- The definition of a middle class is those that have an income higher than $10 per day while not being in the top 5% of the country. - India doesn't really have a middle class at all. Most of the BRICS countries that are similar to India also hardly have a middle class but it's been growing in size since 1990. ----- If India were to be divided into five classes of equal sizes, the poorest quintile (20 per cent) would make between Rs 1,000 and Rs 33,000 annually as a household, and the next 20 per cent would make between Rs 33,001 and Rs 55,640 annually. Families that earn between Rs 55,000 and Rs 88,800 annually would be in the third class and fall in the middle of India’s income distribution. The richest 20 per cent would make over Rs 1.5 lakh per year. On a per capita basis, only the top 2 per cent of the country would have a household income of over Rs 8 lakh. - Rukmini Shrinivasan in [[Whole Numbers and Half Truths]] The economist Nancy Birdsall suggests that the middle class in developing countries could include people with an income above $10 day, excluding the top 5 per cent of that country. By this definition, India—even urban India alone—has no middle class - Rukmini Shrinivasan in [[Whole Numbers and Half Truths]]