- New figure for poor: 372m, By Chetan Chauhan, April 18, 2010, Hindustan Times: “As many as 372 million Indians will be categorised as poor in the proposed National Food Security Act, the Planning Commission said on Saturday. It would mean that additional 97 million people would get subsidised food grains, once the proposed law is implemented, increasing the government’s food subsidy bill by around Rs 20,000 crore, to Rs 75,000 crore. The proposed law guarantees 25 kg of food grains only to below poverty line families. As of now, 275 million poor Indians get up to 35 kg in subsidised food grains from the government-run fair price shops…”
- 37.2 per cent of population BPL, 10 crore families to get food security, By P Vaidyanathan Iyer, April 18, 2010, Indian Express: “For purposes of food security, the Planning Commission today finally accepted that the number of people living below the poverty line in India is 37.2 per cent of the total population. The Plan panel, mandated by the empowered group of ministers chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to finalise the BPL numbers, will now meet the secretaries of food and expenditure on Tuesday to calculate the cost of providing food security to so many poor. The 37.2 per cent poverty line (that works out to 40.71 crore for 2004-05) is based on the methodology recommended by the Suresh Tendulkar committee that submitted its report to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia in December 2009. The report is yet to be officially accepted by the Plan panel…”
Day: April 19, 2010
Poverty and Income Inequality – Colombia
Despite billions in U.S. aid, Colombia struggles to reduce poverty, By Juan Forero, April 19, 2010, Washington Post: “Eight years after President Álvaro Uribe took office and began harnessing billions in U.S. aid dollars to pummel Marxist guerrillas, Colombia is safer for this country’s 45 million people and for the foreign investors who have flocked here. But stubbornly high levels of poverty expose a harsh reality: Despite better security and strong economic growth, Colombia has been unable to significantly alleviate the misery that helps fuel a 46-year-old conflict and the drug trafficking behind it. What social scientists here call lackluster results in fighting poverty have become a campaign issue ahead of May elections, in which Colombian voters will elect a president to succeed Uribe, Washington’s closest ally on the continent. Unless a 43 percent poverty rate can be steadily reduced, experts on the conflict contend, Colombia could regress even as the United States continues to provide military assistance…”