BORN in POVERTY to DIE in POVERTY

BORN in POVERTY to DIE in POVERTY

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 190

Palash Biswas

Washington, December 11, 2008— The World Bank announced today it is boosting aid to India, for much-needed infrastructure and also to help the nation’s poorest states. Funding is being considered for the next four years under the Bank’s country assistance strategy, with more assistance planned for the future.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22009107~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html

My people, worldwide Black untouchables and the Indigenous Aboriginal and Minority Communities are BORN ENSLAVED in POVERTY struck by famine and Food Insecurity and DEBT to die in POVERTY! Since they are the NATURE associated ENVIRONMENT Friendly Peace loving species in this Galaxy! I live with the Peasnt Community destined for SUIcide, Tribals suffering from Starvation, Joblost industrial workers and Displaced Peasants and tribals fighting to survive and bretahe in the GHETTOS created for east bengal refugees!

I have been among the Mine Workers, the People engaged in Illegal Mining, the Population struck by Radioactivity, deforestation and Pollution of every kind.

I have also visited the GRAVE Yards spread over closed JUTE and COTTON Mills and tea gardens.

Our people are Predestined to be BORN in poverty and wither away with DEATH procession INFINITE!

I was BORN in poverty, though as RESETTLED Bengali refugee family we had not to face such Starvation crisis or Food insecurity as our people encounter countrywide. The Bengal as well as Sikh partition Victim refugees resettled in Nainital terai Transformed the HELL into a HEAVEN furher strengthened by GREEN REVOLUTION in sixties led by pant nagar university.

But we also faced calamities and harvest Loss, intense debt situation as the pesants all over the country sufferfrom. We always had been surrounded by Aboriginal tribal population whwerever we were rehabilitated. I have witnessed the Poverty and Stravation, alienation of our trabal brothers and sisters. Specially in Jharkhand, I visited Tribal villages around the Industrial cities and Mines, urban areas. I have seen starvation, Poverty and death face to face in almost every Tribal village all over the country.

Specially in Dandakaranya, targeted specially for REPRESSION to CURB Maoism, not only tribals but SC and OBC and minorities along with the POOR belonging to general catstes do live in Poverty and starvation!

I visited many parts of North East India, separated from mainland and saw the map of Poverty spread everywhere. Bundelkhand in UP, Bidarbha in Maharashtra and many parts of rajasthan and MP live in Poverty lacking basic needs.

The refugees, not able to resettled have been DEHUMANISED as SLUMDOGS and they consist the main Maual Workforcs concentrated in SLUMS around the metros and Developed Urban areas.

I am fortunate to share their experiences also.

In West Bengal, the East Bengal dalit refugees are most Hated and DISCRIMINATED!

The MARXIST Strategy against the PROLETARIAT leaves no SPACE for SC, OBC, ST and Minority Communities to BREATHE freely unless we prove our HUMILITY, Surrender and SUBORDINATION as SUBHUMEN!

The number of chronically hungry people has surpassed the 1 billion mark for the first time as the economic crisis compounds the impact of high food prices, the United Nations’ top agriculture official has warned. In an interview with the Financial Times, Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned that the increasing numbers of undernourished people could trigger political instability in developing countries.

“The issue of world food security is an issue of peace and national security,” he said, urging world leaders who are discussing ways to resolve the economic crisis not to forget that last year more than 30 countries suffered food riots.

The Rome-based organisation estimated last year that about 960 million people were chronically hungry in 2008. Diouf said that had since risen and “unfortunately, we are already quoting a number of 1bn people on average for this year”. Before the food crisis started in 2007, there were less than 850 million chronically hungry people in the world, a level that has been roughly constant since the early 1990s owing to the global fight against poverty and countries such as China lifting their economic growth.

Diouf’s assessment signals that the food and economic crisis have reversed the past quarter-century’s slow but constant decline in the proportion of undernourished people as a percentage of the developing world’s population. The percentage fell from 20 percent in 1990-92 to a low of just below 16 percent in the 2003-05 period. But with 1 billion people chronically hungry now, the percentage has risen to almost 18 percent.

As a consequence, the FAO’s director-general proposed ditching the UN’s Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of the world’s undernourished by 2015 and replacing it with a target of “eradicating hunger by 2025”. He said to meet that aim, the world should learn from the mistakes of the 1990s, when investment in agriculture fell sharply, paving the way for the surge in food prices of the past two and a half years.

