Whose Line Is It Anyway?: India Rethinks Its Poverty Schemes

Indian policy-makers have called a truce to end an escalating political battle over how it measures poverty. In doing so, India may have begun a radical new experiment in giving subsidies to the poor.
India draws its poverty line based on how much people spend — not how much they earn. There are certainly other ways of measuring poverty. The U.S. used an income threshold of $22,314 for a family of four to make its recent poverty rate estimate of 15.1% — the highest in 52 years. The World Bank defines poverty as living on less than $1.25 a day, and by that measure, about 42% of India's population is poor. The UNDP uses $2 a day, and under that criterion, 75.6% of Indians would be poor.  Read Here

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