Beyond the debate, government accepts 65% of Indians are poor

This notional poverty line will stand at a per capita expenditure of around Rs 50 per day in rural areas and Rs 62 in urban areas. The Planning Commission has revised the official poverty headcount ratio down from 37 per cent of the total population in 2004-5 to 22 per cent of the population in 2011-12. These poverty rates come from applying the Suresh Tendulkar committees methodology for estimating poverty to draw a poverty line, and using the National Sample Survey Organizations consumption expenditure data for 2011-12 to see what proportion of the population falls below these lines.

A methodology deeply flawed 2010

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.
The exclusion of malnourished households from the public distribution system has been the most visible form of such exclusion; exclusion also characterizes a wide range of development schemes that are based on the principle of targeting below poverty line (BPL) households. The current poverty lines are based on a consumption basket that derives from a 1973-74 consumer survey, and are intended to ensure 2100 calories per person per day in urban areas and 2400 calories per person per day in rural areas. These poverty lines have been criticized for being too low, and for focussing exclusively on food consumption norms, and ignoring expenditure on health, education and other basic needs. The best-known outcome of the Report is that the poverty line that it has proposed is higher than the current poverty line for rural areas, and has resulted in a dramatic increase in the proportion of the rural poor in India. At the all-India level, the Report estimates that 41.8 per cent of rural households were below the poverty line in 2004-05 (the current estimate is 28.3 per cent). While the main outcome of the Report is thus to raise the share of the population below the official poverty line by about 14 percentage points, its methodology is deeply flawed. The poverty line that it proposes actually depends on reduced calorie consumption, and fails to provide for reasonable household expenditures on schooling and health. The new poverty line for rural and urban areas is simply the old poverty line for urban areas in 200405. The Committee defends the choice of the poverty line for urban areas in India in 2004-05 as the all-India poverty line on three main grounds. First, it is defended as being generally accepted as less controversial than its rural counterpart. Secondly, it is defended on grounds of statistical consistency and comparability over time. Thirdly, the Report argues that the proposed poverty line is reasonable because it happens simultaneously to ensure satisfactory nutrition, health and education outcomes.

This claim that the revised poverty line is adequate to meet expenditure requirements with respect to nutrition, education and health is invalid. First, the Committee has actually lowered the calorie intake requirement from 2100 kcal per day for urban areas and 2400 kcal per day for rural areas to a single norm of 1800 kcal per day. The Report says that the revised minimum calorie norm for India recommended by FAO is currently around 1800 calories per capita per day which is very close to the average calorie intake of those near the poverty line in urban areas (1776 calories per capita). What it does not say is that the standards set by the Food and Agriculture Organization for energy requirements are for minimum dietary energy requirements or MDER. MDER is defined as the amount of energy needed for light or sedentary (much time seated) activity. Nutritionists prescribe energy requirements that vary by age, sex, and activity level. The proposal that the standard for light activity be taken as the requirement for an average person with expenditure around the poverty line is unacceptable. It is a fiction that will result in a gross underestimation of the population of the poor. According to the FAO, an example of sedentary or light activity is of a male office worker in urban areas who only occasionally engage in physically demanding activities during or outside working hours. No poor person struggling to make a living in the informal sector would fit this description. Can a domestic worker in urban areas who scrubs floors and dishes, and washes clothes at work and home for at least eight hours a day be assumed to engage in light activity? Or can we assume that a head load worker who carries heavy sacks through the day is engaged in light activity? Anyone who has observed how hard the urban poor toil for their paltry very small or meagre) wages will see the absurdity (highly unreasonable, illogical) of this assumption. Secondly, the FAO Report warns that in countries where under-nutrition is high, a large proportion of the population consumes dietary energy levels close to the cut-off point, making MDER a highly sensitive parameter. In India, drawing a poverty line at the MDER is clearly problematic, since taking a slightly higher cut-off will increase the number of poor people substantially. Thirdly, FAO data show that in all countries where undernourishment affects less than 5 per cent of the population, irrespective of income level, the average per capita energy supply is greater than 2800 kcal per day. The per capita energy supply was, for example, 3100 kcal per day in Iran, 3320 in Egypt, 2860 in Malaysia and 3030 in Korea. It is thus clear that in countries with low malnutrition, average calorie intake is much higher than 1800 calories. The Reports claims about education and health are equally unacceptable. The Report states that in 2004-05, 90 per cent of children aged 5 to 14 years belonging to households at the poverty line level in the urban areas were in school. This is assumed to be a satisfactory outcome, although it falls short of universal schooling. Secondly, it assumes that the median cost of sending a child to school, as reported in the National Sample Survey employment survey, sets a normative or desirable level of expenditure on a child in school. Thirdly, according to the Report, the average expenditure on education per child among households in the poverty line expenditure class was higher than the median cost of schooling per child. From these observations, it is concluded that actual expenditure is adequate to ensure that children are in school. The assumption by the expert committee that the median cost is adequate to ensure proper schooling for all children is incorrect.