Diouf is pressing world leaders for a summit in Rome in November to tackle the roots of food insecurity, rather than to continue reacting to every crisis with ad hoc measures. “The food crisis is not over,” he said, warning that although international benchmark prices for major agricultural commodities such as wheat, corn, rice and soyabean had fallen from last year’s peak, they remained almost 30 per cent above the 2005 level. He added that domestic prices in developing countries had not tracked the drop in international prices as their crops had been disappointing.

Now, he said, “the financial crisis is worsening the situation by increasing unemployment, limiting the credit for trading [agricultural commodities] and lowering remittances, which in poor countries were used to purchase food”. “Combining all the elements we are in a very unstable situation,” he added.

At the proposed summit, Diouf said that world leaders should commit to investing in agriculture, particularly in the developing world, as the rise in the world’s population from today’s 6.5 billion people to 9 billion by 2050 will mean the world needs to double its current food output.

He added that leaders also should agree to revive the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security, elevating it to ministerial level to “allow policy decisions [to] be made”. Diouf said that several heads of state and governments already back its idea of a summit in November to tackle the food problem. Previous summits, however, have yielded few policy results.

Sadiq ahmed rightly writes:

The global financial crisis hit South Asia at a time when it was barely recovering from a severe terms of trade shock resulting from the global food and fuel price crisis.The food and fuel price shocks had badly affected South Asia, with cumulative income loss ranging from 34 percent of 2002 GDP for Maldives to 8 percent for Bangladesh. Current account and fiscal balances worsened sharply and inflation surged to unprecedented levels.

After my recent trip to South Asia and based on a review of internal debates and discussions in specific countries, I get a better sense of the effects of the global financial crisis on the region. Although my analysis suggests that every country has been affected, the magnitude and response between countries have differed. India has seen the greatest impact with economic indicators demonstrating significant decreases on many measures. Officials have responded swiftly and taken a number of steps to mitigate some of the worst consequences.

South Asia has the highest rates of malnutrition and the largest numbers of undernourished children in the world! Poverty is often the underlying cause of child malnutrition, and while South Asia has recently experienced impressive economic growth and reduced poverty, this has not translated into improved nutrition. The region fares worse than any other developing region including Sub-Saharan Africa (45% vs. 28%, respectively). There is an urgent need to tackle the severe malnutrition situation in South Asia.
http://endpovertyinsouthasia.worldbank.org/

A section of the DALIT intellectuals including ADITYA ROY, Dr Jagadish Haldar, Adhikar Editor Gauranga Biswas, and others have issued an appeal to all Political parties to HIGHLIGHT the demands of the DALITS.

It is a pity to note that our Ambedkarite Friends have not been DISILLUSIONED till this date.

The Marxist GOVT does not issue CASTE CERTIFICATE to our people demanding documents of land before 1952 with certificates from two family persons!

Then, it is worthless to BLAME NORTH INDIA for the INTRODUCTION of Citizenship Act!

I encounter so many Bengali Intellectuals and COMMON people who declare that NORTH Indian Psyche won`t allow a BENGALI Prime Minister!

What about the MARXIST HISTORICAL Blunder?

The North Indian leaders like comrade Harkishan Singh Surajeet Lalu Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Bilash Paswan and South Indian leaders tried their best to make Comrade Jyoti Basu the Prime Minister of India.

The Bengalies like Brand Buddha, Nirupam Sen, Biman Basu aligned with Prakash Karat and company pulled Basu back!

Our so called Bangla nationality sentiment works against Fact and history while we BLAME only Nehru and Gandhi for partition Holocaust and the PERSECUTION of Aboriginal Indigenous Minority Communities all over the Divided bleeding geopolitics!

The WEST Bengal segment of BENGAL assembly passed the partition Resolution by Majority while EAST BENGAL Rejected it!

It was the HATE SPEECHES of NC Chatterjee and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and RSS Pro activism under Hindu Mahasabha Umbrella injected CROMINE in Dying muslim League Politics countrywide and the League was INSTITUTED by the BENGALIES only!

Who betrayed PRAJA Krishak Party and IMMUNED FAZLUL Haq?

Who betrayed NETAJI Subhash Chandra Bose?

Basudev Burman is a dalit Intellectual we all know.

