow of investment in the state? In order to find out answers to all such questions and debate these issues, Business Standard Hindi recently organised a roundtable in Patna. The seminar was attended by various small...
More »The unsettled debate on Indian poverty by R Ramakumar
The Tendulkar Committee has pitched for a policy position that is stranded between the harsh realities of poverty and a fiscally conservative neo-liberal framework. The debate on the extent of poverty in India has been a matter of global interest in the recent years. The primary reason for the global interest in the debate is that the levels of poverty in India and China have come to exert significant influence...
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