India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN • Hacker News Board

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by sbmthakur » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:03 AM UTC

softveda wrote: post #241

gandalfgeek wrote: post #140

I grew up in India in the 90s, saw first hand the transition from the disastrous socialism of the Nehru era to open markets, capitalism and deregulation. (The end of "license raj".) It started with PV Narasimha Rao as PM and Manmohan Singh as his finance minister in the early 90s. Thankfully Singh himself had a fruitful tenure as PM later. All it took for India to take off was the shackles of govt control to come off…

The license raj is still there for business, except maybe some sectors like tech startups. Yes there has been improvements in citizens life like mobile phones etc. But official harassment and bribery is as prevalent as before. Want to get a passport issued or renewed have to pay Rs 500 to the police. Just last week a mother and her kids died as they were turned away from a govt hospital as they could not show the Aad…

I wonder which city this would be where you still need to bribe the police for getting a passport. I got mine in 2015 and the process was hassle-free. But this was in a tier-1 city, so my experience might be an exception.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by mayama » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:04 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #248

damagednoob wrote: post #36

I don't understand poverty statistics. With this news, the UK now has more people living in poverty than India (16% vs 22%?). If it is valuable to judge poverty on relative income, you would think the rational course of action would be mass immigration from the UK to India but that is clearly not the case.

Discussions about poverty is usually confused by the two competing definitions: - Absolute Poverty: If you have less than $X/day, you are poor. This measures living standards. - Relative Poverty: If you're in the bottom x%, you are poor. This measures status. Without knowing anything, it sounds like this measurement is more on the Relative Poverty side.

This is based on multidimensional poverty index(MPI), developed pretty recently. It is a mix of both absolute and relative poverty. Though MPI is used mainly in developing nations.

> This figure considers both the proportion of the population that is deemed poor, and the 'breadth' of poverty experienced by these 'poor' households, following the Alkire & Foster 'counting method'.[1] The method was developed following increased criticism of monetary and consumption based poverty measures, seeking to capture the deprivations in non-monetary factors that contribute towards well-being. While there is a standard set of indicators, dimensions, cutoffs and thresholds used for a 'Global MPI',[2] the method is flexible and there are many examples of poverty studies that modify it to best suit their environment. The methodology has been mainly, but not exclusively,[3] applied to developing countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidimensional_Poverty_Index

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by nicbou » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:08 AM UTC

rishav_sharan wrote: post #352

While my country has made tremendous progress, I wonder how precise these numbers are. India's poverty line doesn't gets redrawn every year to account for the inflation and increased cost of living. The current definition of the poverty line is daily earnings 27 rs for rural areas and 33 for urban, which is a ludicrously low number. Even beggars earn more than that. Of course we will have very low poverty if we use s…

To put things in perspective, I have 40 Rs in my wallet now, and I can't buy anything with it. It's less than a dollar, and it feels like less than a dollar.

Edit: to put things in perspective, I'm a tourist

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by jonas21 » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:25 AM UTC

ninjanomnom wrote: post #359

jonas21 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what western country you live in, but I'm guessing you have a very different definition of poverty than the article is using. The UN has a list of criteria such as: - Lacking access to electricity - Lacking access to drinking water within a 30 minute round-trip walk - Lacking access to sanitation facilities - No household members have completed at least 6 years of schooling - Any child in the household h…

During my childhood I fulfilled the first three for about four years or so and knew many others in similar situations. This was in the US, any country with significant undeveloped land is going to have areas that have people who fulfill the first three pretty easily.

Just out of curiosity, how far did you have to walk to fetch water, what was the source, how much did you carry back at a time, and how often did you do this? Sorry for so many questions, but I always think of the U.S. as such a developed country that it's interesting to hear counterexamples.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by perfecthjrjth » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

In states such as Andhra and Telangana, there is a public distribution scheme, which supplies subsidized rice and cooking oil for a long time, at least since 1985. Even in 1985, they supplied 1 kilo rice for 2 rupees--this price is kept that way even today. Families get like 25 kilos per month. For many, that is a savior, even though this rice is not of quality (like sona masuri, basmati). However, it is tasty when the rice is freshly cooked and hot.