He had been the Vice chancellor of kalayani university and the Chairman of Tripura Education Commission. He headed the dalit Samanyay SAMITI until he was elected for Loksabha from reserved Mathurapur seat in South 24 Parganas on CPIM Ticket.

Dr Burman was the Head of the ONE MEMBER BURMAN commission on OBC quota implementation in West Bengal while He DENIED the VERY EXISTENCE of OBC Castes in West Bengal despite no less than FORTY TWO percent OBC population in West Bengal.

As a member of parliament, Dr Burman recorded HIGHEST ATTENDANCE but he never raised a question!

Dr Burman is not known to do anything for his constituency or Bengal in general.

Dr Burman was heading the SAHAMARMI movement in support of the Bengalies residing outside Bengal and demanding CITIZENSHIP , Reservation and the RIGHT to learn Mother tongue. But he kept MUM while his Party supported and VOTED ENACTING anti BENGALI CITIZENSHIP Amendment Act branding all Bengali dalit refugees as BANGLADESHI Illegal Immigrants.

I personally requested DR BURMAN to visit Refugee colonies in UP and Uttaranchal very near to New DELHI but he could not manage TIME during his five year Tenure in the Parliament.

NO CS, OBC or ST or MINORITY member of Parliament cared enough for the ABORIGINAL INDIGENOUS MINORITY communities and VOTED to pass scores of ANTI People acts!

Dr Burman is fielded in RANAGHAT reserve seat this time as other SC ST OBC candidates do beg vote of our people and we support them knowing the record and the past!

The DALIT intellectuals demanded JOB, Awards and Institutions on the name of DALIT ICONS.

I have been in THAKUR nagar where TWENTY FIVE lacs of SC crowd gather every year.

Since BANGAO is a new RESERVE Loksabha seat thanks to DELIMITATION, the MATUAS have become the DECIDING POWER and even the Mainstream MEDIA known for DALIT HATE spends much of the space on Matuas.

The Matuas have resisted CPIM and Left parties but do tend to SUPPORT Ms MAMTA BANNERJEE and her TMC.

Has MAMATA been ever VOCAl on these demands the dalit Intellectuals do present?

NEVER.

Neither the POWER or RESISTANCE Hegemony nor the MEDIA or the CIVIL SOCIETY ever cared for us.

Dr BIODHAN CHANDRA Roy finalised the EAST BENGAL REFUGEE Policy with Pdt Jawahar Lal Nehru denying them the STATUS of PARTITION VICTIM!

DOLE was allocated rejecting COMPENSATION.

CITIZENSHIP was never CONSIDERED.

The BENGALI BRAHAMINICAL Leadership decided to EXCOMMUNICATE and EXTURMINATE our people and SCATTERED them all over the country in Jungles and Tribal Regions resulting DEGENERATION and DEFACEMENT!

The DEMAND of Charter mentions the Manipulation in Reservation and quota as the reserved seats are often declared as GENERAL because SC ST OBC candidates are not available while our boys and girls in lacs roam in uncertainty having passed Service commission and NET exams.

They are mobilised in VOTE BANK adjustment process and the Marxist Gestapo by the SIGNATORY Intellectuals themselves.

Dr NITISH Biswas happens to be the GENERAL SECRETARY of so many forums to organise the ASPIRING OPORTUNIST People and all tha DALIT INTELLECTUALS throng around him!

Dr Nitish Biswas is not alone.

Lalan Academy and VIJOY SARKAR Memorial commitee have been HIJACKED by CPIM and Marxist ministers Subhash Chakrabarti and ANIL SARKASR manages all the set ups of this kind.

OBC intellectual, the famous MUSICIAN SHUBHENDU Maiti was the FACE projected by CPIM din defence of Nandigram!

Recently I have been in THAKUR NAGAR., the Matua centre.

The dalit intellectuals have demanded KUMBHA Mela status for BARUNI. While the OCCASION is to be seen as rare example of CHAOS and MISMANAGEMENT while FORWARD BLOCK MLA HARI PADA Biswas heads the advicery committee to Matua Mahasangha.

Matuas in lacs gather there with DANKA and disintegrate without any MOBILISATION.

The Matua Mahasangha is not known to follow any PRINCILE or ways of SOCIAL MOBILISATION, EMPOWERMENT and CREATIVE Social work. HARICHAN GURUCHAND Ideology is not discussed at all.

