Poverty, Inequality and Prices in Rural India - Tapa dura

`This is a scholarly work, useful alike to research workers and policy-makers. It is a welcome addition to the assessment of the measurement of rural poverty in India. This book will be of considerable interest to economists and to those involved in development studies.' - Business Standard

`the book is a meticulous work. Unlike many descriptive studies, it is based on careful analysis of data and develops an analytical framework to explain rural poverty.' - Economic Times

`It's a data studded publication, the data having been gathered at great lengths. Both theory and statistics are the strength of the study....One welcomes it into the fold of `poverty literature' which gets enriched by the work.' - Asian Economic Review

`This book presents a detailed analysis of the absolute and relative levels of living of India's rural population for the period, 1952-1983. The book is of great relevance to scholars interested in poverty-related issues.' - Pakistan Development Review

This path-breaking book provides a comprehensive analysis of the absolute and relative levels of living in India's rural population over a thirty year period (1952-83). The authors examine the disparities in consumption across households, the trends in such disparities and in the incidence of absolute poverty. This is combined with an examination of the differential price trends faced by different sections of the population. The conclusion is that the prices of items bought by poorer people have risen more steeply than those purchased by the relatively affluent. At the same time, the data reveal that the standards of living of the rural population have not changed significantly but that the bottom forty per cent of the rural population has remained chronically poor.