In most of the cases only boys are attending schools. But about 40% girls are made to sit at home.

There is only one earning members in the family and usually father earns for the entire family. The family size is big with average 4-5 chidren per family.

No, the dynamics of poverty reduction the same in rural and urban India.
1. Urban area poverty has decreased at a much higher rate due to improved infrastructure facilities and industrialization.
2. Also, urban area poverty decreased even after a huge number of population migrated from rural areas for better earning opportunities.

The results of these programmes have been mixed.
(i) One of the major reasons for less effectiveness is the lack of proper implementation and right targeting.
(ii) Moreover, there has been a lot of overlapping of schemes.
(iii) Despite good intentions, the benefits of these schemes are not fully reaching to the deserving poor.
Therefore, the major emphasis in recent years is on proper monitoring of all the poverty alleviation programmes.

Global poverty scenario is as below.
1. The proportion of people in developing countries living in extreme economic poverty- defined by the World Bank as living on less than $ 1.25 per day- has fallen from 43 per cent in 1990 to 22 per cent in 2008.
2. Number of poor in China has come down from 85 per cent in 1981 to 14 per cent in 2008 and to 6 per cent in 2011.
3. In the countries of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan) the decline has not been as repid .Despite decline in the percentage of the poor, the number of poor has declined marginally from 61 per cent in 1981 to 36 per cent in 2008.
4.In sub-Saharan Africa, poverty in fact rose from 51 per cent in 1981 to 47 per cent in 2008
5.In Latin America, the ratio of poverty remained the same. It has declined from 11% in 1981 to 6.4 per cent in 2008

The proportion of poor people is not the same in every state of India.
1. Although state level poverty has witnessed a secular decline from the levels of early seventies, the success rate of reducing poverty varies from state to state.
2. Recent estimates show while the all India HCR was 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 states like Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pardesh, Bihar and Odisha were above all India poverty level.
3. Bihar and Odisha continue to be the two poorest states with poverty ratio of 33.7 and 32.6 percent respectively as per datas of 2013-14. Along with rural poverty, urban poverty is also high in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

One of the biggest challenges of independent India has been to bring millions of its people out of abject poverty. Mahatma Gandhi always insisted that India would be truly independent only when the poorest of its people become free of human suffering.

The first example of a poor family whom I have come acrossed is of Joginder Kumar. Joginder hails from Churu Distt. in Rajasthan. He has a small piece of agriculture land there but it was not enough for him to support his family. He is also not very educated so he has shifted to Jaipur. Here he sell toys which he makes himself. But the income from selling the toys is nor enough; so his wife works as a maid in few house to support her husband. They have one son who is ten years old and two daughters aged five and three years respectively. His son goes to the school in the morning and works in the garage in the evenings to support his studies.
The second examples is of Ram Ratan. Though he is employed with a private firm but he is unable to support his big family of eight persons including his parents in his meager income. So he works part time as an accountant to raise his income. His wife also helps him to raise the family income by taking tuition classes.

The following are the economic groups which are vulnerable to poverty in India as per the data of 2011-12:
(i) scheduled tribes-45.3%
(ii) urban casual labourers-32.9%
(iii) rural agricultural labourers-39.8%
(iv) scheduled castes-31.5%
Other social groups which are vulnerable to poverty are widows, orphans, physically handicapped, old people etc. Overall average Indian poverty ratio was 21.9% in 2011-12 as per the Economic Survey of India 2013-14.

1. The percentage of people living under poverty declined in the earlier two decades (1973-1993). The number of poor declined from 407.1 million in 2004-05 to 269.3 million in 2011-12 with an average annual decline of 2.2 percentage points during 2004-05 to 2011-12.
2. There is substantial decline in poverty ratios in India from 44.3 per cent in1993-94 to 37.2 percent in 2004-05.
3. The proportion of people below poverty line further came down to about 21.9 per cent in 2011-12.
4. If the trend continues, number of person below poverty line may come down to less than 20 per cent in the next few years.