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dolly2003
July 13th, 2006, 11:25 PM
HI every one

we know India is developing but still there are so many people who lives in below poverty line...who doesnt have food to eat, no roof over their head,suffering frm malnutrition,illiterates...n so on...


How would YOU stop poverty in India?? What do you think the government should do?
IS donating money enough???

shobhitdeshwal
July 13th, 2006, 11:33 PM
Dolly,

Billions of people across the globe live in squalid conditions of hunger, disease, and desperation. This pandemic poverty represents the world’s most pernicious and deadly scourge. Yet for the privileged minority, the horrors of poverty seem to be a natural, inevitable part of the geopolitical landscape. Leaders in the developed world profess their commitment to “poverty eradication,” but none are willing to address the systemic causes of poverty. Furthermore, the political and corporate elites at the helm of the world economy have a powerful interest in maintaining the economic status quo.

Multilateral institutions devoted to “development” overwhelmingly adhere to neoliberal growth oriented strategies of capital accumulation, privatization, and investment. These institutions, including the World Bank, consistently ignore evidence that growth does not necessarily alleviate poverty and may, in fact, exacerbate it. Many concerned NGOs promote small-scale social development programs in poor countries, but as long as systemic economic and social policies continue to favor the rich, global poverty will remain a stark reality for the majority of people in the world. And India is no better a case... The scenario has to change from top till bottom, life for the underprivilaged is a diffculty, and this would not get eradicated till the capitalist system gets changed and we get to a socialist mode of equitable distribution.

Cheers!!

Shobhit Deshwal

shamshermalik
July 14th, 2006, 01:46 AM
Dear Shobhit,

Agrre to you some extent but not completely. Yes the developed world is not doin much to eliminate poverty and yes the growth measurement is not the absolute indicator to tell he status of poverty. And worst the deinition of poverty changes with country and continent...and its visible also.

First of all...why should we look at the developed nations to help us alleviate poverty. They are not saintly nations. And second even the socialist idea is not good. Hwen America got independence...they were in the same state as we were on August 15, 1947. At present , even the persons who are about 65-70years are independent and work if there health is good. Here we take retirement even when we are working...I mean those who get government job thinks that they are the JAMAI OF GOVT. There is no accountability...no value of time...ad to say about our politicians...honestl I hate them because evidently they only want power to rule not to serve. Corruption is one of the major hurdle.

Now comming to those who donot have roof or who are beggars...half of them in this condition by choice and half are suffering because of poor will of the govt.

There are so many farmers committing suicide and to get an agricultural loan is far more difficult then to get a loan by an employee or an industrialist.

If the price of TOMATO goes RS 38 for amonth or so the govt fixes a price of Rs20. Where was this govt when the same TOMATOs were selling inthe market for less than a rupee per kg. That reflects there vote strategy.

In the end...you will also find that there are lot of people who really donot want to work and prefer to depend on govt aid....who produce multiple kids even though they are not in a position to educate them...those who think that what govt is doing is not right but donot raise voice for their rights because they think it cannot be improoved.

So I think more than half of the people are poor by choice and rest are victim of the poor governence. I work for an NGO and have seen it by eyes.


Shamsher

shobhitdeshwal
July 14th, 2006, 02:23 AM
Shamsher bro,

I too was with katha during my college days... I have seen all that through my eyes as well... have roamed around the outskirts of Delhi and slums just to understand their prespective of the Government...

Here I list a short synopsis on poverty eradication in India.. The thesis in making.. will shortly be through..

Thanks Dolly for such a thought provoking and nice thread.
Even more than 50 years after independence from almost two centuries of British rule, large scale poverty remains the most shameful blot on the face of India.

India still has the world’s largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas.

More than 40 per cent of the population is illiterate, with women, tribal and scheduled castes particularly affected.

It would be incorrect to say that all poverty reduction programmes have failed. The growth of the middle class (which was virtually non-existent when India became a free nation in August 1947) indicates that economic prosperity has indeed been very impressive in India, but the DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH has been very uneven.

The main causes of poverty are illiteracy, a population growth rate by far exceeding the economic growth rate for the better part of the past 50 years, protectionist policies pursued since 1947 to 1991 which prevented large amounts of foreign investment in the country.

