Claims of spike in poverty in India during COVID-19 patently false, says paper co-authored by Arvind Panagariya
1 year, 9 months ago

Claims of spike in poverty in India during COVID-19 patently false, says paper co-authored by Arvind Panagariya

The Hindu  

Claims of a spike in poverty and inequality in India during the COVID-19 pandemic are patently false as such claims are based on uncomparable different surveys, according to a paper co-authored by eminent economist Arvind Panagariya. Mr. Panagariya, Columbia University Professor and former Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog and Vishal More of Intelink Advisors, New Delhi have co-authored a detailed paper ‘Poverty and Inequality in India: Before and After COVID-19’. Overall, “claims of massive increases in poverty and inequality during COVID-19 are patently false,” the paper’s findings said. “On the quarterly basis, rural poverty saw a modest rise only during the strict lockdown quarter of April-June 2020,” the paper said, adding that these results are consistent with the robust performance of agriculture in 2019-20 and 2020-21. “But this observation sits awkwardly against the facts that the poor in India reside disproportionately in rural areas; They are heavily dependent on agriculture; Agriculture showed no deviation from its trend in earlier years and exhibited healthy growth throughout the COVID-19 era; and the government was quick to double down on its anti-poverty initiatives soon after the onset of COVID-19.” It said these factors suggest that there ought to be no perceptible rise in rural poverty.

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History of this topic

Basic survival no longer an issue in India, says Niti Aayog
5 months, 1 week ago

Basic survival no longer an issue in India, says Niti Aayog

Hindustan Times  

New Delhi: India has made significant progress in eliminating poverty, especially in the past nine years, and according to Niti Aayog’s SDG Index 2023-24, the country is expected to achieve the SDG target 1.2 of halving multidimensional poverty much ahead of 2030. In 2022-23, it further dropped to 11.28%, with 24.8 crore people moving out of multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 …

Poverty and inequality debate resurfaces in election season
7 months, 3 weeks ago

Poverty and inequality debate resurfaces in election season

Hindustan Times  

As Indians heads to the poll this season, a new chapter is being written in a very old debate about poverty and inequality in India. This debate has been stirred up by the release of new data from a government- The economist Maitreesh Ghatak spoke about the resurgent debate over poverty and inequality on last week’s episode of Grand Tamasha, …

What the new expenditure survey says about poverty
8 months, 3 weeks ago

What the new expenditure survey says about poverty

New Indian Express  

The publication of a fact sheet by the National Sample Survey Office, containing the results of the NSS Household Consumer Expenditure Survey data for 2022-23, a decade after the publication of the last survey data in 2011-12, has again sparked a debate regarding poverty in India. Using the 2022-23 data on average monthly per capita consumer expenditure for rural and …

Has poverty really dropped to 5% in India?
9 months, 1 week ago

Has poverty really dropped to 5% in India?

The Hindu  

Subrahmanyam recently claimed that less than 5% of Indians now live below the poverty line. Mr. Subrahmanyam argued that the average consumption expenditure in the bottom 5% of India’s population, as estimated by the survey, is about the same as the poverty line in India, suggesting that the poverty rate in India is somewhere in the range of 0 to …

Has poverty really dropped to 5% in India?
9 months, 1 week ago

Has poverty really dropped to 5% in India?

The Hindu  

Subrahmanyam recently claimed that less than 5% of Indians now live below the poverty line. Mr. Subrahmanyam argued that the average consumption expenditure in the bottom 5% of India’s population, as estimated by the survey, is about the same as the poverty line in India, suggesting that the poverty rate in India is somewhere in the range of 0 to …

Poverty levels below 5%, claims NITI Aayog chief
9 months, 4 weeks ago

Poverty levels below 5%, claims NITI Aayog chief

The Hindu  

Less than 5% of Indians are now expected to be below the poverty line, and extreme destitution has almost gone away, a top government official asserted on February 25, citing the findings of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey for 2022-23. Subrahmanyam, the chief executive officer of the Centre’s think tank Niti Aayog, averred that growth is “broad-based” with rural Indians’ …

What the Centre’s White Paper on Indian Economy says, and doesn’t say | In Focus podcast
10 months, 1 week ago

What the Centre’s White Paper on Indian Economy says, and doesn’t say | In Focus podcast

The Hindu  

The Union Finance Ministry has come out with a ‘White Paper’ on the changes in the Indian economy in the past 20 years. It claims that the NDA government in 2014 inherited a “deeply damaged economy” marked by “governance, economic and fiscal crises”. It further claims that the in the past 10 years, the NDA government has “turned around” the …

