In the first episode of new season of The NDTV Dialogues, we look at a crucial aspect: defining poverty, or more specifically settling on a number which draws a line in the sand, as it were, between who is considered poor in India today or who the government considers poor and who isn't. The C Rangarajan Committee set up to review how poverty is actually measured, how the number is fixed, gave its report recently to this government. On the show tonight, Dr C Rangarajan, the head of that Committee, also of course former Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister, talk about the issue. Also on the show, Prof Abhijit Banerjee, the author of Poor Economics which really looked again how aid is actually received and what impact it has, TN Ninan, Chairman of the Business Standard, and Harsh Mander, former IAS officer, head of the Centre for Equity Studies.
(Read full transcript here)