Although the Matua Mahasangha led the Anti CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT Movement, but pressurised by the Marxists they withdrew from the RESISTANCE and takes every care to be BRANDED as a RELIGIOUS OUTFIT!

What is this?

If God wishes, I'll intervene in Kandhamal: Sister Prema
Kolkata (IANS): Describing religious conversion as "God's work", new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) Sister Mary Prema on Friday said she would go to Orissa's Kandhamal - scene of communal violence - if she received divine inspiration.

The German born Prema, who was elected as MoC head Tuesday, hoped the order's founder Nobel laureate Mother Teresa will be canonised one day. She also expressed her desire to meet Pope Benedict XVI.

Replying to a query on the Kandhamal riots during her maiden media meet after taking over the top position, she said: "We forgive those who caused us suffering".

"If God inspires me, I'll definitely intervene," said Sister Prema, when asked whether she would go to Kandhamal.

Asked to spell out her views on religious conversion, she said: "Every human being has the right to believe. Each person is born with dignity. Religious conversion is God's work".

Sister Prema, who turns 56 in May, responded to a host of posers during the half-hour media interaction at the Missionaries of Charity global headquarters, the Mother House.

Expressing surprise at her election, the nun said she needed to know the community across India.

Sister Nirmala, who had led the congregation for 12 years since Mother Teresa stepped down in 1997, was re-elected for a third term March 13. But the MoC held a second election on Tuesday after she expressed a desire to be relieved of the post owing to ill-health.

"My election was a bit of a surprise to me. I had no plans, Mother led the society quite amazingly. Sister Nirmala followed her. Now, I have to follow Sister Nirmala."

"I'll work for the poor, the downtrodden. I will work to eradicate poverty," said sister Prema, who was born Mechtilde Pierick in Reken, Westfalia, Germany. Her parents are now dead, but she has an elder brother and a twin sister. "Both of them are married and have children." In her early life, Sister Prema taught in a school for the handicapped.

She first came to know about Mother Teresa by reading the book "Something Beautiful for God" by Malcolm Muggeridge.

"Inspired by the book, I met Mother in 1980 in a youth meeting in Berlin, and joined the MoC the same year in Essen, Germany."

Missionaries of Charity sources said she served the poorest of the poor in Italy and other European countries, and was a member of the general chapter in which Nirmala succeeded the Mother as Superior General.

Since 2001, sister Prema is living in Kolkata.

"Sister Nirmala will continue to guide us," she said to a question on her predecessor.

Sister Prema hoped that the Mother will be canonised one day. "The investigation of the Miracle is still on."

The MOC, founded by the Mother in 1950, now has 766 Mother Houses all over the world, of which 246 are in India. "We have 4,950 novices working all over the world, though their numbers have gone down in the last one year," said Prema.

She traced the reason to break-up of families and fewer children.

Sister Prema said the young generation has to be inspired to join the MoC. "Through our humble service and plain lifestyle we have to draw the young generation," she added.

She did not think the charisma of the Mother was missing. "It is still there."

TO GRAB POWER AT ALL COSTS
Malvika Singh
With Rajnath Singh supporting Feroze Varun Gandhi and, therefore, all his rather scary utterances, and stating that he will go and campaign for the young aspirant, the Bharatiya Janata Party has established its position vis-à-vis Indian Muslims, Sikhs and other non-Hindus. For a national party to silently endorse a possibly sinful oath is taking humanity back to the days of uncivilized politics when an eye for an eye and an ear for an ear was the war cry of revenge. To see a supposed national party stand by a bagful of false beliefs in the present age of information technology and globalization makes one shudder with fear and sadness. What a waste of energy in a country haunted by poverty and lawlessness, corruption and unjust politics that defy and fight against the essence of pluralism.

Will the majority of the Hindus tolerate and condone this rhetoric and the accompanying acts that contravene the laws of this land? Will they, the majority, join a political dispensation that holds such preposterous positions and unbending beliefs that will, most certainly, kill the soul of India? Often it is an unthinking, wild desperation that manifests itself in such acts and speeches, a personal desperation to grab power at all costs. An ascent to power propelled by rabid speeches of this kind is usually fraught with superficialities and results in an equally sudden downfall. The BJP appears to be ‘using’ Varun Gandhi, maybe because he is a Gandhi. Perhaps his party needs a representative of the ‘first family’ of Indian politics within its fragmented fold to assert its national appeal and to enable it to compete with the Congress. Otherwise, why should the party leadership go out of its way to endorse Varun Gandhi, thus alienating some of its critical allies?

