Poverty@25, India@70

 

- Richard Mahapatra

AS THE world observes the 25th year of the call to end poverty, a recent report on the level of hunger in India does not bode well for the global efforts to “eradicate poverty”. India shows two disturbing signs: poverty level has significantly reduced in this country that hosts the largest number of poor, but certain sections of the poor are getting poorer.

Which are these sections of the population? Expectedly, they are the country’s socially backward and marginalised communities. As this column has repeatedly warned, these communities are increasingly being trapped in chronic poverty. And their social status, which invariably dictates the level of poverty, compromises their capacity to move out of the trap.

This is despite the fact that in 1992, the UN in a resolution gave the call to eradicate poverty from across the world and declared October 17 as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Some 20 years before this call, late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had made the profound “