development

Bengaluru, India — India lifted nearly 500 million out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, with extreme poverty dropping from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent in the world’s most populous nation during the same period, according to a new report by the World Bank.

The only other parallel in poverty reduction on this scale is China, which lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty — though that was over a period of 40 years.

Yet despite the substantial fall in poverty in India — home to 1.4 billion people — the income and wealth inequality gap has widened significantly since it opened up its economy in the early 1990s.

According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, inequality in India remains among the highest in the world.

We take a look at how India managed to almost eradicate extreme poverty, and at the contrast between that accomplishment and the deep economic inequality that remains in the world’s most populous nation:

What does the World Bank data say?

Based on an extreme poverty threshold of $3 a day, the World Bank said extreme poverty in India declined from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent between 2011 and 2023.

Extreme poverty is defined as the minimum amount of money needed to afford basic essentials such as food, water, shelter and clothing.

Estimating poverty metrics based on three official household surveys, the Bank also said that an estimated 496 million people have been lifted out of poverty as the share of India’s population living below the lower middle-income poverty threshold of $4.20 a day fell from 57.7 percent to 16.1 percent.

The authors of the report, led by World Bank’s South Asia poverty economist Ayago Wambile, wrote that poverty in India is “projected to continue declining, albeit more gradually with the poverty rate at the $4.20/day line expected to fall from 14.2 percent in 2026 to 12.1 percent by 2028.”

“This progress was mainly driven by strong consumption growth, rising employment, especially among women, and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies,” they added.

How significant is India’s poverty reduction?

India lifting nearly 500 million out of poverty in 12 years has been lauded as “remarkable progress” by the World Bank. It added that the downward trend represents “one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.”

To determine India’s poverty rates, the World Bank used Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) which were conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), an Indian government body.

A 2022 report, jointly produced by the World Bank and the Chinese Finance Ministry, said that China had lifted 800 million people out of poverty, but it took 40 years to achieve.

Last month, the World Bank also raised its economic growth forecast for India to 7.1 percent.

In a post on Instagram on Sunday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the country’s progress in tackling poverty. “A historic fall in poverty. A generational rise in opportunity,” he said.

Last November, the southern state of Kerala, which has been ruled either by the centrist Congress party or a coalition of communist parties since independence, became the first in the country to officially declare itself free from extreme poverty. Kerala has the best education and health statistics of major Indian states.

Santosh Mehrotra, a development economist formerly in India’s planning commission, and currently a visiting professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, noted that India is the only low-middle-income country among G20 nations, which are otherwise upper-middle- or high-income nations.

“The absolute number of the poor in our country is still the highest in the world for sheer size of population. So therefore, if we are going to genuinely reduce the incidence of poverty and more importantly, the absolute number of the poor, then it makes a huge difference globally,” he told Al Jazeera.

Coming from the World Bank, the credibility of the analysis that has concluded India’s success in reducing poverty so majorly is also above question, said Surjit Bhalla, economist an a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund. Any data that comes from the World Bank, he said, is the “gold standard”.

He said the institution carries out a poverty analysis for every country using a per capita consumption level that is normalised globally by invoking purchasing power parity.

How did India dramatically cut poverty?

There are no easy answers.

But economists point to a series of factors and programmes that might have contributed to India’s success in pulling record numbers of people out of poverty.

Overall, poverty in India has, however, been declining since the country opened its economy in the early 1990s, when the Congress party was in power, setting the stage for more than three decades of fast economic growth. Successive governments have launched, continued or reworked a series of social welfare schemes that economists say have helped combat poverty.

Prime Minister Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh, for example, launched an employment scheme that guaranteed rural jobs for a minimum of 100 days per year.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has launched several other welfare schemes, including direct cash transfers, free rations and housing, to tackle poverty. While the Modi government has significantly diluted the rural job guarantee scheme that Singh had launched, the current administration now provides free food grains to about 800 million Indians.