Budget 2024: Average real income 50 per cent higher, inflation moderated, says Nirmala Sitharaman
10 months, 3 weeks ago

Budget 2024: Average real income 50 per cent higher, inflation moderated, says Nirmala Sitharaman

India TV News  

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the average real income of Indians has increased by 50 per cent and people's earnings have improved, leading to a better quality of life and increased aspirations for the future. Sitharaman attributed moderated inflation levels to good macroeconomic stability and robust investments. "There is macroeconomic stability, investments are robust, the economy is doing …

Multidimensional poverty in India: decoding the Niti Aayog report | In Focus podcast
11 months ago

Multidimensional poverty in India: decoding the Niti Aayog report | In Focus podcast

The Hindu  

A new paper released by the NITI Aayog has claimed that multidimensional poverty has declined from 29.17% in 2013-14 to 11.28% in 2022-23, and that 24.82 crore people “escaped” from multidimensional poverty during this 9-year period. Titled ‘Multidimensional Poverty in India since 2005-06: A Discussion Paper’, the NITI Aayog report claims that India is well on track to achieve the …

Multidimensional poverty: Can we eliminate it within a decade?
11 months ago

Multidimensional poverty: Can we eliminate it within a decade?

Live Mint  

Going by Niti Aayog’s latest assessment, India has made substantial gains in its fight against deprivation. The Niti Aayog’s index has a formula that echoes what the United Nations Development Programme uses for multidimensional poverty, with parameters that differ slightly. Since the central think-tank’s 12 counts include several that targeted programmes can move the needle on—like nutrition, child mortality, sanitation, …

Multidimensional Poverty Index reduction under the NDA is flawed
1 year ago

Multidimensional Poverty Index reduction under the NDA is flawed

The Hindu  

Samuel Johnson, a profound literary critic and essayist, wrote, “Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.” In sharp contrast, conventional measures of poverty in terms of income are limited and narrowly focused on scarcity of resources to eke out a bare subsistence. The MPI story …

India among top countries with high income, wealth inequality: UNDP report
1 year, 1 month ago

India among top countries with high income, wealth inequality: UNDP report

Live Mint  

India has emerged among top countries with high income and wealth inequality but the share of the population living in multidimensional poverty fell from 25 to 15 per cent between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the UNDP said in a new report. Despite these successes, poverty remains persistently concentrated in states that are home to 45 per cent of the country's population …

India’s triumphs over poverty marred by an alarming hunger crisis as over 70 per cent of Indians fails to afford healthy food
1 year, 5 months ago

India’s triumphs over poverty marred by an alarming hunger crisis as over 70 per cent of Indians fails to afford healthy food

The Hindu  

Published : Jul 21, 2023 12:38 IST - 3 MINS READ Government think-tank NITI Aayog’s recent report, released on July 17, revealed a remarkable achievement in India’s fight against multidimensional poverty. However, despite these positive strides in economic development, a consortium of esteemed organisations including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, …

Despite India's economic growth, few jobs and meagre pay for urban youth
1 year, 11 months ago

Despite India's economic growth, few jobs and meagre pay for urban youth

The Hindu  

Ravi Verma, hired by an electrical parts manufacturing firm early last year as India’s economy surged, was fired in November when the company lost several export orders. “I face a risk of loan default if I don’t get a job soon.” The urban unemployment rate swelled to 10.1% in December, although the total number of jobs in India touched a …

We’ve made significant progress on poverty reduction
2 years, 1 month ago

We’ve made significant progress on poverty reduction

Live Mint  

Some great news and some not so good news. Titled Unpacking Deprivation Bundles to Reduce Multidimensional Poverty, the report is based on robust household survey data from 111 underlying developing countries and covers 6.1 billion people. As India’s population has quadrupled in the 75 years since Independence, India’s progress on poverty reduction has been steady, particularly in the last 30 …

Hosabale’s statement raises question on claims of ‘achche din’: HDK
2 years, 2 months ago

Hosabale’s statement raises question on claims of ‘achche din’: HDK

The Hindu  

Former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Monday said RSS national general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale’s statement that economic inequality, poverty and unemployment are very dangerous holds a mirror to the present condition in India, besides raising big questions over claims of “achche din” by the Union government. A total of 23 crore people are earning less that ₹375 per day while …

How Modi’s India Has Succeeded in Bringing Down Poverty in Rural Areas
2 years, 5 months ago

