The paper you have cited not only uses data from 1998, it also splits India into rural and urban India. The passage in the paper that I can find to support you claim is as follows:<p>&quot;Now, consider mean income of the people belonging to the top decile or ventile, in countries ranging from rural India to Cameroon. Their income puts them between the 51th and 69th percentile of world distribution. Therefore, these two distributions, e.g. Japan’s and rural India’s, practically do not overlap. Or to give another example: a Frenchman
on welfare or unemployment benefits (who would presumably belong to the bottom decile of income distribution in France) would still be better off than a top decile person in Madagascar.&quot;<p>Note that it only talks about rural India. In fact all the charts in the paper, including the chart on top decile&#x2F;ventile of poor vs bottom decile&#x2F;ventile of rich on page 47 do not even include Urban India. I would be curious to see this study repeated with current numbers and without splitting India into urban and rural. Especially because of the amount of urbanization and economic growth that India has seen since 1998.