Poverty Among Social and Economic Groups In India in the Nineteen Nineties.

This paper examines the levels and changes in poverty indicators of the rural and urban population in India disaggregated by social and economic groups. The analysis is based on the comparable estimates of poverty on the mixed reference period computed from the unit record data for the 50 th (1993-94) and the 55 th (1999-2000) rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation. The issue is how far different social and economic groups shared the overall decline in poverty in the 1990s. Four poverty indicators are considered, namely, headcount ratio,the depth and severity measures (PGI and FGT*) as also the absolute size of the poor population. The social groups most vulnerable to poverty have been identified to be the scheduled caste households and the scheduled tribe households with both these groups having above average levels of poverty indicators in the rural and the urban population.Among the economic groups, the most vulnerable groups are the agricultural labour households (rural) and the casual labour households (urban) each having the highestlevels of the poverty indicators in their respective population segments. In terms of changes in poverty in the 1990s, it is found that while the scheduled caste and the agricultural labour (rural) and the casual labour (urban) households experienced declines in poverty on par with the total population, the scheduled tribe households fared badly in both the segments. A further disaggregated analysis brings out the consequences for poverty of combined social and economic vulnerabilities. The paper also presents poverty indicators adjusted for between-(economic and social) group disparity and discusses the implications of the empirical results for the design of a strategy for poverty reduction.India, Poverty, Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes, Labour Households

The Poor in the Indian Labour Force in the 1990s

Comparable all-India estimates of the number of workers and unemployed in 'below-poverty-line' households - together defining the poor in the Indian labour force - are presented for 1993-94 and 1999-2000. Also presented is the gender, activity-status and the rural-urban composition of this group for the two time points. From a level of 115 million (43 million females and 21 million urban) the number of working poor declined by a little over 12 million - almost entirely in rural India - over the six-year period. Over 51 (36) percent of the rural (urban) working poor were engaged in unskilled mannual labour with a further 46 percent (44 percent in urban India) being absorbed by low-productivity self-employment.India, Working Poor, Poor in Labour Force.

Decentralized Distributed Expert Assisted Learning (D2EAL) approach for cooperative target-tracking

This paper addresses the problem of cooperative target tracking using a heterogeneous multi-robot system, where the robots are communicating over a dynamic communication network, and heterogeneity is in terms of different types of sensors and prediction algorithms installed in the robots. The problem is cast into a distributed learning framework, where robots are considered as 'agents' connected over a dynamic communication network. Their prediction algorithms are considered as 'experts' giving their look-ahead predictions of the target's trajectory. In this paper, a novel Decentralized Distributed Expert-Assisted Learning (D2EAL) algorithm is proposed, which improves the overall tracking performance by enabling each robot to improve its look-ahead prediction of the target's trajectory by its information sharing, and running a weighted information fusion process combined with online learning of weights based on a prediction loss metric. Theoretical analysis of D2EAL is carried out, which involves the analysis of worst-case bounds on cumulative prediction loss, and weights convergence analysis. Simulation studies show that in adverse scenarios involving large dynamic bias or drift in the expert predictions, D2EAL outperforms well-known covariance-based estimate/prediction fusion methods, both in terms of prediction performance and scalability

Cross-Embedded Relationship Nature of Human Rights-Related Treaties and Instruments with Environment-Related Sustainable Development Goals

It is imperative that Treaties & Instruments and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) must be analysed, considering their interdependencies and mutually reinforcing nature. The paper examines the Cross Embedded Relationship (CER) nature of core Human Rights-related Treaties & Instruments (HR-T&I) in Environment-related SDGs (E-SDG) in driving a metamorphic transformation process toward inclusive economic growth, adhering to human rights values that are environmentally centric and sustainable in the true sense. Some core HR-T&I explicitly recognise CER, as observed in textual analysis. The study reveals a varied level of the Cross Embedment Relationship Index (CERI) between the provisions of core HR-T&I and E-SDG, thereby indicating the importance of human rights principles in E-SDG and the significance of environment orientation in core HR-T&I. Linking core HR-T&I provisions with E-SDG and extra-legal compliance mechanism of SDGs can produce positive synergies in realising SDG objectives