How Modi’s India Has Succeeded in Bringing Down Poverty in Rural Areas

News 18  

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” This oft-cited quote is attributed to Lord Kelvin or William Thomson, who also theorised a completely new temperature scale. The poverty line has been disaggregated state-wise and separately for rural and urban areas. In one of the most cited essays on poverty, Lipton and Ravallion note: “The highest incidence and severity …

Income Inequality Declined in India During Covid-19, Nation Managed Shocks Well: SBI Report
2 years, 5 months ago

Income Inequality Declined in India During Covid-19, Nation Managed Shocks Well: SBI Report

News 18  

Inequality of Income in India has declined significantly since FY17, while inequality has also declined during the pandemic, according to the latest SBI Ecowrap research report. The decline in income inequality has been significant since FY17, the year of big bang formalisation that started with demonetisation, RERA reforms and GST reform in FY18, said the report authored by Soumya Kanti …

Economy may take more than a decade to overcome COVID-19 losses: RBI report
2 years, 7 months ago

Economy may take more than a decade to overcome COVID-19 losses: RBI report

The Hindu  

The Indian economy may take more than a decade to overcome the losses caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, according to Reserve Bank of India’s Report on Currency and Finance. Taking actual growth rate of 6.6% for 2020-21, 8.9% for 2021-22 and assuming growth rate of 7.2% for 2022-23 and 7.5% beyond that, India is expected to overcome COVID-19 …

Settling India’s COVID-19 mortality data
2 years, 7 months ago

Settling India’s COVID-19 mortality data

The Hindu  

Over the last year, the World Health Organization has been busy, in an unprecedented effort, to calculate the global death toll from COVID-19. There are gaps Several news reports have pointed at a significant gap in India’s COVID-19 story — significantly under-reported mortality figures. Because as in these figures, India would have had close to four times the COVID-19 deaths …

India eradicates ‘extreme poverty’ via PMGKY: IMF paper
2 years, 8 months ago

India eradicates ‘extreme poverty’ via PMGKY: IMF paper

The Hindu  

A new IMF paper released on Tuesday, titled ‘Pandemic, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from India’ says that ‘extreme poverty was maintained below 1% in 2020 due to Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana. Dismissing the NSS 2017-18 consumer expenditure survey as 'ill-fated', this paper claims food subsidies have reduced poverty on a consistent basis since the enactment of the Food …

Ending extreme poverty in India
2 years, 8 months ago

Ending extreme poverty in India

Hindustan Times  

Two recent working papers, one by economists Sutirtha Sinha Roy and Roy van der Weide, at the World Bank, and another co-authored by Surjit Bhalla, an executive director at the IMF along with Arvind Virmani and Karan Bhasin have given alternative estimates for poverty in India for the period after 2011. Bhalla and his co-authors argue that extreme poverty has …

PM Modi's food security scheme averted rise in extreme poverty: IMF study
2 years, 8 months ago

PM Modi's food security scheme averted rise in extreme poverty: IMF study

India Today  

A study by the International Monetary fund has found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s food security project — the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana — has been critical in preventing any increase in extreme poverty levels in India during the Covid-19 pandemic. The new IMF paper — Pandemic, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from India — found that extreme poverty …

India averted rise in extreme poverty through Modi govt's food security scheme: IMF report
2 years, 8 months ago

India averted rise in extreme poverty through Modi govt's food security scheme: IMF report

India TV News  

Highlights A new IMF paper found that extreme poverty in India is less than 1 per cent in 2019 The extreme poverty in India remained at that level even during the pandemic year 2020, it stated PMGKAY was critical in preventing any increase in extreme poverty levels in India, the report said India has averted the rise in extreme poverty …

Global (and Indian) trends in inequality
3 years ago

Global (and Indian) trends in inequality

The Hindu  

The story so far: The World Inequality Lab, a research centre at the Paris School of Economics, released the 2022 World Inequality Report on December 7, 2021. The report has found India to be one of the world’s most unequal countries, with the top 1% getting 21.7% of the national income. The report reveals that income inequality in India today …

Data Collection On Global Hunger Index 2021 Flawed: Arvind Panagariya, Professor Of Economics, Columbia University To Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now
3 years, 2 months ago

Data Collection On Global Hunger Index 2021 Flawed: Arvind Panagariya, Professor Of Economics, Columbia University To Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now

ABP News  

Rubbishing India’s poor ranking in the recently released Global Hunger Index 2021, wherein India has slipped to 101st position below Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, Arvind Panagariya, professor of economics at Columbia University and former vice chairman, NITI Ayog has said that data collection and methodologies used for Global Hunger Index 2021 are flawed. you are relying on so little information …

Pandemic has affected poor more: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das
3 years, 3 months ago