After PV Narsimrao's reforms, thanks to IT and service sectors, many people are able to get out of this dependency. In South India, every small village has many people working in Chennai, Hyd, Bangalore, Pune for many IT companies, etc.

In Late 90's and early 2000's, even if you were a M.Tech graduate from IITs in chemical engg/civil engg/mech engg, Companies like Infosys/TCS did not hire such people. Today, same companies go to a third rate private engineering colleges, hire a lot of people for jobs.

Now, you see a lot of migration from the North to the south--to work as carpenters, electricians, etc. Also, population growth is kind of slowed in the south--at most two kids per couple.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by kumarvvr » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:31 AM UTC

rishav_sharan wrote: post #352

While my country has made tremendous progress, I wonder how precise these numbers are. India's poverty line doesn't gets redrawn every year to account for the inflation and increased cost of living. The current definition of the poverty line is daily earnings 27 rs for rural areas and 33 for urban, which is a ludicrously low number. Even beggars earn more than that. Of course we will have very low poverty if we use s…

The report does not use Indias poverty level indicators.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by piyushpr134 » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:36 AM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #13

Interested in comments from anyone who lives in India or has experience/familiarity with it as to whether reality on the ground matches the rosy picture painted in the article.

I live in India. Well definitely there is a change in last 15-20 years. People have money to buy phones, bikes, tv along with DTH connection, etc even in poor villages. Electricity situation is much better. Roads are much much better now. Access to baking is much more prevalent. Digital services has brought much needed access and corruption is lesser. We have many brands, malls, restaurants etc. Air travel which was elite in 2005s is now common place and accessible to many more (but not all). Rail travel has improved marginally, I would say. Water and sanitation has improved marginally.

Education has though largely remained where it was i.e. cities have very very good schools, colleges (but expensive) etc and higher eduction (colleges etc) is much more prevalent but primary education in rural areas is still a concern. Same with healthcare. It has improved drastically in cities but not in rural areas.

However there is still a 20% population which lives below the poverty line. This, in Indian context is still a very large number (250-280mn). Government cannot put their foot off peddle here. Education, nutrition, healthcare, roads, safe drinking water, santitation, electricity, social equality etc are the goals that they need to continue focusing on.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by malshe » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:38 AM UTC

rishav_sharan wrote: post #352

While my country has made tremendous progress, I wonder how precise these numbers are. India's poverty line doesn't gets redrawn every year to account for the inflation and increased cost of living. The current definition of the poverty line is daily earnings 27 rs for rural areas and 33 for urban, which is a ludicrously low number. Even beggars earn more than that. Of course we will have very low poverty if we use s…

The report does not use any numbers your provided. They use Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). From the report:

  The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is a key international resource that measures acute multidimensional poverty across more than 100 developing countries. First launched in 2010 by the oxford Poverty and Human development Initiative at the university of oxford and the Human development report office of the united nations development Programme, the global MPI advances Sustainable development Goal 1, holding the world accountable to its resolution to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by perfecthjrjth » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:40 AM UTC

factsarelolz wrote: post #21

Thanks to the United States of America wether it be through legal or illegal means.

That's one way of looking at the West. One way to curtail illegal immigration to the states and Europe is to have a way for many people to get out of poverty. When people make a decent living, they won't uproot themselves to move to the US/Europe.

Re: India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN

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Post by fakedang » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 4:40 AM UTC

sddat wrote: post #322

I wonder how much of the poverty can be still traced back to the British East India Company

A ton.

My great-grandfather was an indentured laborer in Malaya. My great-great-grandfather's family properties were seized by the British Raj, and many of his relatives and family imprisoned after a rebellion. Our family has not been able to recover from that up until my father's and uncles' generation, when many of them were able to go abroad (mostly the Middle East).

On the other hand, on my mother's side, many of her grandfather's businesses were forcefully nationalized in the few years after Indian independence.

Funnily enough, life has been good so far for our extended family. We have 4 dollar billionaires who have extensive properties in the UK today. And one of them owns a stake in the British EIC.