Re: India more poor then Sub-Saharan Africa: Home to 1/3 of world poor.
In South Asia, the $1.25 poverty rate has fallen from 60 percent to 40 percent over 1981-2005, but again, not enough to bring down the total number of poor people in the region, which stood at about 600 million in 2005. In India, poverty at $1.25 a day in 2005 prices increased from 420 million people in 1981 to 455 million in 2005, while the poverty rate as a share of the total population went from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the $1.25 a day rate was 50 percent in 2005—the same as it was in 1981, after rising, then falling during the period. The number of poor has almost doubled, from 200 million in 1981 to about 380 million in 2005. If the trend persists, a third of the world’s poor will live in Africa by 2015. Average consumption among poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa stood at a meager 70 cents a day in 2005. Given that poverty is so deep in Africa, even higher growth will be needed than for other regions to have the same impact on poverty.
I took this from the world website. If in India poverty went down from 60% to 42% during which period it remained at 50% in s-s region, that would mean India did a lot lot better.
so, what is this stuff about being worse than sub-saharan poverty rate?
Further, looking at the same world bank data for this region:
GDP per capita 2007:
India 994.7
Pakistan 854.8
Sri Lanka 1719.8
China 2316.4
Both India and Pakistan have a way to go to catch up even within the region