Understand the data behind the jargon.
Short explainers that untangle a number, a claim, or a method, so the progress underneath is easier to see.
November 2026
Two numbers about poverty in India get quoted a lot, and they seem to contradict each other. The World Bank says 496 million people moved out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, while NITI Aayog says about 25 crore people escaped multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23. They do not add up by subtraction, because they measure different things over overlapping windows. This piece explains what each number actually counts, why the two sources agree more than they appear to, and why there is no published number for the Modi tenure alone.
November 2026
For years, every discussion of Indian logistics began with the same figure: logistics cost 13 to 14 percent of GDP, far above the 8 percent seen in developed economies. In September 2025, a study by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) put the figure at 7.97 percent of GDP for 2023-24. Both numbers are quoted, and they seem to contradict each other. They do not, because they were never measuring the same thing.
November 2026
The World Bank’s headline for India is that extreme poverty fell from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent. The line behind that headline is $3 a day. It is one of the most quoted numbers in the world, and one of the least understood. Here is what $3 a day actually means, what it buys, and why the line moved from $2.15 to $3.
November 2026
NITI Aayog’s headline is that 24.82 crore people escaped multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23. The index behind that headline does not look at income at all. It looks at twelve things a household may or may not have, from nutrition to a bank account. Here is how it is built, and why a bank account counts.
November 2026
India has not published an official poverty line since 2014. The last official poverty estimates are for 2011-12. Every poverty number quoted since then comes from the World Bank, from NITI Aayog’s Multidimensional Poverty Index, or from researchers applying old methods to new data. Here is how that happened, and what it means for every number since.
November 2026
India is a $4 trillion economy, one of the largest in the world. It is also a country where the average person produces about $2,800 a year, which puts it around 140th in the world. Both numbers are true. They measure different things, and the gap between them is the story.
November 2026
The policies tracker follows 24 national schemes. Each entry has what the government promised, with dates, and what has happened since. Here is how to read it: what the status pills mean, why we say “In progress” instead of “missed”, and where every number comes from.
November 2026
The Reports Tracker reads 21 global rankings closely, checks each one against its own method, and gives it a Credibility Score. Here is how to read it: what each report page shows, what the score means, and what it does not mean.
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