Context:

• In the decade between 2005-06 and 2015-16, India has halved its Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) — an index that looks beyond income poverty to take into account deprivations in health, education, and living standards — 54.7 per cent to 27.5 per cent.
• According to MPI 2018 released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, there are 271 million fewer poor people in India in this period.

Details about the Index:

• Despite the massive gains made in reducing multidimensional poverty, 364 million Indians continue to experience acute deprivations in health, nutrition, schooling, and sanitation.
• Just over one in four multidimensionally poor people in India are under ten years of age.
• Traditionally disadvantaged groups, in terms of castes, religions etc, continue to be the poorest though they have experienced the biggest decadal reduction in MPI. 
• About 196 million MPI poor people in India, accounting for more than half of all multidimensionally poor in India, live in the four states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh.
• While Delhi, Kerala, and Goa have the lowest incidence of multidimensional poverty.

About Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

• The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was developed in 2010 by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme.
• It uses different factors to determine poverty beyond income-based lists.
• It replaced the previous Human Poverty Index.
• The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute poverty covering over 100 developing countries.

The following ten indicators are used to calculate the MPI:

• Education (each indicator is weighted equally at 1/6)
  • Years of schooling: deprived if no household member has completed six years of schooling.
  • Child school attendance: deprived if any school-aged child is not attending school up to class 8.
• Health (each indicator is weighted equally at 1/6)
  • Child mortality: deprived if any child has died in the family in the past 5 years.
  • Nutrition: deprived if any adult or child, for whom there is nutritional information, is stunted.
• Standard of Living (each indicator is weighted equally at 1/18)
  • Electricity: deprived if the household has no electricity.
  • Sanitation: deprived if the household’s sanitation facility is not improved, or it is improved but shared with other households.
  • Drinking water: deprived if the household does not have access to safe drinking water (according to MDG guidelines) or safe drinking water is more than a 30-minute walk from home roundtrip.
  • Floor: deprived if the household has a dirt, sand or dung floor.
  • Cooking fuel: deprived if the household cooks with dung, wood or charcoal.
  • Assets ownership: deprived if the household does not own more than one of-
    • Radio, TV, telephone, bike, motorbike or refrigerator and does not own a car or truck.

Source: IE & Wikipedia