03 MARCH 2024 www.thestatesman.com Pages 16 |` 5.00|LC INDIA’S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER SINCE 1818 Twitter.com/thestatesman Facebook.com/thestatesman KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR WEATHER Generally clear. Hazy. Winds SW at 10 to 15 km/h. Maximum and minimum temperatures likely to be around 33°C and 23°C respectively. RAINFALL: NIL RELATIVE HUMIDITY BJP announces first list of LS candidates Max. 77% Min. 62% PM to contest from Varanasi; Rajnath, Shah from Lucknow & Gandhinagar respectively Max: 33.0°C SUN RISES 05:55 hrs MOON RISES 23:33 hrs Min: 23.0°C SUN SETS 17:40 hrs MOON SETS 10:25 hrs STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE TEMPERATURE New Moon on 10 March THUMBNAILS A BJP supporter blows a conch shell during a public meeting at Krishnanagar in Nadia on Saturday. ANI Ship suspected of carrying equipment for Pak nuclear programme stopped in Mumbai: Security agencies at Mumbai's Nhava Sheva port intercepted a Karachi-bound ship from China suspected of containing a consignment that could be used for Pakistan's nuclear programme, said a source. A team from the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is examining the consignment. NEW DELHI, 2 MARCH rime Minister Narendra Modi will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh while Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be the BJP candidates for Lucknow and Gandhinagar seats, the party said on Saturday. Releasing the first list of BJP candidates for the Lok Sabha polls to be held in April-May, party general secretary Vinod Tawde said the list has 195 names, including those of 34 central ministers and state ministers. The first list was announced after a marathon meeting of the party's election committee held earlier this week, attended by the PM and BJP president J P Nadda and other top leaders. The first list includes the names of party candidates for 51 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 26 in West Bengal, 24 in Madhya Pradesh, 15 in Gujarat, 15 in Rajasthan, 12 in Kerala, nine in Telangana, eleven in Assam, eleven in Jharkhand, eleven in Chhattisgarh, five in Delhi, two in Jammu and Kash- P BJP National VP Baijayant Jay Panda & other leaders announcing the party’s first list of candidates for LS polls in New Delhi on ANI Saturday. mir, three in Uttarakhand, two in Arunachal Pradesh and one each in Goa, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar and Daman & Diu. Mr Tawde said two former chief ministers and 28 women are among those who have been given tickets in the first list of BJP candidates. There are at least 37 BJP candidates who are less than 50 years of age in the first list. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will be the party candidate for the Vidisha seat in the state. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has been renominated as the party candidate from Kota in Rajasthan. Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani will be the BJP candidate from Amethi while Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was in Congress when the last Lok Sabha elections were held, will be the saffron party nominee for the Guna seat in Madhya Pradesh. Union ministers Mansukhbhai Mandaviya and Purshottambhai Rupala will be the BJP nominees for Porbandar and Rajkot seats in Gujarat. Union minister Meenakshi Lekhi has not been renominated by the party for the New Delhi seat. The party has given ticket to Ms Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of late BJP stalwart Sushma Swaraj, for the New Delhi constituency. Former health minister Harshvardhan has also been denied the ticket for the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi with the party naming Mr Parveen Khandelwal as its nominee. Union ministers Kiren Rijiju and Jitendra Singh have been given tickets for the ArunachalWest and Udhampur seats respectively. In West Bengal, Locket Chatterjee will be the party candidate from Hooghly while Dr Rathin Chakraborty has been named for the Howrah seat. CMYK Modi attacks TMC’s record of governance STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE KRISHNAGAR, 2 MARCH PM Narendra Modi, speaking at a public rally in Krishnagar, days before the expected announcement of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, attacked the Trinamul Congress’s record of governance in the state, alleging a pattern of oppression, autocracy, corruption, and nepotism. “They have disappointed the people of West Bengal” who have voted for the TMC time and again, the prime minister said, citing a ‘betrayal’ of trust and a lack of inclusive development under the current administration. Mr Modi cited the “obstructionism” faced in establishing the first AIIMS in Bengal. Despite assurances, hurdles, particularly regarding environmental permissions, impeded the progress of the Kalyani AIIMS project, he said, lamenting the TMC government's alleged interference. (See PAGE 3) India’s extreme poverty under 3 per cent: Report STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 2 MARCH Less than 3 per cent of India’s population is now living below the extreme poverty line of $1.9 (purchasing power parity) per day resulting in elimination of extreme poverty, according to recent World Poverty Clock data. The World Poverty Clock provides a real-time platform to monitor poverty reduction across countries. It monitors progress against Ending Extreme Poverty, which is the UN's first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). As per the data, around 3.4 crore people are living in extreme poverty in India. The number was 4 crore in 2023 and 4.6 crore in the previous year, according to the data. Purchasing power parity (PPP) is a metric which allows global comparisons of economic data. According to the World Poverty Clock, 94 per cent of the people living in extreme poverty are in rural areas, and the remaining 6 per cent in urban areas. The latest Consumer Experience Survey, too, said India's poverty levels dropped sharply in 2022-23, with urban poverty at 4.6 per cent and rural poverty at 7.2 per cent. The data also showed real per capita consumption growth of 2.9 per cent per annum since 2011-12. Rural growth at 3.1 per cent was significantly higher than urban growth of 2.6 per cent. Further, the survey highlighted the reduction in spending on food items as a percentage of total monthly per capita consumption expenditure in both rural and urban areas. Global think-tank Brookings, in a report based on data released by the Central government, also said high growth and a large decline in inequality have combined to eliminate poverty in India for the $1.9 poverty line. The Headcount Poverty Ratio (HCR) declined from 12.2 percent in 2011-12 to 2 percent in 202223, dropping 0.93 percentage points (ppt) a year, according to the report. The higher consumption growth in rural areas is based on strong policy thrusts of a wide variety of publicly funded programmes.
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