excruciating poverty -- how far can the indian per capita income of rs 4,500 per month take you?

by Guest Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:22 am

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111022/jsp/frontpage/story_14654706.jsp

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:53 pm

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111022/jsp/frontpage/story_14654706.jsp

here's an excerpt from the article:

Mathew Cherian and Tushar Vashisht... Graduates from top US universities... Massachusetts of Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania... with job experience in Wall Street... met while they both worked for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in Bangalore.

Cherian and Vashisht aren’t victims of the global economic slowdown. They are aspiring entrepreneurs from Bangalore who, late last month, decided to learn more about India by living on Rs 100 a day for three weeks which, by their reckoning, was what the average Indian subsisted on.

And then, to top it off by surviving one more week on just Rs 32 a day — the notorious below-poverty limit recently cited in a Planning Commission declaration (the government later said it would not be used as a cut-off for welfare benefits).

The first three weeks ended on October 17, by when Cherian and Vashisht had lost 2kg and 4kg respectively and often felt dizzy from their protein-deficient diet. It was time to embark on the Rs 32-a-day regime, living like India’s poorest two-fifths.

i am moved by hoozay kapasi's concern for the hundreds of millions in india who experience "excruciating poverty" every day, with little prospect of raising their standard of living, but am utterly puzzled by his posts and accompanying photographs describing what has recently made its way down his alimentary canal:

...fried sausages with onions for breakfast today (and scrambled eggs) ...home cooked baked chicken for lunch.

you'll find photographs - i'm afraid they're unappetizing - that hoozay posted of these dishes (about 75% down the page) here:

https://such.forumotion.com/t263-what-are-you-cooking-having-cooked-eating-today?highlight=what+did+you+eat+today

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:08 pm

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111022/jsp/frontpage/story_14654706.jsp

A family of 4 can live with a total family income of Rs 18,000 a month (that is how the Govt. calculates) - but almost abysmally. It is even more common in poor families to see both the parents working (menial jobs) to somehow bring in the minimum money. Think the minmum daily wage in India is Rs 22/day - which most small scale industries pay for their low level workers. In construction, a Sithaal (the labor assistant - usually a female) wants around Rs 100 and a maistry Rs 500 or so.

But, the super rich, mercedes-driving, A/C vaasis dictating who is and is not poor is just hilarious and tragic at the same time.

P.S. did anyone in the Govt. think about families with just ONE breadwinner, and those families with no one having a job ?

by artood2 Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:10 pm

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:
Huzefa Kapasi wrote:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111022/jsp/frontpage/story_14654706.jsp
here's an excerpt from the article:

Mathew Cherian and Tushar Vashisht... Graduates from top US universities... Massachusetts of Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania... with job experience in Wall Street... met while they both worked for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in Bangalore.

Cherian and Vashisht aren’t victims of the global economic slowdown. They are aspiring entrepreneurs from Bangalore who, late last month, decided to learn more about India by living on Rs 100 a day for three weeks which, by their reckoning, was what the average Indian subsisted on.

And then, to top it off by surviving one more week on just Rs 32 a day — the notorious below-poverty limit recently cited in a Planning Commission declaration (the government later said it would not be used as a cut-off for welfare benefits).

The first three weeks ended on October 17, by when Cherian and Vashisht had lost 2kg and 4kg respectively and often felt dizzy from their protein-deficient diet. It was time to embark on the Rs 32-a-day regime, living like India’s poorest two-fifths.

i am moved by hoozay kapasi's concern for the hundreds of millions in india who experience "excruciating poverty" every day, with little prospect of raising their standard of living, but am utterly puzzled by his posts and accompanying photographs describing what has recently made its way down his alimentary canal:

...fried sausages with onions for breakfast today (and scrambled eggs) ...home cooked baked chicken for lunch.

you'll find photographs - i'm afraid they're unappetizing - that hoozay posted of these dishes (about 75% down the page) here:

[url=https://such.forumotion.com/t263-what-are-you-cooking-having-cooked-eating-today?highlight=what+did+you+eat+today

https://such.forumotion.com/t263-what-are-you-cooking-having-cooked-eating-today?highlight=what+did+you+eat+today[/quote[/url]]

so, someone having good food should never donate to charity?

by Guest Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:39 pm

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:

i am moved by hoozay kapasi's concern for the hundreds of millions in india who experience "excruciating poverty" every day, with little prospect of raising their standard of living, but am utterly puzzled by his posts and accompanying photographs describing what has recently made its way down his alimentary canal:

jeremiah, you are trying to suggest that i do not actually feel for the poor of india. have i ever denied that? i do and i don't. i enjoy the rich, bourgeois life i lead and will not exchange it for anything else. the two guys in the article were doing the same. they had empathy (like i do) but no solutions for the problem -- on the contrary they were experimenting to find ways to get richer. did you ever read the article?

by Guest Sat Oct 22, 2011 2:00 pm

jeremiah my sympathies if you are poor. i might have been a tad insensitive.

by Guest Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:56 am

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Think the minmum daily wage in India is Rs 22/day - which most small scale industries pay for their low level workers.

i don't think small scale industries pay rs 22 to their low level workers. no one will work at this wage for two reasons: nrega is a better option and agricultural employment will pay more. minimum wages is a state subject and in my parts it is around rs 160 per 8 hr. shift per day. unorganized sector rely on contractors who pay a little less than this but adding overtime etc., the average monthly for a worker (be it in construction or elsewhere) is around rs 4,500 per month. it sounds handsome but as the experiment by the two boys in the article suggests, it can barely make ends meet. inflation.

by charvaka Sun Oct 23, 2011 3:07 am

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:i am moved by hoozay kapasi's concern...

I am moved by the excruciating poverty of attention you seem to be suffering from.

by pravalika nanda Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:28 pm

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111022/jsp/frontpage/story_14654706.jsp

i think mathew is the better-looking of the two.

by Merlot Daruwala Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:53 am

A couple of pampered ABCD drama queens carry out a media stunt that would have made for an interesting "What I did this summer" writeup in their college newsletter but for the imbeciles running the media, this fundamentally flawed, cockeyed sociological experiment is front page material.

Rs 4500 a month is definitely a low monthly income but by no stretch of imagination is it excrutiating poverty. The very fact that this is the per capita income of a country with a 1.2 billion people indicates that there are millions of Indians who live on amounts much smaller that this. The Rs 32/day is not a figment of imagination - there are actually people today who live on that. And no, you can't live on that and eat chicken noodles or drive around on a bike as these two bozos did.

Hindustan Times regularly carries this A Day in the Life of.. series of stories of the invisible people around us: bakers, washermen, maid servants, security guards - living on roughly Rs 5000/mth in one of the most expensive cities in India. Sure, life is hard specially in these times of galloping food inflation. And sure, they all have aspirations of a better life. And every one of them could do with some extra income. But you won't hear any of them complaining of "dizziness" from protein deficiency!

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excruciating poverty -- how far can the indian per capita income of rs 4,500 per month take you?

excruciating poverty -- how far can the indian per capita income of rs 4,500 per month take you?

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Re: excruciating poverty -- how far can the indian per capita income of rs 4,500 per month take you?

Re: excruciating poverty -- how far can the indian per capita income of rs 4,500 per month take you?

Re: excruciating poverty -- how far can the indian per capita income of rs 4,500 per month take you?