Sad debate on poverty lines

Miscommunication has led to people not realising that new poverty estimates count more Indians as poor.

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Watching the recent debate on the poverty line has been a depressing experience. As the debate unfolded, we witnessed self-righteous commentators engaged in a game of one-upmanship to prove that no one was more concerned for the poor than they, electronic media failing in its responsibility to inform the public simple facts and the Planning Commission proving itself incapable of communicating in simple terms the rationale behind its proposal either the public or the Supreme Court.

To understand what was so wrong with the debate, it is important to note at the outset that the revised poverty line, which became the punching bag of all and sundry, had been recommended by the late Professor Suresh Tendulkar, an economist with impeccable knowledge of both the history and economics of poverty and poverty lines in India. He had also been known and uniformly admired for his integrity and forthrightness. Therefore, contrary to the picture the activists and media painted, the revised poverty line was not a sinister plot of an evil Planning Commission.