Under Modi, the government has also significantly expanded the construction of toilets, especially in rural India, where open defecation has historically been common in many villages. Access to piped drinking water has risen from 17 percent of rural homes in August 2019 to more than 80 percent, according to government statistics.

“The reduced sickness from accessing safe water may have helped families earn more income,” economists Surjit Bhalla and Karan Bhasin wrote in a research paper on India’s poverty alleviation efforts for the Brookings Institution in March 2024.

Before the latest World Bank report, Bhalla — a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — and Bhasin had used Indian consumption data in early 2025 to also conclude that the country was making major gains in ending extreme poverty.

Why some economists are concerned

Despite the decline in poverty, Bhalla and Bhasin pointed in their 2025 paper that free food grains supplied by the Indian government to 800 million people only fulfilled their calorific needs. “More balanced food subsidies that are better targeted to the genuine poor will improve nutritional outcomes and would represent a better approach to food insecurity,” they wrote.

It is also unclear whether continuing to provide free food supplies indefinitely to more than half of the country’s population is sustainable for the government — and whether that programme points to deep economic distress mitigated only by state assistance.

Some economists, like Mehrotra, question why the Indian government no longer determines its own poverty level and its own estimates of the numbers of those below it.

Mehrotra said that since 2014 — when Modi came to power — the Indian government has stopped calculating its own poverty levels, instead relying entirely on World Bank estimates.

“We are a strange country in having adopted an international organisation’s poverty line as our own,” he said.

For a country as large, diverse and complex as India, he argued, a standard set by an international agency alone is not enough to capture shifting economic and consumer patterns. “For example, 10 years back everyone didn’t have phones; today even in rural areas people do. So consumption baskets [used to determine price indices and poverty levels] change over time and hence India should have done its own poverty line,” Mehrotra said.

But Bhalla pushed back against criticism of India’s use of World Bank data.

“The methodology that the World Bank uses and the estimates it comes up with are vetted by every country before the final data is published,” he told Al Jazeera. “So in this case India’s poverty analysis has been gone through by Indian scholars and the government of India. So there is no ideological basis for questioning this data.”

Jayati Ghosh, an economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, however said that India’s healthcare and nutrition indices also remained major causes for concern. The country spends just over 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public healthcare, ranking far behind global peers in per capita health investment and leaving public hospitals chronically underfunded and overburdened. Citizens also end up bearing the brunt of total health expenditures, a financial burden that pushes millions of Indians into poverty or debt every year.

Ghosh pointed out that real wages have stagnated in India. According to the World Bank report, while poverty has declined in India, wage disparities remain. “Median earnings among the top 10 percent of workers were about 13 times those of the bottom 10 percent in 2023,” the report said.

“These are not signs of a dynamic economy with falling poverty,” Ghosh said.

Nitin Kumar Bharti, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, said that the World Bank’s report is encouraging. But he added that the drop in extreme poverty should not be seen as a mission accomplished, as “233 million people still live below” the $4.20 per day poverty line.

Bharti, who co-authored a study by the World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India’s income and wealth disparities published in 2024, also pointed to uneven growth within the country as a major challenge.

“Even if extreme poverty has declined, the extent of improvement in people’s overall wellbeing remains an important question,” he said.

Why is income inequality growing in India?

Bharti said that inequality is growing because gains from economic growth are distributed unevenly, with those at the top capturing a growing share of national income.

According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, India is among the world’s most unequal countries, with the top 10 percent of earners capturing about 58 percent of national income, while the bottom 50 percent receives only 15 percent.

“This is reinforced by longstanding structural inequalities — the historical caste system, unequal ownership of assets, and decades of inadequate attention to primary education have limited opportunities for disadvantaged groups,” he said.

“Insufficient public investment in quality education and healthcare — both important equalisers — means that family resources continue to shape access to skills, good jobs and economic security.”

