India Today (cover story, 23 Feb'09): Weighing the elected representatives on the money scale

Here’s a glance at the people's representatives, who are to work for people’s betterment, through the money glasses. The amount of money the report talks about is unfathomable, the zeroes eye-widening, and a feeling arising within you - ‘How come India is still poor?’
India Today's cover story of the 23th February carried an analysis on the richest MPs and MLAs in India.

“In a country where over 77 per cent of the populace, or an estimated 836 million people, earn an income of Rs 20 per day and over 300 million are living below the poverty line, nearly half the Rajya Sabha members and nearly a third of those from the Lok Sabha are worth a crore and more. Just the top ten Rajya Sabha members and the top ten Lok Sabha members have reported a cumulative net asset worth Rs 1,500 crore. The 10 top losers in the last Lok Sabha polls — including Nyimthungo of Nagaland who reported total assets of Rs 9,005 crore — is Rs 9,329 crore. Members of legislative assemblies seem wealthier than many MPs. The top five MLAs across the 30 states are worth Rs 2,042 crore. Of these 150 crorepati MLAs, 59 don’t even have a PAN card,” says the cover story of India Today.

The story used the data available on the EmpoweringIndia.org to conduct the analyses about the elected representatives.

Read the full story here: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28888&Itemid=1&issueid=93&sectionid=30&limit=1&limitstart=1