Snapshot of India’s Development Deficits
As is well known, income or consumption poverty is often used as shorthand to capture economic wellbeing of people. However, there is almost a consensus view among social scientists by now that such a view of poverty is too narrow and it is absolutely necessary to go beyond hunger and malnutrition and include several other features in conceptualising poverty, such as deprivation (or poor access) in terms of clothing, shelter, basic social services including primary health care, sanitation, education, shelter etc., political powerlessness, socio-cultural marginalisation and exclusion, among others. By any reckoning, development deficits in India are huge in terms of attaining the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).