Growing income inequality and a lack of job opportunities have triggered discontent among India’s youth, who have staged a series of nationwide protests in recent months.

According to government data released earlier this year, youth unemployment in the country stood at 13.8 percent in April 2025 and rose to 15.2 percent in March 2026.

The State of Working India 2026 report, from the Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University, noted that nearly 40 percent of young graduates aged 15–25 and roughly 20 percent of those aged 25–29 are unemployed. Among those who have a diploma or postgraduate degrees, the unemployment rate has climbed to 29.4 percent.

Does inequality matter if poverty is falling?

Yes, say economists.

“One reason is that the distribution of growth influences how effectively growth improves ordinary households’ lives. For a given level of average income, a more equal distribution generally leaves fewer people below a poverty line,” Bharti said.

“A second concern is inequality of opportunity. With rising inequality, families differ enormously in their ability to pay for education, healthcare, housing, capital to start a business or searching for a better job,” he added.

“A third concern is the concentration of economic and political influence. Large concentrations of wealth can create opportunities for a small group to shape policies and institutions in their favour.”

How can India tackle poverty and income inequality at the same time?

Dipa Sinha, a development economist at Azim Premji University, said that in order to tackle poverty and widespread inequality, India would need to prioritise some redistribution of wealth.

“India talks about poverty eradication only. But government policies need to implement a more progressive taxation policy that actually tackles inequality head-on,” she said.

“The second thing I think is very important is that the government should begin investing in universal public services like health and education. This can reduce both poverty and inequality,” she added.

Bharti said that one strong lesson for India is that sustained poverty reduction requires several policies working together.

He said China offers important lessons in economic transformation and rural income growth, pointing to its success in improving agricultural productivity, accelerating industrialisation, facilitating rural-to-urban migration, and investing heavily in both physical and human capital.

“In contrast, India’s current policy focus is more heavily tilted towards physical infrastructure, often addressing the needs of the top 10 percent rather than the bottom 90 percent,” Bharti said.

“Roads, transport, and basic infrastructure matter because they connect people to economic opportunities. But equally important are good government schools and hospitals that enable people to benefit from these opportunities.”

Bharti suggested that India’s government should pursue poverty reduction and broader economic inclusion together.

“Progressive taxation can help finance these investments while ensuring that the costs are distributed according to the ability to pay,” he added.

Mark Walter isn’t selling the Dodgers, right?

He is selling the Lakers. He is selling his share of Chelsea, the Premier League team. He is looking into selling the Sparks.

And now he is looking into selling his share of the Cadillac Formula One racing team, as Sportico first reported Monday.

But keeping the Dodgers, right? “No matter what,” Walter told the California Post last week.

Wait a second, though. In August, Walter’s TWG Global holding company issued a statement that was definitive in two specific aspects: the Dodgers were “not being sold” and his company was “not considering exiting its stake in the Cadillac Formula 1 team.”

So I reached out to Walter’s company and to his personal spokesman, asking how to reconcile the definitive statement denying interest in a Formula One sale with the news of a possible sale and, in light of that development, whether the denials of interest in a Dodgers sale should remain credible.

No one at the company emailed me back, and the spokesman declined to comment. Someone in contact with Walter, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment, advised me to wait and see if a Formula One deal actually materializes and, if so, for what value.

Amid federal investigations into whether the insurance companies Walter controls might have violated laws designed to protect investors, and as he is a defendant in multiple civil lawsuits filed by investors that allege fraud and breach of contract, Walter is selling off assets from his sports empire.

He could generate a significant share of the more than $20 billion he might need to recapitalize the insurance companies and satisfy state regulators. It is uncertain how that might influence the federal investigations and civil lawsuits.

The Lakers sold for $12.5 billion — the valuation for the entire team, not for Walter’s controlling share.

Walter is seeking $3 billion for his interest in the Formula One team, according to Sportico, and $700 million for the Sparks, according to Bloomberg. The sale of the Chelsea stake, owned jointly by Walter and Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly, generated about $1.27 billion, according to the Financial Times.

