The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ‘poverty line' follow from a mistake in method that it made 30 years ago and has clung to ever since. The affidavit that the Planning Commission recently submitted before the Supreme Court stating that a person is to be considered ‘poor' only if his or her monthly spending is below Rs.781 (Rs.26 a day) in the rural areas and Rs.965 (Rs.32 a day) in...
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Award changes societal attitude: Study by Daulat Rahman
Samsul Ali, a farmer in Hajo, had decided his four daughters need study no further than Class X, till two of them got a first division and walked up to receive their computer awards. Now he wants all his daughters to complete their post-graduation — a father’s change of heart that could just be the beginning of a larger social shake-up. Dispur’s laptop sop for those who score 60 per cent and...
More »Planning Commission's poverty line not to impact socio-economic census
-IANS The ongoing enumeration for a socio-economic census in the country will not be affected by the poverty line cut-off spelled out by the Planning Commission, according to a senior rural development ministry adviser. The Planning Commission informed the Supreme Court Tuesday that poverty line could be provisionally placed at around Rs.32 a day per capita in urban areas and Rs.26 in rural areas. Manjula Krishnan, chief economic adviser in the minstry, said...
More »Munda raps Plan panel poverty index
-The Telegraph Chief minister Arjun Munda today slammed the poverty benchmark fixed by the Planning Commission. “The poverty yardstick is faulty and will put a poor state like Jharkhand at a great disadvantage,” the chief minister told The Telegraph. “How can a person survive on Rs 32 daily in urban areas and Rs 26 in rural areas? Munda asked and sought a central review for the sake of the poor. The fear in...
More »Decadal journeys: debt and despair spur urban growth by P Sainath
The re-classification of villages and towns, and the changes this brings to the nation's rural-urban profile, happens every decade. Yet only Census 2011 shows us a huge turnaround, with urban India adding more people (91 million) than rural India (90.6 million) for the first time in 90 years. Clearly, something huge has happened in the last 10 years that drives those numbers. And that is: huge, uncharted migrations of people...
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