My editorial in International Health Policies on Rio declaration

........................In the Indian context, defining poverty as 'people earning less than half a dollar per day' only shows that we are currently reducing poverty by reducing the poverty line, and this in a situation where inflation is steadily rising. Reducing poverty by juggling statistics is mere politics and not a serious attempt to deal with poverty. India’s Human Development Index is still slightly better than Bangladesh's HDI, but as Dreze and Sen mentioned in a piece in Outlook last week, Bangladesh has overtaken India in terms of a range of basic social indicators by now, in spite of a much lower per capita income.
The HDI in India has risen only slightly over the past few decades, in spite of the economic boom. A widening gap between the rich and the poor and massive corruption are some of the reasons for this slow progress.............

http://e.itg.be/ihp/archives/ihp-news-144-social-determinants-of-health-in-india