The sale of the Dodgers could generate $10 billion to $13 billion, The Times has reported.

None of this is to say Walter is not genuine in his proclamation that he is not selling the Dodgers. He said the Dodgers would win, and they have: three championships within six years, after three in the previous 56. The shine has been restored to an L.A. crown jewel.

But things can change. Potential Dodgers bidders, including Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, are considering offers should Walter decide to sell. Some have inquired discreetly and been told what everyone has been told: the team is not for sale. Commissioner Rob Manfred said the league is keeping an eye on developments surrounding Walter’s insurance empire.

“As always when we have an investigation — external, law enforcement, whatever — we monitor that,” Manfred said at the World Series. “That’s where we are right now. We’re just watching what’s going on right now.”

And that is indeed where we are right now: We don’t know what’s going to happen with the feds, and in the courts. For today, and for the immediate future, the Dodgers are not for sale. But plans can change, as Walter’s Formula One team just learned.

Buried in the language of Proposition 45, the initiative that would overhaul California’s powerful law on environmental review, are provisions that would mean government agencies have to consult only with certain tribes in the state, and not others when they develop major projects.

Tribes that are federally recognized would be consulted; those without recognition would not.

This effort mirrors similar ones supported by tribes that have federal recognition to limit the say of tribes without it in recent years. Non-recognized tribes see it as another move by economically powerful tribes to protect their own interests and avoid having to negotiate with other local tribes over territorial disputes and how to best protect important sites.

“Our concern is that wealthy casino interests and political influence are being allowed to outweigh ancestral connections,” Andrew Salas, chairperson of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians — Kizh Nation, said in a statement to The Times.

Proposition 45 on the Nov. 3 California ballot would create a streamlined environmental review process for projects deemed “essential” — including most housing, transportation, water, health, wildfire mitigation, education, internet access and clean energy projects. The streamlining would mean stricter deadlines for review and court challenges, would bar local governments from requesting repeated analyses and allow developers to propose a single alternative with less environmental impact rather than several.

One of the largest contributors to the Yes on Prop 45 committee is a federally recognized tribe, the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, which contributed $750,000.

“Federal recognition is the legal and constitutional foundation of tribal sovereignty and establishes a government-to-government framework for consultation,” Amelia Matier, spokesperson for Yes on Prop 45, said, noting tribes without recognition still can still meaningfully participate alongside members of the public.

The Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation reaffirmed its support for the measure in a statement to The Times but did not respond to specific questions.

Critics, meanwhile, say moves such as this would give federally recognized tribes the power to consult on development projects hundreds of miles outside their homelands, overriding local tribes.

“Proposition 45 is part of a much longer struggle over whose voices California chooses to hear,” Salas said. “For decades, non-federally recognized ancestral tribes in Southern California have fought to protect our homelands while facing pressure to accept a ‘lesser role’ than federally recognized tribes.”

“Our rivers, habitats, and the animals that depend on them lose their protection when the people who know these places are removed from the table,” he said.

None of the Gabrieleno and Tataviam tribes within the greater L.A. area have federal recognition.

Last year, three tribes with federal recognition championed a bill that would have significantly limited how tribes without it could participate in the consultation process for all projects — not just the ones deemed “essential” ones under Proposition 45. A few months later, the small state agency that maintains the official list of tribal contacts unveiled a proposal that some non-recognized tribes argued would effectively exclude them. Multiple federally recognized tribes supported the effort.

The environmental review process under the California Environmental Quality Act, better known as CEQA, is one of the primary ways that tribes have a say over how the state and local governments develop land within their ancestral territories. It allows tribes to comment on how a proposed housing or infrastructure project might harm graves, ceremonial grounds or ancient villages. A separate law lets tribes comment on general plans that outline where developers can propose housing, and commercial and industrial facilities.

