Angus Deaton - the Latest Nobel Laureate on India
THIS year's Nobel laureate in Economics, Angus Deaton has made extensive studies on India. He says,
The Indian economy has recently grown at historically unprecedented rates and is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Yet, per capita calorie intake is declining, as is the intake of many other nutrients; indeed fats are the only major nutrient group whose per capita consumption is unambiguously increasing. Today, more than three quarters of the population live in households with per capita calorie consumption below 2,100 per day in urban areas and 2,400 per day in rural areas - numbers that are often cited as “minimum requirements” in India. A related concern is that anthropometric indicators of nutrition in India, for both adults and children, are among the worst in the world. Furthermore, the improvement of these measures of nutrition appears to be slow relative to what might be expected in the light of international experience and of India's recent high rates of economic growth .