Pandemic has affected poor more: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das

Deccan Chronicle  

Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said the Covid-19 pandemic has severely dented inclusivity across countries. In the medium to long-run, both efficiency and equity will greatly matter for sustainable growth and macroeconomic performance.” The impact of pandemics could be a lot more asymmetric by affecting the vulnerable segments more. Overall, there are evidences across countries …

Poverty in India is on the rise again
3 years, 4 months ago

Poverty in India is on the rise again

The Hindu  

India has not released its Consumption Expenditure Survey data since 2011-12. Based on the Tendulkar poverty line, the poverty estimates for 2004-05 and 2011-12 are to be found in the Planning Commission’s own estimates using the CES of those years. Hence, we have extended the 2011-12 poverty line for each State and used the consumption expenditure reported by the PLFS …

State of working India 2021: The pandemic’s impact on the economy in India
3 years, 5 months ago

State of working India 2021: The pandemic’s impact on the economy in India

Hindustan Times  

This report documents the impact of one year of Covid-19 in India, on jobs, incomes, inequality, and poverty. On top of this, there were legacy problems such as a slow rate of job creation and lack of political commitment to improving working conditions which trapped a large section of the workforce without access to any employment security or social protection. …

The state of India’s poor must be acknowledged
3 years, 6 months ago

The state of India’s poor must be acknowledged

The Hindu  

The son of a corn merchant-turned sociologist, Charles Booth had little patience for Charles Dickens and others in his time, who used lyrical prose to describe the desperation of the poor in working class London. The first being, the fall in the monthly per capita consumption expenditure of 2017-18 for the first time since 1972-73, which the Government withheld citing …

How are rural communities stemming covid-19’s spread?
3 years, 6 months ago

How are rural communities stemming covid-19’s spread?

Live Mint  

Three weeks ago, a 32-year-old father of three in Uttarakhand’s Mori tehsil died of covid-19. “Last year, covid-19’s effect was on our finances, as all of us in the village are dependent on tourism.” This time, it’s different. The community and NGO mobilisation has definitely helped, as we are building infrastructure not just for the current wave but for the …

Indian economy, hit by COVID-19, shrinks by 7.3% in 2020-21
3 years, 6 months ago

Indian economy, hit by COVID-19, shrinks by 7.3% in 2020-21

Associated Press  

NEW DELHI — India’s economy, pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic, contracted by 7.3% in the 2020-21 financial year, just before the country was hit by another catastrophic surge in infections. Daily new cases set global records, spurring many states to announce widespread restrictions and lockdowns. In January, a government survey estimated the economy -- previously one of the fastest growing …

Covid-19 and the disease of inequality
3 years, 6 months ago

Covid-19 and the disease of inequality

Hindustan Times  

Abandoned by the State that insisted on locking down, refusing to recognise the damage done to their livelihoods, India’s workers asserted their rights and made themselves heard by walking home in March 2020. Ironically, the scale of the health crisis has rendered invisible the deepening livelihood crisis that India confronts, drowning out the voices that fought a callous State and …

Covid-19: Top economist says India might face 'serious livelihood crisis'
3 years, 7 months ago

Covid-19: Top economist says India might face 'serious livelihood crisis'

India Today  

India might be heading towards a “serious livelihood crisis” as the situation seems to be worse this time for the working class amid the COVID crisis and local restrictions by states already add up to something close to a nationwide lockdown, according to noted economist Jean Dreze. Read | V-shaped recovery unlikely as India’s economy faces tougher Covid test About …

SBI report emphasises on vaccination, says nearly half of the new cases in rural India
3 years, 7 months ago

SBI report emphasises on vaccination, says nearly half of the new cases in rural India

The Hindu  

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has engulfed rural India, spreading far beyond the worst hit cities and districts, with nearly half the country’s new cases being reported from rural districts, an SBI research report said on Friday. Red-flagging the slowing vaccination pace from an average 28 lakhs per day in April to just 17 lakhs per day, the …

In Covid-hit India, 23 crore people earn less than Rs 375 per day: Study
3 years, 7 months ago

In Covid-hit India, 23 crore people earn less than Rs 375 per day: Study

India Today  

India's economy staged an impressive recovery after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the alarming rise in poverty tells a different story about the country’s future economic outlook. “An alarming 90 per cent of respondents in the Azim Premji University CLIPS reported that households had suffered a reduction in food intake as a result of the lockdown” the …

