Despite the success of China, it still had more than 100 million people living on less than US$ 1 per day in 2005, 90 per cent of whom were rural. In India, the number of extreme poor remains stubbornly close to 300 million, with 74 per cent of that number rural inhabitants, even with large subsidies to their farmers. In the past it was just inequality at the local level that affected individuals’ utility, but the information and communications technology revolution has increased awareness of income differences not only within local regions but also nationally and internationally. At the national level, there are concerns about rural-urban inequality as well as inequality within each of those broad geographic zones.