“That condition in which a person either because of inadequate income or unwise expenditures, does not maintain a scale of living high enough to provide for his physical and mental efficiency and to enable him and his natural dependents to function according to the standards of society of which he is a member” John L.Gillian
“Poverty is the insufficient supply of those things which are requisite for an individual to maintain himself and those dependent upon him in health and vigor” J.G. Goddard
“Man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to afford to enjoy the necessaries, the conveniences and the amusements of life”- Adam Smith[1]
ABSTRACT
Rich and Poor have always existed in society but historically the existence of poverty did not constitute an important social problem until exchange system and a scale of values came into existence. When trade expands some people began to amass wealth leading to its uneven distribution. They started living a luxurious life depriving others of comforts. The members of society began to compare the differences in economic status and look upon themselves as either poor or rich in accordance with the prevailing living standards. So poverty is considered a problem only when obvious differences in economic status and look upon themselves as either poor or rich in accordance with the prevailing living standards. So poverty is considered a problem only when obvious differences in economic status among members of a society are established and comparisons and evaluations of those differences are made.
India is a country where poverty is rampant. People from villages and smaller owns migrate towards metropolitan cities in search of better employment opportunities, better living, better lifestyle and so on. But they face lot of discrimination in these big cities and hence inequality of lifestyle, resources resulting in poverty. We shall be studying about poverty in detail about what really is meant by poverty and what is the basic concept behind the idea of poverty.
INTRODUCTION
The word poverty is a state of not having enough material possessions or income for a person’s basic needs. Poverty may include social, economic and political elements. Absolute poverty means a person is completely devoid of all the basic necessities of the life such as food, clothing, shelter, potable water resources etc. Relative poverty is just a different concept from absolute poverty where an individual cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place.
The concept of poverty differs from place to place and from time to time. Different philosophers have given different theories related to the concept of poverty. Poverty is the biggest sin in the society and hence it should be removed as early as possible by the governments of various countries because it deprives an individual of his basic rights, freedom to live according to his own will, the self-identity of the person is lost, he is humiliated b everyone in the society, he is devoid of all the luxuries in his life, he cannot buy the products which he actually deserves to buy and many other problems. Unfortunately the problems related to poverty and discrimination of people on the basis of income and resources are much more rampant and applicable in developing countries rather than the developed countries.
Countries such as Sudan, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, South-East Asia, Latin American Countries, Sub-Saharan Region etc. The Government has brought many welfare schemes and improvement measures in order to find solutions to control the rate of poverty in their country, but unfortunately either the execution of these policies were extremely poor or there was rampant corruption in these countries where the amount of resources and the money came into their pockets and hence there are inequalities of income in the society. People who mostly spend their lives in poverty loses their ray of hope of living a proper life and believe that poverty were written in their destiny and hence they submit their lives under miserable conditions and extreme poverty which results in their discrimination and unequal share of resources which they actually deserve in the society.[2]
[2] Puja Mehra (2 April 2016) 8% GDP growth helped reduce poverty: UN report” The Hindu. Retrieved 16 August 2017
T. Roy, London School of Economics, Globalization, Factor Prices and Poverty in Colonial India, Australian Economic History Review, Volume 47 No 1 pp 73-94 (March 2007)
Maddison, Angus (1970) The Historical Origins of Indian Poverty” PSL Quarterly Review, 23(92) pp. 31-81
Murton, Brian (2000) “VI.4 Famine” The Cambridge World History of Food 2, Cambridge, New York pp. 1411-27
A Sen (1983) Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0198284635
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