Dr. Aparajita Bakshi, Assistant Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai took a class for the staff of the Foundation on “Poverty, Inequality, and Development” on September 15, 2016, at the office of the Foundation.

In the first part of the lecture, Dr Bakshi discussed the concepts of absolute poverty, relative poverty, and chronic poverty. This was followed by a detailed and critical discussion on different ways in which poverty has been measured in India and internationally. She pointed out that the estimation of poverty in India is based on consumption expenditure and emphasised the inherent tendency of this method to underestimate poverty.

The next section of the lecture focused on the concept of inequality, specifically income inequality. Dr Bakshi discussed different measures of inequality in some detail and critically evaluated each of them. The session concluded with a group discussion.