India Is Home To One-third Of All Poor People In The World According to the World Bank

from Bernama

More on the World Bank statement from yesterday, and some specifics on India. - Kale

NEW DELHI -- India is home to roughly one-third of all poor people in the world and has a higher proportion of its population living on less than US$2 per day, according to the World Bank's latest estimates on global poverty.

The estimates also shows that the rate of decline of poverty in India was faster between 1981 and 1990 than between 1990 and 2005, the Times of India on Wednesday quoted the bank as saying.

This is likely to give fresh ammunition to those who maintain that economic reforms, which started in 1991, have failed to reduce poverty at a faster rate.

India, according to the estimates, had 456 million people or about 42 percent of the population living below the new international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. The number of Indian poor also constitute 33 percent of the global poor, which is pegged at 1.4 billion people.

India also had 828 million people, or 75.6 percent of the population living below US$2 a day. Sub-Saharan Africa, considered the world's poorest region, is better -- it has 72.2 percent of its population (551 million) live below the US$2 a day level.

While the full report has not been released yet, a briefing note sent by the Bank had some of the data and showed that the poverty rate -- those below US$1.25 per day -- for India had come down from 59.8 percent in 1981 to 51.3 percent by 1990 or 8.5 percentage points over nine years.

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