F14-Poverty
On 23rd December 2022, the Union government announced that it would discontinue the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) from January 1, 2023. This means that from January onwards, the ration entitlement of people will be halved- they will be entitled to only 5 kgs ration per person (normal NFSA entitlement) instead of the current 10 kgs ration per person (NFSA+PMGKAY). However, to mask the harshness of the announcement, the government also announced that for one year starting from January 2023 the food grains under National Food Security Act, 2013, (NFSA) will be provided free of cost i.e. the subsidised price of Rs. 3 per kg and Rs. 2 per kg for rice and wheat will be waived off.
A family of five will now be forced to spend Rs. 750-900 per month just in order to access the current level of ration entitlement. They will save only around Rs. 55 on account of the NFSA ration being made free. The halving of ration entitlement and a resulting huge rise in expenditure can in no way be termed ‘historic’. This extremely regressive step is coming at a time when the government has once again started putting out advisories and announcing measures to control another potential wave of COVID.
by Right to Food Campaign
30/12/2022
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अंतराष्ट्रीय रिपोर्ट से हाहाकार ! पूरा देश दंग रह गया ! गोदी मीडिया में सन्नाटा | PM Modi | BJP-RSS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5cQa_PYuLI
4,458 views Oct 15, 2022
Global Hunger Index 2022: छह पायदान फिसलकर 107वें स्थान पर भारत, श्रीलंका-पाकिस्तान भी हमसे बेहतर https://www.amarujala.com/india-news/global-hunger-index-2022-india-rank-is-107-of-121-countries-news-in-hindi प्रांजुल श्रीवास्तव Sat, 15 Oct 2022
'68% of Indians still earn less than $2/day. About 30% Indians earn less than $1 a day.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_di0YsP7bQM Sep 11, 2022 'We may be celebrating a little too early' says V Raghunathan, Economist and Author as he shares thoughts in conversation with Sakshi Batra on how India's achievements are largely accounted in absolute terms and not in per capita terms. He believes that India has a long way to go when it comes to improving per capita income even it has overtaken the UK as the fifth-largest economy.
'Revadi culture' exists because poverty exists And poverty exists because government’s economic policy has delivered GDP growth but not jobs and incomes to the large masses of people Arun Sinha, AUG 25 2022, https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/main-article/revadi-culture-exists-because-poverty-exists-1139367.html
There are two sets of actors in the revadi culture: the political parties and the target sections. The political parties distribute revadi to get the votes of the target sections. Why are people willing to barter their political choice for freebies? Because they do not have a decent income to fulfill their family’s needs and make savings to live with respect, dignity and financial security. Do the upper and middle classes want freebies? No. They might even feel insulted by a suggestion of it.
More than 75 per cent of the country’s farmers own less than a hectare (2.47 acres). They supplement their income from small fields by working as labourers. That is a huge part of the population. There are more than 110 million beneficiaries under the PM Kisan-Samman Yojana. Of them, 82.5 million farmer households (75 per cent) supplement their farm income with wage labour. That translates to 82.5 x 4 = 330 million Indians (taking 4 members to a family on average).
These 330 million Indians live extremely vulnerable lives. If the crop fails in one season for any reason, they slide into poverty. If even one working male of the family suffers long illness or remains unpaid for his labour for months, the family has to live hand-to-mouth. For lack of food and nutrition, other members might fall ill, and that means greater misery. Can we fault these 330 million Indians for seeking revadi?..
The onus to end the ‘revadi culture’ also lies on Prime Minister Modi, the BJP and the other parties. They have to rewrite the country’s economic policy to provide jobs with decent incomes to a large part of the population. That should be the next set of reforms the country must contemplate, design and implement. If people have good income and savings, they would stop seeking revadi, the revadi-for-vote market would shut down, and democracy would become freer and stronger.
NATIONAL MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY INDEX INDIA BASELINE REPORT
https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2021-11/National_MPI_India-11242021.pdf I