Central pie

India remains a conservative, semi-feudal culture and it will take some more decades and a clear generational shift in politics and society for the democratization of her multi-faceted cultural traditions, her resilient, ancient philosophies and therefore, of the majority mindset, to take place. Respect for diversity, differences and debate will have to override the scheming, wheeling, dealing and more that we have been witness to over the last few decades. All through the last week we have had to hear non-stop repeats of the diatribe of Feroze Varun Gandhi, whom the press insists on calling by his middle name. Then, a few days days ago, that frightening image was juxtaposed with one of Rahul Gandhi, who was calm and collected, engaging with the press on issues that need correction and action. A different tenor, a different endeavour, a different goal. Forcing a polarization, the BJP and Varun Gandhi may well compel the country to make some hard choices. Some will win on the Hindu plank, others will fall by the wayside and Bharat will go through some severe contractions before the birth of a modern civil society. This may well be our trial by fire!

The government is virtually a ‘caretaker’ till the results are declared. If the Congress reaches the 150 mark, chances are that the opportunist bees will race to the hive with their numbers and there could be a radical change of partners in the course of the jig. If the Congress drops its count, the single largest vote-getter, Mayavati or Jayalalithaa or anyone else, will cobble together an ‘united’ collective with all others carrying their ‘numbers’ and jockeying to grab a bit of the Central pie. Real, constructive alliances have not been intrinsic to Indian coalitions. The selfish, divisive ‘alliances’ that have been plaguing India are over for now. The gross horse-trading will resume on the evening of May 16, when votes will be counted. The alliances that will survive till then are those that are mutually beneficial to the partners in the political play.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090327/jsp/opinion/story_10727186.jsp

Spotlight on multi-faith India
1 day ago

NEW DELHI (AFP) — A Muslim-baiting speech ahead of India's elections next month has opened the door to a divisive campaign exploiting the country's religious fault lines.

The black sheep of India's Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, would-be Hindu nationalist MP Varun Gandhi, has prompted a major scandal after TV footage showed him whipping up anti-Muslim hatred while hunting votes in a northern Hindu heartland.

His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would, he was taped telling a rally, "cut the head of Muslims" if it beats the incumbent Congress party in the polls that start next month.

Varun Gandhi is now in legal trouble and facing arrest -- as inciting violence is not taken lightly in a country susceptible to the occasional pogrom.

But the BJP is unrepentant, shrugging off calls from the Election Commission to drop him as a candidate.

Observers say debate on issues such as grinding poverty and other pressing social and economic matters is once again being sidelined as the campaign goes sectarian.

But the fact remains that communal issues are still seen as vote winners.

"The effect of religion on Indian politics is staggering, and denying its influence would be a blunder by any political party," said political analyst Pran Chopra.

"Sectarian politics has a great degree of appeal. It can never vanish from Indian politics."

The scandal surrounding Varun Gandhi, analysts say, underscores some unsavoury facts about modern India -- a country that takes pride in its "world's largest democracy" badge and that wants to make the 21st century its own.

They say that more than sixty years after the subcontinent was drowning in the blood of partition, sectarian rabble-rousers can still score points.

"Hate has been employed as an effective tool to polarise in almost every election," noted Suhel Seth, a well-known television commentator and newspaper columnist.

"The tragedy is that the Indian politician has not learnt how to inspire. He has only been taught how to foment hatred, which is no longer a virtue in these frail times fraught as they are with economic and social stress," he wrote in the Hindustan Times newspaper.

Indeed, according to the Midday tabloid, the BJP has a "new lucky mascot" and a "star campaigner" in the London-educated Varun Gandhi, the grandson of former premier Indira Gandhi.

This has left the rival parties arguing about the communal issues that India's founding fathers tried to put behind them in the wake of partition, with Congress labelling the BJP as a major threat to social cohesion.

"The BJP is out to divide people on the basis of communal lines," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this week when launching Congress's manifesto.

"This is the record of Mr. Advani," Singh said of BJP leader L.K. Advani. "We currently must reflect whether this is a person who is fit to hold office."

The BJP quickly retaliated, accusing Congress of cynically courting the important Muslim vote -- Islam is followed by 135 million to 140 million of India's 1.1 billion population -- and of being weak on terror.

