The Great Indian Tamasha

Introduction to urban poverty in India Poverty in India has been the focus of many debates and policies for decades. Most of this focus has been on rural poverty issues, but urban poverty being as prevalent as it is today, seeks equal attention. Contrary to popular concepts of a predominantly rural India, an increasingly larger percentage of Indian population lives in the Urban areas. Today, India's urban population is second largest in the world after China, and is higher than the total urban population of all countries put together barring China, USA and Russia. Over the last fifty years, while the country’s population has grown by 2.5 times, in the urban areas it has grown by five times. In 1901, only 25 million people constituting 10.8 per cent of population lived in urban areas in India. In the 100 years since then, the urban population has grown 12 times and it is now around 285 million people constituting 28 per cent of the total population. The provision of infr...