Montek Ahluwalia, of India's Planning Commission, said last year that he reckoned only 16% of the resources earmarked for the poor under the country's subsidised food distribution scheme ever reached them.

ECONOMIST: The Millennium Development Goals

Even the chief of India's Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, agrees that the drop in poverty is well below the government's own targets.

BBC: Challenges ahead for India reforms

It seems as if India's influential Planning Commission realised this when it warned that the poor state of the country's economy was being forgotten amid the political crisis being faced by the United Front government.

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