Food deprivation: A thali index reveals what poverty estimates do not
Poverty in India is typically estimated based on a poverty line that identifies the purchasing power needed to satisfy the daily calorific intake deemed necessary. In this post, Balakrishnan and Raj m...
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Pulapre Balakrishnan
Aman Raj
06 June, 2025
- Perspectives
Rethinking social safety nets in a changing society
This paper was coauthored by Debasis Barik, Pallavi Choudhuri, Bijay Chouhan, Om Prakash Sharma, Dinesh Kumar Tiwari (NCAER) and Sharan Sharma (University of Maryland College Park and NCAER). Histori...
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Sonalde Desai
15 July, 2024
- Articles
Determining how many Indians are poor today
Poverty debates in India have seen a revival since the release of a fact sheet from the 2022-23 household consumption expenditure survey. In this post, Ghatak and Kumar note that the general consensus...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
Rishabh Kumar
29 May, 2024
- Perspectives
Rethinking social safety nets in a changing society
This paper was coauthored by Debasis Barik, Pallavi Choudhuri, Bijay Chouhan, Om Prakash Sharma, Dinesh Kumar Tiwari (NCAER) and Sharan Sharma (University of Maryland College Park and NCAER). Histori...
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Sonalde Desai
15 July, 2024
- Articles
Determining how many Indians are poor today
Poverty debates in India have seen a revival since the release of a fact sheet from the 2022-23 household consumption expenditure survey. In this post, Ghatak and Kumar note that the general consensus...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
Rishabh Kumar
29 May, 2024
- Perspectives
How reforming India’s workfare programme raised private sector earnings
By randomising the rollout of improved, biometric payment infrastructure used to issue National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme payments in Andhra Pradesh, this study found that this reform raised i...
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Karthik Muralidharan
Paul Niehaus
Sandip Sukhtankar
25 January, 2024
- Articles
Could job creation be a driver of poverty reduction in India?
While the Indian economy continues to grow, there is a consensus that creating more jobs is vital to reduce poverty. Ejaz Ghani shares trends which suggest that job creation is being driven by cities ...
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Ejaz Ghani
03 November, 2023
- Perspectives
Persistent problems with PDS: An assessment of the Covid-19 ration scheme
This note summarises the findings of a survey conducted by students at IIT Delhi to evaluate the functioning of the PMGKAY scheme across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. It reveals that many househo...
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Students of Humanities and Social Sciences Department
13 September, 2023
- Notes from the Field
India’s rising ruralisation defies claims of declining poverty
Building on some of the key contributions to the Great Indian Poverty Debate, Dhananjay Sinha assesses the economic transformation in India over the past few decades. He outlines the lack of private c...
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Purvi Mundhra
Dhananjay Sinha
21 July, 2023
- Perspectives
Finding the indiscernible poor: Community knowledge as a targeting approach
Varying estimates of poverty have often resulted in some deprived communities being excluded from government welfare schemes. Sabarwal and Chowdhry look at the case of Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana in Bi...
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Parikrama Chowdhry
Shagun Sabarwal
19 June, 2023
- Perspectives
Weighty evidence? Poverty estimation with missing data
Attempts have been made to estimate poverty in India with biased survey data, by adjusting household weights to remove the bias. Based on simulation exercises with artificially contaminated household ...
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Jean Drèze
Anmol Somanchi
10 April, 2023
- Perspectives
Statistical priorities for the ‘Great Indian Poverty Debate 2.0’
In the final post of a six-part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Himanshu summarises attempts by researchers to estimate poverty using three varied approaches, given the lack of official ...
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Himanshu .
15 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Filling a gaping hole in the World Bank’s global poverty measures
In the fifth post of a six part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Martin Ravallion provides a non-technical summary of Roy and van der Weide's working paper. He discusses some of their mai...
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Martin Ravallion
14 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Extreme poverty in India is yet to be eliminated: A comment on BBV
In the fourth post of a six-part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Sinha Roy and van der Weide reflect on the dramatically different estimates produced by two studies, and the source of th...
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Sutirtha Sinha Roy
Roy Van der Weide
13 October, 2022
- Perspectives
The Great Indian Poverty Debate, 2.0
In the third post of a six part series on estimating poverty in India, Justin Sandefur considers the approaches employed for projections of poverty estimates since 2011-12 – the last year for which ...
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Justin Sandefur
12 October, 2022
- Perspectives
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Poverty & Inequality Posts
Wealth inequality, class, and caste in India: 1961-2012
The level of wealth inequality in India is close to that of some highly unequal countries in the world. This article assesses the long-term evolution of wealth inequality in the country for the period...
Nitin Kumar Bharti
28 June, 2019
- Articles
Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population
With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the li...
Reetika Khera
25 March, 2020
- Perspectives
A review of the coverage of PDS
The coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been of wide interest due to the pandemic and lockdown. Based on government data sources, Khera and Somanchi estimate the state-wise coverage o...
Reetika Khera
Anmol Somanchi
19 August, 2020
- Perspectives