The Niti Aayog recently released its National Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023, according to which the poverty headcount ratio declined from 24.85 percent in 2015-16 to 14.96 percent in 2019-21. In absolute numbers this translates to 135 million people exiting multidimensional poverty in this time period. In addition, a few days earlier, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its own Multidimensional Poverty Index, which in a press note said that,...

The Wire The Niti Aayog’s second edition of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has projected that about 14.96% of the Indian population is ‘multidimensionally’ poor. In absolute terms, 207.9 million (20.79 crore) Indians are poor and face deprivation in multiple development areas, as per population projections for the year 2021. Though this report also claimed that the multidimensional poverty in India has declined from 24.85% to 14.96% between 2015-16 and 2019-21. The...

Scroll.in In a recent survey conducted by Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in partnership with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, King’s India Institute and Royal Holloway, University of London, we set out to examine in greater depth how Indian citizens view health. This five-state survey is the first systematic interrogation of electoral perceptions around health in India. Between March-April 2022, we interviewed 1,500 voters across five Indian states...

Scroll.in Though the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) has refocussed attention on school education in recent years, some fundamental problems continue to plague the system. Despite the constitutional and legal obligations of governments, education budgets have remained modest and woefully inadequate to requirements. While there has been a reasonable expansion of coverage and enrolment in schools, the fundamental issue of poor learning outcomes, especially...

KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...