Tribal consultation differs from general public comment. It allows Indigenous leaders to discuss the location and details of sensitive information — such as burial sites — confidentially, before draft environmental reviews are published.

The Kizh Nation has used the CEQA process to consult on hundreds of land development projects a year around the Los Angeles Basin. In one instance, the process generated extra protections for one of the oldest living plants in the world, a more-than 13,000 year-old oak tree in the Inland Empire, that Indigenous people have taken care of for millennia. It also resulted in the Kizh Nation winning one of the largest land returns in Southern California history for a tribe without federal recognition — while still creating a development of nearly 1,700 homes and industrial and business parks.

There are over 100 tribes in the state with federal recognition, a status that brings protections, funds and services from the federal government, including funding for Indigenous elementary and secondary schools, access to healthcare and the potential for a reservation. Yet dozens more remain unrecognized.

Federal agents negotiated treaties in the 1850s with more than 130 Indigenous communities in the new state of California, setting aside roughly 7% of the state for reservations. But Congress refused to ratify the very treaties it had ordered and failed to notify tribes of its decision.

The federal recognition process today is long and grueling. Only 18 tribes have successfully achieved recognition through it since it was created in 1978. Only one was in California — Death Valley’s Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.

Tribes along the coast who were coerced into building the missions, including the Gabrielino, have had an especially hard time gaining recognition. They endured three waves of settlers: the Spanish, Mexican, and American. With these came death, forced displacement and cultural suppression. When the federal government sent agents to create reservations for California’s mission-affected tribes in the 1890s following reports of dire circumstance, the agents inexplicably overlooked the Gabrieleno.

At least one-third of tribal cultural resources protected under CEQA are in the homelands of tribes without federal recognition, Jonathan Cordero, executive director of the Assn. of Ramaytush Ohlone, estimates.

If Proposition 45 passes, “that means that hundreds of sacred sites and thousands of invaluable and irreplaceable tribal cultural resources would be destroyed in subsequent years,” he said in a statement.

The decision has drawn sharp criticism from left-wing politicians and environmentalists.

The United Kingdom’s government has approved a natural gas project off the coast of Scotland, as the Labour government seeks to balance its climate goals with energy security concerns.

Energy Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said on Wednesday that the Jackdaw gasfield would begin supplying energy to UK homes by the end of the month and would help to boost the country’s energy security.

The government said the North Sea project would increase UK gas production by about 6 percent at its peak.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the decision will “protect hundreds of jobs and help keep millions of homes warm”, but stressed it would not hinder the government’s targets on renewable energy.

The government also announced a New Energy Wealth Fund, which will invest in renewable and low-carbon energy projects as part of the green transition.

The fund has been established with an initial 2 billion pounds ($2.7bn), with plans to raise additional funds through tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas.

Higher energy prices amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the United States-Israel war on Iran have weighed on households and businesses, dragging on Britain’s economy.

Fahnbulleh told UK radio station LBC that the development of Jackdaw would not bring down household energy bills.

“I think it’s really important that we’re honest about this,” Fahnbulleh said.

“That was not a consideration in the decision because it won’t mean cheaper bills. This was about energy security.”

The announcement has drawn criticism from left-wing politicians and environmental groups.

Zack Polanski, the leader of the opposition Green Party, described the decision as “climate vandalism”.

“Surreal to hear [the] energy secretary try and say this is a ‘pragmatic decision’,” Polanski wrote in a post on X.

“It will do nothing to lower bills. It will do lots for the profits of the oil and gas companies. And will continue us further down the path of floods and wildfires.”

Environmental group Greenpeace said the decision showed “the toxic grip fossil fuel lobbyists still hold over our energy policy”.

“True pragmatism means severing our reliance on expensive oil and gas that leaves British households broke, supercharges extreme weather, and leaves our energy security at the mercy of petrostates,” said Ami McCarthy, head of politics at Greenpeace UK.