The recent round of poverty estimates, placing Orissa as the poorest state in India, has pressed an alarm bell among planners, practitioners and also international donors. This, in turn, has triggered a sense of urgency for salvaging the situation of chronic poverty, where the central thrust is...

The structuralist perspective envisages poverty, especially in rural India, as a long duration phenomenon. Over time, most of the structural features of poverty have remained more or less intact. As a result, a large proportion of the poor in India are also chronically poor in terms of duration...

Three quarters of India's poor live in rural areas but poverty is concentrated in certain geographical regions. For instance, in 1993-1994 about 50 per cent of the rural poor were concentrated in the four most populated states. However, if one looks at the incidence of poverty at the regional...

The interface between environment and poverty is a complex phenomenon. Poverty reduction needs will be enabled if the poor are allowed access to natural capital, such as land, water, forest and minerals in order to produce economic goods and marine resources. Without this, the poor may continue...

Natural resources perform multiple functions as a driver, maintainer, potential exit route, and also an effective escape mechanism in the context of poverty dynamics, especially in a predominantly agrarian economy such as India. The discourse on poverty reduction however, has often overlooked...