India needs at least 10 years of high economic growth to fight poverty

LAST week, India passed an important milestone that will have far-reaching consequences on its standard of living and may be a major factor in next year's crucial elections where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies will seek to win a second term.

Brookings Institute, which designed the World Poverty Clock, said in a blog post that India is no longer home to the world's largest population of people living in extreme poverty - living on less than US$1.90 a day - with Nigeria taking the mantle for …