UNDP releases 2018 global Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

According to the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), India has reduced its poverty rate drastically from 55% to 28% in 10 years between 2005-06 and 2015-16. The report, covering 105 countries, dedicates a chapter to India because of this remarkable progress. In India, a total of 271 million (27.10 crore) people moved out of poverty during these ten years. However, India still had 364 million poor in 2015-16, the largest for any country, although it is down from 635 million in 2005-06. The report was recently released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). The report said that across the 640 districts in India, the poorest district is Alirajpur in Madhya Pradesh, where 76.5% of people are MPI poor. Among states, Jharkhand had the greatest improvement, with Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Nagaland only slightly behind. However, Bihar is still the poorest state in 2015-16, with more than half of its population in poverty.