The number of extremely poor people in the world, reduced by more than half between 1981 and 2013, mainly in China

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A review of global poverty in The Economist makes the claim:

Quote: "The World Bank, which tracks poverty, estimates that 1.9bn people were extremely poor in 1981. In that year, the poor accounted for 42% of the world’s population. In 2013, by contrast, only 767m people were poor. Because the world’s population has grown so much in the interim, the share of poor people in the population has fallen even faster, to just below 11%. The single biggest reason for this delightful trend is China. In 1981, almost unbelievably, 88% of Chinese (and 96% of rural Chinese) seem to have lived below the poverty line. In 2013 only 2% of Chinese were extremely poor."

Reference: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/05/economist-explains-1?cid1=cust%2Fddnew%2Fn%2Fn%2Fn%2F2017053n%2Fowned%2Fn%2Fn%2Fnwl%2Fn%2Fn%2Fap%2FDaily_Dispatch%2Femail

However, The Economist predicts that it will be more difficult to make further reductions in the number of people living in extreme poverty.

Quote: "That leaves a rump of poverty in South Asia and, especially, sub-Saharan Africa. In 2013, for the first time, more than half of the paupers in the world were African. Poverty will be much harder to root out in those places. South Asian countries like Bangladesh and India have decent economic growth but feeble welfare systems. Africa doesn’t even have the former, especially considering how quickly its population is increasing. Besides, poor Africans often live on much less than $1.90 a day. It is hard to pull exceptionally poor people (sometimes called the “ultra-poor”) over the line. Even African countries that are growing fairly well, like Ethiopia and Rwanda, will have huge poor populations for many years even if incomes rise across the board."

 

Poverty reduction in India:

We could think that India would be able to quickly make quick progress in poverty reduction. But a closer examination makes this doubtful, the illustration below shows a scene that is all too common in India.

 

As this attempt at mapping Indian poverty seems to indicate:

and its in some of the areas mapped as suffering from extreme poverty that the long-running naxalite rebellion continues. 

Why is it that India has this persistent problem? The answer seems to be rooted in the political and social problems which the Indian ruling elite have not been interested in solving.