Utsa Patnaik has exposed the spurious methods of the >Planning Commission in counting the poor (July 30). The Commission fools us by showing a steady decline in poverty not by really eradicating it, but by lowering the measuring standard. Does planning mean some acrobatics done to whitewash the ugly realities? Is there nobody in the Commission with a down to earth knowledge about India and the dismal condition of its poor?
C.V. Sukumaran,
Palakkad
With successive governments failing to eradicate or reduce poverty, those at the helm have found a crude method and shortcut to paint a rosy picture. However, people of the country are not fools to swallow such irrational claims of poverty reduction. Such blatant misrepresentation of facts and figures will only discredit the government and the Planning Commission.
E.M. Adithyan,
Edapal
