Poverty in India on purchasing power parity. According to United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) programme 270 millions or 21.9% people out of 1.2 billion of Indians lived below poverty line of $1.25 in 2011-2012. From late 19th century through early 20th century, under British colonial rule, poverty in India intensified, peaking in the 1920s. Famines and diseases killed millions each time. After India gained its independence in 1947, mass deaths from famines were prevented. Rapid economic growth since 1991, has led to sharp reductions in extreme poverties in India. However, those above poverty line live a fragile economic life. As per the
Caste system in India mobility of property and creating consequent caste barriers in India. Khushwant Singh a Sikh historian, and Tony Ballantyne a professor of History, state that these British colonial era laws helped create and erect barriers within land-owning and landless castes in northwest India. Caste-based discrimination and denial of human rights by the colonial state had similar impact elsewhere in British India. Nicholas Dirks has argued that Indian caste as we know it today is a "modern phenomenon," as caste was "fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule." According to Dirks, before colonialism caste affiliation was quite loose and fluid, but the British