In sum, the Expert Group chaired by Professor Tendulkar chose the urban poverty line of 2004-05 to serve as the new national poverty line on the grounds that it was less controversial than the current rural poverty line and also fulfilled the requirement of statistical consistency over time. This new poverty line was justified on the grounds that it also provides for minimum nutritional, health and educational outcomes. These justifications do not stand up to scrutiny. Andhra Pradesh has dramatically halved the number of poor over the last two years from 176 lakh to 80 lakh, the latest National Sample Survey Organization data has revealed. Not just Gujarat, no other Indian State comes close to this rate of poverty reduction. The Planning Commission has worked out the number of eligible beneficiaries as 625 million people in rural areas and 189 million in urban areas 814 million, i.e. 67.2 per cent of the total population (2011 Census). Each of these people will be eligible to receive five kg of wheat or rice or coarse cereals at Rs. 3, Rs. 2, and Re. 1 per kg respectively under the law. The States have to identify the beneficiaries within six months. In a stinging rebuke to Indians security establishment, a dominant section of Indian voters feel that Muslims are falsely implicated and framed in terror cases.

PATCH TO MAKE YOU INVISIBLE TO MOSQUITOES

Researchers, including an Indian-origin scientist (Anandasankar Ray), have developed a lightweight patch that can make people invisible to mosquitoes and could prove key in the battle against malaria. The technology, identified at the University of California, Riverside in 2011, blocks mosquitoes ability to efficiently detect carbon dioxide, their primary method of tracking human blood meals, for up to 48 hours. The research identifying the volatile odour molecules that can impair, if not completely disrupt, mosquitoes carbon dioxide detection machinery, KiteTM Mosquito Patch is applied to clothing and can be used by people of all ages, including infants and pregnant mothers.

Jhumpa Lahiri on Man Booker Prize longlist

Pulitzer-winner Jhumpa Lahiri is among the 13 writers longlisted for this years 50,000 Man Booker Prize described by judges as the most diverse selection in many years. Ms. Lahiri, whose debut novel The Namesake was made into a critically acclaimed film, has been chosen for her much-anticipated new novel The Lowland . Set in India and America, it is said to be a poignant and deeply-felt novel about family ties , grief and dislocation.

Afghan woman wins Magsaysay

Afghanistans first and only woman provincial Governor and an aid worker from Myanmars Kachin minority are among the winners of this years prestigious Ramon Magsaysay awards, the award foundation said on Wednesday. Habiba Sarobi (55), Governor of the Afghan province of Bamyan and a member of the minority Hazara group, was recognised for promoting education and womens rights. Lahpai Seng Raw

founder of Myanmars largest civil society group was selected for helping people across ethnic groups under conditions of armed conflict. A Filipino healthcare pioneer, a Nepalese anti-human trafficking organisation and an Indonesian anti-corruption group are the other winners. AFP PAKISTAN HAS BEEN RECENTLY ACQUIRING JIHADI MINDSET; WHICH IS NOT AT ALL A GOOD SIGN FOR INDIA . RECENT INCIDENTS LIKE GIVING HOSTAGE TO OSAMA BIN LADEN IS