Caught in the middle are India's Muslims, many of whom hold little faith in either of the two main parties.

"Political parties are linking recent terrorist attacks to communalism to feed prejudice," said Seema Mustafa, an Indian Muslim columnist.

"Muslims across India are arrested at random and have no one to protect them from injustice."

The BJP's own campaign manifesto is expected to reiterate the party's commitment to building a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque demolished in 1992 by Hindu zealots.

The demolition sparked Hindu-Muslim violence that claimed around 2,000 lives.

Declining poverty ups UPA's re-election chances: Study

27 Mar 2009, 1726 hrs IST, Shailesh Dobhal & M K Venu, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: India may have begun to experience a new era in electoral politics, where a large number of incumbents stand a good chance of getting
re-elected because of declining poverty levels, two sets of data indicate.

While poverty has declined in 380 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies in the past five years, an analysis by the Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) shows that anti-incumbency, the trend for the electorate to vote out the incumbent representative, has declined significantly between 2004 and 2008.

Some of this may have been reflected in the recent assembly polls in five states, where three incumbent governments retained power. Over two-thirds of sitting MPs lost their seats in the 2004 polls. But they could be more hopeful this time around. If reduction of poverty in 380 constituencies is taken as a proxy for a possible pro-incumbency, then Congress and its present allies seem positioned well.

Of the 380 seats where poverty levels have fallen, Congress has 84, RJD 17, NCP 6, SP 16, BJP 65 and the Left Front 31 while BSP has 10. This is what emerges from the ET-Indicus Analytics Election Special analysis of constituency-level data on over two dozen demographic, social and economic development indicators.

A recent study published in the Economic and Political Weekly found a declining trend in anti-incumbency . The study shows that while 77% of all incumbent state governments were voted out of power in the decade ended 1998, this proportion dropped sharply to just 46% last year.

It is also seen that state election results mirror that of the Lok Sabha in a large number of cases, especially when the two are held within a year of each other. Although a direct correlation between one single measure of development and electoral performance runs the risk of being too simplistic, it’s a safe conclusion that a decline in poverty is a factor that favours re-election.

However, anti-incumbency could work in constituencies where poverty levels have remained static or increased between 2004 and 2008. In the last five years, poverty has remained static in 51 constituencies, and increased in 112 constituencies. Poverty is defined by the government in terms of food intake: people who cannot consume 2,400 calories of energy a day in rural areas or 2,100 calories in urban areas are deemed poor, or below the poverty line (BPL).

The proportion of BPL population fell to 26% from 28% at the national level between 2004 and 2008. During the same period, poverty decreased across all states barring Uttarakhand, which last year took on the dubious mantle of a state with the highest proportion of BPL population at 47% compared with 43% in 2004.

Until 2004, Orissa used to be the state with highest BPL ratio (46%), which has come down to 45% in 2008. Mizoram continues to have least proportion of BPL population at just 1%. Assam saw a 4% drop—the biggest—in BPL population, with all 14 constituencies in the state reporting decreased BPL numbers. This should be good news for Congress, which runs the government in that state.

Primary data from the National Sample Survey Organisation’s 50th, 55th and 61st rounds was taken to arrive at the constituency-wise BPL population projections in 2004 and 2008.

The top 10 constituencies with the largest drop in proportion of BPL population are in the north and eastern states, with as many as six from Uttar Pradesh. Orissa’s Aska constituency saw the biggest 10% drop in BPL population, although the number remains at a high 43%, but below the 46% average number for the state. The Biju Janata Dal sacked and disqualified the MP from Aska, Harihar Swain, for violating the party whip and voting for the Manmohan Singh government in the vote of confidence.

Other constituencies in the top 10 include Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Sitapur, Jalaun, Akbarpur and Kanpur, all in UP, Orissa’s Berhampur and West Bengal’s Darjeeling. Bihar’s Arrah constituency with a population of 2.5-million gets the dubious distinction of the largest increase in proportion of BPL population, up 8% between 2004 and 2008. This should be bad news for the sitting MP, RJD’s Kanti Singh.

But that needn’t be so. Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s constituency Rae Bareli also saw poverty levels rise, and was one of three constituencies in UP to figure in the list of the worst 10 performers on the BPL score. Want to bet against her re-election?
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Declining-poverty-ups-UPAs-re-election-chances-Study/articleshow/4324309.cms