Poverty alleviation is expected to make better progress in the next 50 years than in the past, as a trickle-down effect of the growing middle class. Increasing stress on education, reservation of seats in government jobs and the increasing empowerment of women and the economically weaker sections of society, are also expected to contribute to the alleviation of poverty.

Eradication of poverty can only be a very long-term goal in India.

Cheers!!

Shobhhit Deshwal

shobhitdeshwal
July 14th, 2006, 02:55 AM
To make a clear mark for the proposals for poverty elimination, its important to understand what does poverty and poverty line mean....I start with the same....

A US Supreme Court judge pronounced a cryptic definition of obscenity: "When I see it I know it." Poverty has similar though subtler implications.Whatever the figures insist -- when you see it you know it.

Probably the first absolute definition of poverty was that of Dandekar-Rath, who defined it as an expenditure of Rs 15 per capita per month for the Indian rural population at 1960-61 prices, and Rs 18 per capita per month for the urban population.

The Government of India set up an Expert Group to suggest a methodology to measure poverty. The group submitted its report in 1993 and suggested a new poverty line: Rs 49 and Rs 56, for rural and urban areas at 1973-74 prices.This line was higher in real terms by approximately 15 per cent.

The availability of an absolute poverty line allows comparisons across countries. But what should an international poverty line be? Over the last decade, most comparisons of international poverty have been made by the World Bank, and the definition used is a purchasing power poverty line of $1 per capita per day, at 1985 prices. The most recent publication of the World Bank, however, reports a new international poverty line of $1.08 per capita per day, at 1993 prices. This new line marks a historical first in that it reduces the original poverty line by approximately 15 per cent -- i.e. the new line of $1.08, at 1993 prices, is equivalent to $ 0.82, at 1985 prices. The reasoning behind this large reduction in the absolute poverty line is not transparent, and debatable.

Before getting into the growth and poverty reduction debate, it is necessary to understand that mysterious thing called the poverty line. The most widely used measure of poverty in India was the 'head-count ratio'. This is a measure of income poverty. In the early-'60s, the GOI appointed a special working group of eminent economists to assess the level of poverty in India. The experts came up with a definition of the Poverty Line. This was based on
a nationally desirable minimum level of consumption expenditure based on a standard balanced diet prescribed by the Nutrition Advisory Committee. In other words, any family who could not afford to buy a rudimentary food basket, which when consumed yielded a minimum level of calories, was considered poor. They declared that 50 per cent of Indians lived below the poverty line. Thus began the war to push this figure down to preserve the country's izzat (honour).

However, a poverty line thus defined is something of a destitution line since it takes into account only the expenditure required for subsistence food, leaving out everything else needed for a minimally decent living, such as basic housing, clothing, education and health services. This has gained weight since Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize. Sen has finally succeeded in bringing into economics and the poverty debate a modicum of moral philosophy, which, until now, had been disregarded as non-scientific because it was stated by lesser luminaries.

Differences in methodologies and assumptions can lead to quite different estimates. Until recently, for example, there were two sets of poverty line estimates for India using the same criteria of minimum calorie requirements. In 1993-94, according to the Planning Commission, only 19 per cent of India's population was below the poverty line. This was the 'official' estimate. Estimates based on consumer expenditure surveys carried out regularly by the National Sample Survey (NSS) Organisation, however, placed the proportion of India's population below the poverty line at 36 per cent. In February 1997, the Government of India accepted the recommendations of the Expert Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of Poor (1993), which rejected the adjustments made by the Planning Commission to arrive at estimates of poverty. As a result, the official estimate of India's population below the poverty line was 35 per cent in 1993-94.

The head-count ratio is computed on the basis of NSS data on consumption expenditure. People with an income below the poverty line are 'poor' and the proportion of the poor to the aggregate population is the head-count ratio.

Because of our alarming population rise, the absolute numbers continue to spiral even while percentages reflect a downward trend. So, the poor doubled from 170 million in 1951 to an estimated 340 million in 1994.

Will come up with other things...

Cheers!!

Shobhit Deshwal