Covid has pushed too many Indians back into poverty
3 years, 8 months ago

Covid has pushed too many Indians back into poverty

Live Mint  

As the world continues to be ravaged by the covid pandemic, more than a year on, it is becoming increasingly evident that the greatest burden has fallen on the global poor. By contrast, for India, a staggering 75 million people were pushed back into poverty by the covid crisis—this is almost 60% of the global total increase in poverty caused …

Rising poverty: The Hindu Editorial on pandemic-induced disparities
3 years, 9 months ago

Rising poverty: The Hindu Editorial on pandemic-induced disparities

The Hindu  

A new study by the Pew Research Center estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately deleterious impact on living standards in India and China in 2020, with the sharp economic contraction in the former pushing as many as 7.5 crore people into the ranks of the poor. Similarly, the numbers of India’s middle class — those with a …

Coronavirus | Pandemic may have doubled poverty in India, says Pew study
3 years, 9 months ago

Coronavirus | Pandemic may have doubled poverty in India, says Pew study

The Hindu  

March 19, 2021 08:07 pm | Updated March 20, 2021 10:59 am IST - NEW DELHI India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third due to 2020’s pandemic-driven recession, while the number of poor people — earning less than ₹150 per day — more than doubled, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. “The middle class in …

Pandemic pushes 32 mn Indians out of middle class: Pew Research
3 years, 9 months ago

Pandemic pushes 32 mn Indians out of middle class: Pew Research

Live Mint  

Financial woes brought by last year's coronavirus pandemic have pushed about 32 million Indians out of the middle class, undoing years of economic gains, a report showed on Thursday, while job losses pushed millions into poverty. The number of Indians in the middle class, or those earning between $10 and $20 a day, shrunk by about 32 million, compared with …

Explained: How Covid-19 has made life difficult for India's poor
3 years, 10 months ago

Explained: How Covid-19 has made life difficult for India's poor

India Today  

The coronavirus pandemic has made life difficult for the poorest population in the world as the economic crisis triggered by it has led to a sharp rise in income inequality. The report indicated that the top billionaires in India became richer by 35 per cent during the pandemic, while millions of poor Indians lost their jobs. “The wealth of Indian …

Cities Faced Maximum Brunt of Covid But Will be Key to India's Post-pandemic Growth: WEF Study
3 years, 11 months ago

Cities Faced Maximum Brunt of Covid But Will be Key to India's Post-pandemic Growth: WEF Study

News 18  

Cities have borne the maximum brunt of the COVID-19 outbreak but they will also be key to India's post-pandemic growth as they account for nearly 70 per cent of the country's GDP and an average of 25-30 people migrate to cities from rural areas every single minute, a new study has shown. Vulnerable populations, including low-income migrant workers, have suffered …

Explained: How a raging pandemic is widening India's wealth gap
4 years, 3 months ago

Explained: How a raging pandemic is widening India's wealth gap

India Today  

Ever since India gained Independence, the country has traversed a wave of ups and downs to finally become a global powerhouse over the last five years. In India, the wealth gap has been rising sharply during the ongoing pandemic as previous levels of income inequality were already high in the country. A January 2020 study by rights group Oxfam India …

Gates Foundation Says Covid-19 Pushed 37mn into Poverty, Lauds India's Aadhaar for Reducing Cr
4 years, 3 months ago

Gates Foundation Says Covid-19 Pushed 37mn into Poverty, Lauds India's Aadhaar for Reducing Cr

News 18  

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed almost 37 million people into extreme poverty besides reversing the progress made in the health sector for past several decades, a report by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said on Tuesday. In an interview, co-chair of the Foundation Bill Gates said the whole Aadhaar digital financial system in India has proven to be once …

63% Indians say their income suffered due to Covid pandemic, finds MOTN survey
4 years, 4 months ago

63% Indians say their income suffered due to Covid pandemic, finds MOTN survey

India Today  

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an adverse effect on the income of people in India. FULL RESULTS OF THE INDIA TODAY MOOD OF THE NATION AUGUST 2020 22 per cent of 12,021 respondents surveyed in the August 2020 round of India Today Mood of the Nation Survey said that they have lost their jobs or their businesses have failed due …

Growth Depends on Social Norms, Political Culture; Not Just Economic Policies: Ex-World Bank Economist
4 years, 4 months ago

Growth Depends on Social Norms, Political Culture; Not Just Economic Policies: Ex-World Bank Economist

News 18  

Economic growth of a country depends on social norms, political culture and institutions, and these are deteriorating in India visibly from 2016, former World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu said on Monday, emphasising that if these trends are not reversed then Indian dream will come to an end. Basu, a professor of economics at Cornell University and former chief economic …

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