Today's GK

While the Opposition pillories the Planning Commission for using a formal definition of poverty that ensures the percentage of people below the poverty line is lower than what it ought to be, the government has begun moving to a broader and more realistic de facto definition that will include roughly 65 per cent of the population. This notional poverty line will stand at a per capita expenditure of around Rs 50 per day in rural areas and Rs 62 in urban areas.

As first reported by The Hindu , the Planning Commission has revised the official poverty headcount ratio down from 37 per cent of the total population in 2004-5 to 22 per cent of the population in 2011-12. These poverty rates come from applying the Suresh Tendulkar committee’s methodology for estimating poverty to draw a poverty line, and using the National Sample Survey Organisation’s consumption expenditure data for 2011-12 to see what proportion of the population falls below these lines.

Welcoming the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on Genetically Modified crops, the Coalition for a GM-free India has urged the government to accept the report and “not come in the way of delivery of justice.”

The panel, set up by the Supreme Court in a Public Interest Litigation, has recommended in its final report that it would not be advisable to conduct any field trials in Bt transgenic crops till gaps in regulatory system are addressed.

“The report is a strong indictment of the state of regulatory affairs with regard to modern biotechnology in the country. We urge that the Central government to take the report seriously and act on it in the interests of food safety, security, and sovereignty as well as protection of environment and farm livelihoods,” the Coalition said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

In figures officially released this week, the Planning Commission claims that poverty incidence had declined from 37.2 per cent of the population in 2004-05 to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12. This 15.3 percentage points decline over a seven-year period amounts to an unprecedented annual decline of 2.2 percentage points in the poverty rate. If that trend is sustained, it would lead to an end to “official” poverty in India in a decade. The previous year for which a comparable estimate based on the Tendulkar Committee’s methodology is available, using data from a similar survey, is 2009-10. In that year, the incidence of poverty was reported at 29.8 per cent, reflecting a 7.4 percentage points reduction relative to 2004-05. A further 8 percentage points reduction over the next two years, when GDP growth in fact slowed, has substantially hiked the annual reduction rate.

The view that this evidence is not the outcome of a routine evaluation of the extent of poverty, but is politically influenced, is not without basis. To start with, despite the recent furore over the appallingly low level at which the Tendulkar committee set the “poverty line” (which works out to Rs. 33.3 in urban areas and Rs. 27.2 in rural areas for 2011-12), the government has chosen to stick officially with that line even though it knows that for all practical purposes the incidence of actual poverty is nearly three times higher. It knows, for example, that the calorie intake figures yielded by the same survey and hunger indices do not tally with the poverty reduction record that the Commission’s methodology yields. Second, the 68th Round National Sample Survey on Household Consumer Expenditure is atypical, if not abnormal, to say the least. From the early 1970s, till 2009-10, the “large sample” consumer expenditure surveys by the NSS were undertaken once in five years. If that schedule had been followed, the next large sample survey should have been in 2014-15. This, however, made the available poverty estimates politically irrelevant. They did not refer to the period after the UPA’s second term started in 2009. They would be superseded only in 2014-15, well after the next election. So in a sudden show of concern for more regular statistical information, the government decided on undertaking a large sample survey after just two years. It obviously knew that if combined with the Planning Commission’s methodology such a survey would point to a significant reduction in poverty. But even the Commission must have been surprised by the actual figure it finally got. The fact that the government is rightly unwilling to base its new food security initiative on these unrealistic numbers suggests the Planning Commission must rethink its formal methodology. But politics requires otherwise.

Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland has been listed among 13 novels longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013.
The longlist for the prize, one of the English language's top fiction awards, names 13 writers from seven countries. The "Man Booker dozen" 2013 comprises an diverse list of 13 novels that will astonish and intrigue in equal measure.
There are 13 outstanding novels range from the traditional to the experimental, from the first century AD to the present day, from 100 pages to 1000 and from Shanghai to Hendon.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on 24 July 2013 approved a Free Trade LPG (FTL) Scheme for selling five Kg LPG cylinders through Company Owned Retail Outlets (COCO) of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs). Under the scheme, COCO Retail Outlets will sell 5 kg LPG cylinders at Non-domestic (commercial) prices. The LPG sold under the scheme will be called as Free Trade LPG (FTL). A five-kg cylinder will cost between 362 rupees and 375 rupees.

India and Belarus signed a protocol on 24 July 2013 to enhance trade ties during the sixth session of the Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation held in New Delhi.

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who exposed the widest US global surveillance operations, was on 25 July 2013 awarded German Whistleblower Prize 2013 worth 3900 Dollars in absentia.
Snowden has exposed the substantial and unsuspecting monitoring and storage of communication data by US and other western intelligence agencies, which cannot be accepted in democratic societies.

The Supreme Court of India on 24 July 2013 directed the Railways to approach competent authorities in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana for recovery of losses, suffered by it due to disruption of rail movements in the two states, in the wake of the Mirchpur violence in 2010.

The court order came after it was told that, till now, no claim has been made for recovery of 40 crore rupees from Uttar Pradesh and 33 crore rupees from Haryana for the loss caused to Railways due to agitation in the two states. A bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and V Gopala Gowda directed the competent authority of Railways to lodge claim within two weeks to the concerned authorities.