Indian row over poverty and policy extends to Harvard and Columbia

Indian government figures showing that poverty has been cut by a third since 2004 has set off a row between the country's main political parties on whether the data is accurate, and a slanging match between two of the world's best-known economists on the implications for policy.
The debate boils down to what path India should take in coming years as slower growth puts further poverty reduction at risk in the world's second-most populous nation.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) backs growth-oriented reforms that would include a curb on public spending, while the ruling Congress party believes subsidies and a range of social welfare projects have lifted millions out of penury.
Neither of these parties has a commanding lead in opinion polls ahead of general elections due by next May, so they will be competing fiercely for the votes of the poor.
India's Planning Commission said last week that 138 million people - more than the combined population of Britain, Spain and Australia - had climbed out of poverty between fiscal 2004/05 (March-April) and 2011/12. That left the official number of poor among a population of 1.2 billion at 269 million.
"The reduction of the poverty level across the country is a clear manifestation and endorsement of the pro-poor policies and the policy of inclusiveness of the UPA regime," said Bhakta Charan Das, a spokesman of Congress and its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition that has been in power since 2004.
Critics say the numbers have been massaged to look good and any gains are pitiful compared to countries like China or Indonesia.
Congress party policies, which include guaranteed employment for 100 days a year and plans to provide subsidised grain to 800 million people, are also a huge financial drain. India's budget deficit is already around 5 percent of GDP and is seen as a major contributor in drooping investor sentiment.
"It is certainly an achievement," said Nobel laureate Amartya Sen of the reduction in poverty. "Is it a fantastic achievement? No, because the poverty line is low."
A Harvard University professor of economics and a confidant of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sen is widely seen as a major influence on the Congress party's jobs and food programmes.
Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics and law at Columbia University, says Sen is an apologist for Congress and its brand of welfare spending at the cost of reforms.
"Sen is not simply wrong; he also poses a serious danger to economic policy in India," Bhagwati wrote in a newspaper column.