One-third of world's poor in India: World Bank

India accounts for one-third of the world's poor, people living on less than $1.25 (about Rs 65) per day, a World Bank report on poverty has said. The report said that 1.2 billion people still living in extreme poverty across the world.

"The State of the Poor: Where are the Poor and Where are the Poorest?," using data released in the latest World Development Indicators, shows that extreme poverty headcount rates have fallen in every developing region between 1981 and 2010 from half the citizens in the developing world to 21 per cent. This despite a 59 per cent increase in the developing world population.

However, a new analysis of extreme poverty released by the World Bank shows that there are still 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty, and despite recent impressive progress, Sub-Saharan Africa still accounts for more than one-third of the world's extreme poor.

"We have made remarkable progress in reducing the number of people living under $1.25 a day in the developing world, but the fact that there are still 1.2 billion people in extreme poverty is a stain on our collective conscience," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

"This figure should serve as a rallying cry to the international community to take the fight against poverty to the next level. Our analysis and our advice can help guide the way towards ending extreme poverty by 2030, by showing where the poor live and where poverty is deepest," he said.

"We have made strides in cutting down poverty, but with nearly one-fifth of the world population still below the poverty line, not enough," said Kaushik Basu, World Bank senior vice-president and chief economist.

Despite its falling poverty rates, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world for which the number of poor individuals has risen steadily and dramatically between 1981 and 2010. There are more than twice as many extremely poor people living in SSA today (414 million) than there were three decades ago (205 million). As a result, while the extreme poor in SSA represented only 11 percent of the world's total in 1981, they now account for more than a third of the world's extreme poor. India contributes another third (up from 22 per cent in 1981) and China comes next, contributing 13 percent (down from 43 per cent in 1981).