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Global
poverty rates have continued to
fall in the first four years of
the 21st century according to new
estimates published in the World
Development Indicators 2007 with
the proportion of people living
on less than USD 1 a day falling
to 18.4 per cent in 2004, leaving
an estimated 985 million people
living in extreme poverty. India's
share of poorest quintile in national
consumption is placed at 8.9 per
cent between 1993 and 2005 with
underweight percentage of children
under the age of five placed at
53 per cent between 1990 and 1995
with statistics unavailable for
2005. The total number of extreme
poor across the globe was 1.25 billion
in 1990. Two-dollar-a-day poverty
rates are falling too, but an estimated
2.6 billion people, almost half
the population of the developing
world, were still living below that
level in 2004. The development indicators
for 2007 have sought to highlight
the progress that has been made
- or lack thereof - in such areas
as poverty and hunger, primary education,
infant mortality, gender equality
and maternal health. The comparisons
have been drawn between 1990 and
1995 to between 2000 and 2005. But
in the real of achieving universal
primary education, India has jumped
from 68 per cent in 1991 in primary
completion rate to 89 per cent in
2005 and in the promotion of gender
equality from 69 per cent in 1991
to 87 per cent in 2005. Gender equality
is measured in the ratio of male
to female enrollments in primary
and secondary schools.
Courtesy:
www.zeenews.com, April 16, 2007
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