Dear Jan, In the part of India where I live, a person earning US$ 2 per day would not be considered all that poor. He would not be able to support a family on that earning but if he were leading a bachelor's life in a village, he can live comfortably on that money. The field assistants in our own institute earn a salary of about US$60 per month. They are farmers' sons. So they have a roof on their heads and get enough to eat. The salary that they earn is spent on flashy clothing, cinema, a mobile phone etc. It is the exchange rate between the Indian Rupee and the US$ that makes us so poor in the eyes of the world. I myself, who headed the Institute till my retirement last month, earned a monthly salary of only US$350, and yet I belonged to the richest 3% of the country (that is the percentage of people who pay income tax). Yours A.D.Karve
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 1:40 AM, Jan Bianchi <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear A.D. > > The questions about what the reference to $2 a day earning capacity really > means is totally fair. > > But if you were asking the question I was asking, what can people who are > poor in a country that may itself be poor, or at least parts of it, afford > to pay for a stove, I'm curious how you would describe them? > > So far the answers that I have seen that suggest they can save no more than > 20% of their daily income for about 10 days seems grounded in research. > > > Jan > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anand Karve > Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2011 8:04 PM > To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves > Subject: Re: [Stoves] Stove costs > > Dear Jan, > I keep hearing about the people earning less than US$2 per day. In a > lot of cases the income is shown to be low in statistics generated by > the Government of that particular country. Even a landless labourer in > a village in India would have some hens and a goat (or ducks and a > pig), the income from which never enters the Government statistics. > Another fact of life is that people's priorities differ from ours. > Some of us feel that the poor should have a clean latrine and a clean > kitchen, but the poor themselves often consider a cellphones in their > pocket and a t.v. in the house to be more important. Also the rate of > conversion of a dollar into the local currency is often manipulated by > the Government. 2 Dollars in a poor country has a relatively high > buying power in that country than in the US. > Yours > A.D.Karve > > On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Jan Bianchi <[email protected]> wrote: >> Do any of you know of a list that compares different clean burning cook >> stoves not only by fuel type, efficiency and emissions, but also by price >> and the presence or lack thereof of subsidy? I don’t see the latter >> information on most websites that describe different stoves. >> >> >> >> If there isn’t such a list, maybe we could work to put together one by > each >> of you sending a link that describes a stove and stating the price they > are >> currently being sold for in local communities, together with whether there >> is a subsidy and if so the amount? I’d be happy to work with Erin to put >> together such a list from your answers. >> >> >> >> For people living on $2 a day or less, what for example would be > considered >> a low cost stove? Middling? High? >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Stoves mailing list >> >> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address >> [email protected] >> >> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page >> > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists > .org >> >> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: >> http://www.bioenergylists.org/ >> >> >> > > > > -- > *** > Dr. A.D. Karve > Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) > > _______________________________________________ > Stoves mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists > .org > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: > http://www.bioenergylists.org/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Stoves mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: > http://www.bioenergylists.org/ > > -- *** Dr. A.D. Karve Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) _______________________________________________ Stoves mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://www.bioenergylists.org/
