NITI Aayog’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has shown the real picture through its recent data. As many as 37.79% poor live in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. It inadvertently means that the very talk of development is merely an assertion and not as informed. The State requires enough improvement in a total of 12 pointers, namely: nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, antenatal care, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets and bank accounts.
Our country’s MPI has three equally weighted dimensions — health, education and standard of living. India’s National MPI measure uses the globally accepted and robust methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Programme. Grandly, as a measure of multi-dimensional poverty, it captures multiple and simultaneous deprivations faced by households.
Does it not bring to focus why our political leaders try to shift from development issues to other useless topics? So long as the people are not fully informed, they will not be able to know their exact position and relevance in the State’s political narrative and remain entangled in unnecessary questions.
What has recently been shown in media in the name of development is false. The bizarre way of amply projecting pictures of development in our State came to the fore through advertised photos. How long will people be kept in dark? Such a question arises instantly. Even the State government does not appear to be too serious in stopping the fake aspect of development, that is why falsity keeps going.