-NetworkIdeas.org India is often mistakenly seen as a country with relatively low economic inequality. In fact, there were always very significant economic inequalities in India, which intersected with social and locational inequalities in complex ways. More significantly, the country’s inequalities widened after the internal and external economic liberalization measures from the early 1990s, which attracted global financial investors and boosted economic growth considerably. The estimates of low inequality are usually based on...

-Livemint.com Tax collections from goods and services tax (GST) have been underwhelming, and the government is set to miss this year’s fiscal deficit target Mumbai: Widening the tax base and collecting more taxes has been a priority for the current government at the centre. This government’s two major economic disruptions—the introduction of goods and services tax (GST) and demonetisation—were justified in the name of raising tax compliance among other things. However, these...

-Hindustan Times 55 % Indians were classified as poor by the MPI methodology in 2005-06. India halved its poverty rate in the next 10 years. In absolute terms, the number of poor fell from 630 million to 360 million during this period. New Delhi: Improved nutrition, better sanitation and increased asset ownership have halved India’s poverty rate between 2005-06 and 2015-16, according to a study by the Oxford University. In the 10-year...

-The Hindu A national policy for internal migration is needed to improve earnings and enable an exit from poverty Though migration is expected to enhance consumption and lift families out of absolute poverty at the origin, it is not free from distress — distress due to unemployment or underemployment in agriculture, natural calamities, and input/output market imperfections. Internal migration can be driven by push and/or pull factors. In India, over the recent...

For long, economists have argued among themselves whether income should be the only criterion for measuring poverty. After all, in real life a person can face multiple deprivations, say, in terms of access to education, health and living standards, among others. The multidimensional poverty index (MPI), which offers a valuable complement to traditional income-based poverty measures, was first introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report (HDR). The MPI looks at...