A decisive blow against poverty was struck when India's new Finance Minister Chidambaram tabled the 2004/2005 budget. India is a country on the move, with rapid economic development and dazzling dynamism in the information technology sector. Yet it is also home to 300 million of the world's poorest people. In last May's national elections, India's rural voters unseated the ruling coalition. The lesson was clear: attend to rural poverty. The new government has listened, putting forward a program that is dazzling in its implications, for India and the developing world.
A decisive blow against poverty was struck when India's new Finance Minister Chidambaram tabled the 2004/2005 budget. India is a country on the move, with rapid economic development and dazzling dynamism in the information technology sector. Yet it is also home to 300 million of the world's poorest people. In last May's national elections, India's rural voters unseated the ruling coalition. The lesson was clear: attend to rural poverty. The new government has listened, putting forward a program that is dazzling in its implications, for India and the developing world.