From the longer (paywalled) version: "Over a fifth of its population lives below the poverty line. The scheme outlined this week by the chief economic adviser

From the longer (paywalled) version: "Over a fifth of its population lives below the poverty line. The scheme outlined this week by the chief economic adviser to the Indian government, Arvind Subramanian, would cut that figure to less than 0.5% by transferring about $9 a month to all adult Indians. If doled out to everyone, that would cost around 6-7% of GDP; the 950 welfare schemes soak up 5% of GDP." http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21716027-india-should-replace-its-thicket-welfare-payments-single-payment-india-debates-case?fsrc=rss%7Clea http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21716027-india-should-... Fascinating as few people probably would have thought UBI would be remotely feasible in a country of 1.3B people. Yet there is also massive inequality, as well as corruption and inefficiency in handling all the various aid programmes. Plus the country has Aadhaar, a digital-identification scheme that covers 99% of adults. Probably still not feasible for now, but interesting to see how relatively cheap it would be to lift so many people out of poverty.