Income-poverty and Beyond Human Development in India

"Income-Poverty and Beyond" emphasizes the need to go beyond the conventional definition of poverty and look at the various human aspects of the problem. A team of eminent social scientists - Suresh Tendulkar, Abusaleh Shariff, R Radhakrishna, MSS Meenakshisundaram, Seeta K Prabhu, Ravi Srivastava and the editors, Raja J Chelliah and R Sudarshan - take a comprehensive view of poverty to include the concept of human poverty, seen as the "the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development." Special care has been taken to make the information and analysis accessible to the general reader Using the latest available data for India as well as edited versions of papers commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a South Asia poverty monitor the broad conclusion that has emerged is that more public action is needed to counter the high prevalence of human poverty. Therefore, measures to reduce income-poverty, including high rates of economic growth are not sufficient. The,first two chapters dwell on the concept of income-poverty, interstate and inter group disparities, and poverty trends in India over the decade 1983-94. There follows an examination of human development in rural India, availability of food for the poor, various programs aimed at removing poverty, the indices for human poverty and public financing of social services, human priority expenditures, and human expenditure ratios for the Indian states. The perceptions of the poor themselves in assessing their own poverty and in developing policies to improve their status are discussed and an Epilogue appeals to the national and international community to take serious note of human poverty inthe midst of which we all live. This book will be invaluable to teachers, students, policy-makers and others who need to understand the multi-faceted nature of poverty in India.