New Delhi, April 25 -- Extreme poverty (living on less than USD 2.15 per day) fell from 16.2 percent in 2011-12 to 2.3 percent in 2022-23, lifting 171 million people in India above this line, according to a report by World Bank.

This in a way is an endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poverty reduction claims.

Over the past decade, India has significantly reduced poverty.

According to the Poverty & Equity Brief report of World Bank released earlier this week, rural extreme poverty dropped from 18.4 percent to 2.8 percent, and urban from 10.7 percent to 1.1 percent, narrowing the rural-urban gap from 7.7 to 1.7 percentage points--a 16 percent annual decline.

Meanwhile, India also transitioned into the lower-middle-income categ...