Here's hoping that UNDP’s Human Development Report 2003 does not result in needless angst over India having fallen a couple of notches since last year. Yes, we figured in the 124th position in a list of 173 countries in HDR 2002 while this time we’ve come 127th in a list of 175. But let’s not lose sight of the big picture in the pursuit of minutiae and, in any case, a thin skin has never done anyone any good. The big picture is this: India has recorded a significant poverty decline but needs to urgently work on the grey areas.Of course, before we explore this complex construct called “poverty level”, it may be useful to remind ourselves that the world’s best minds in the business of measuring poverty are in a quandary over accurate ways to do so. The world talks of its Millennium Development Goal of “halving poverty by 2015”, but is uncertain about how it should measure it on an international scale. The parameter of $1 a day, in purchasing power parity terms, as the minimum income required for human subsistence is, at best, only a rough-and-ready one. This is by way of striking a cautionary note about all international indices, including the widely quoted Human Development Index, based on a combination of life expectancy, school enrolment/literacy and income data, which has been criticised for the sin of over-simplification. But these are the only measures we have and must, therefore, take them seriously. In particular, we need to read one set of figures concerning India: Percentage of adult illiteracy: 42. Percentage of people without access to an improved water source: 14. Percentage of underweight children under five: 47. Percentage of people below the dollar-a-day poverty line: 34.7. These figures should inspire a blueprint for change. They should find their way into government projects, party manifestoes, civil society agendas and national budgets.India has been commended for its robust 4.4 average growth rate of the past decade. The trick is to look for strategies that promote growth and reduce poverty. We badly need to translate income into human development.
