From Hong Kong to India, 2 ideas of social welfare that will never get off the ground

From Hong Kong to India, 2 ideas of social welfare that will never get off the ground

An Indian child at a temporary shelter in Hyderabad. The country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is considering introducing a universal basic income. Photo: AFP All of a sudden, Asia is talking about welfare. For years the region’s policymakers dismissed the idea of state welfare as somehow un-Asian. Public schemes to dole out benefits to the poor were regarded as a flabby Western idea; a corrosive and alien notion in a region renowned for its can-do attitude to work and its strong culture of supportive family ties.

Lately that has begun to change. Worried about persistent poverty and rising inequality, politicians […]

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