This book explores the role of public action in eliminating deprivation and expanding human freedoms in India. The analysis is based on a broad and integrated view of development, which focuses on well-being and freedom rather than the standard indicators of economic growth. The authors placehuman agency at the centre of stage, and stress the complementary roles of different institutions (economic, social, and political) in enhancing effective freedoms.In comparative international perspective, the Indian economy has done reasonably well in the period following the economic reforms initiated in the early nineties. However, relatively high aggregate economic growth coexists with the persistence of endemic deprivation and deep social failures. JeanDreze and Amartya Sen relate this imbalance to the continued neglect, in the post-reform period, of public involvement in crucial fields such as basic education, health care, social security, environmental protection, gender equity, and civil rights, and also to the imposition of new burdens such asthe accelerated expansion of military expenditure. Further, the authors link these distortions of public priorities with deep-seated inequalities of social influence and political power. The book discusses the possibility of addressing these biases through more active democratic practice.

This book examines various facets of the development process such as aid, poverty, caste networks, corruption, and judicial activism. It explores the efficiency of and distributional issues related to agriculture, and the roles of macro models and financial markets, with a special emphasis on bubbles, liquidity traps and experimental markets. The importance of finite changes in trade and development, as well as that of information technology and issues related to energy and ecosystems, including sustainability and vulnerability, are analyzed. The book presents papers that were commissioned for the Silver Jubilee celebrations at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR). The individual contributions address related development problems, ensuring a homogeneous reading experience and providing a thorough synthesis and understanding of the authors’ research areas. The reader will be introduced to various aspects of development thought by leading and contemporary researchers. As such, the book represents an important addition to the literature on economic thought by leading scholars, and will be of great value to graduate students and researchers in the fields of development studies, political economy and economics in general.

This book revisits some of the persisting challenges of development of India, which remain unresolved even after twenty-five years of economic reforms and almost fifteen years of high growth rate. These include defining purpose of development, inequality, labour, work, unemployment, agrarian distress and migration. The book questions the overemphasis on growth to the extent of neglecting basic issues of development. With a number of contributions re-imagining development and its political economy, the book discusses above mentioned issues in light of new data and more recent conceptions of the issues. The contributors of this volume are eminent researchers in their respective field. Presenting primary as well as secondary data, the book considers the latest advances and research and also addresses new challenges like the global reorganization of production and the consequences for labour and the world of work, along with skills question. World of work has received detailed investigation in this book. This is a timely addition in existing literature especially in context of pandemic and lockdown. Informality and un/employment question is addressed in this context. Relationship among poverty, inequality and growth is examined in light of newer understanding. Agrarian distress is looked in a broader context. A number of papers are examining migration question by expanding coverage of migration and including labour mobility as apart of migration debate. The present crisis of migrant labour and absence of social security for these workers is also discussed. This book is primarily intended for those interested in recent advances on some of the basic aspects of development, like poverty, inequality, informality, word of work, migration and labour mobility. It is also useful for researchers, policy makers, journalists and civil society organizations working on these issues.

The debate around growth has been an important feature of economic planning in India since Independence. This book deals with the wide range of issues related to the country's growth and development between 1951 and 2011, covering the 11 Five Year Plans formulated and implemented during this period, as well as in the decade after that. The author traces the changing nature of planning over time-from rigid state control on economic activities, to reliance on market-based planning in the time of economic reforms. He has dealt with the transition from growth measures in the 1970s, to the use of a mix of growth and redistribution in the 1980s, and the economic reforms and liberalization measures from 1991 onwards, and the inclusive growth we have seen in the twenty-first century. The central theme of the book is to analyse the role that planning played in maximizing the rate of economic growth and in improving the living standards of the people. Considering India's rapidly changing socio-economic environment, many of the issues around growth and development are contentious. The author discusses them here with academic rigour and an insider's insight, thus enabling a fair assessment.

This book addresses central issues related to population and sustainable development in India, the second most populous country in the world. Using the latest available source of data in the context of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, it analyzes the current state of development in India in terms of economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection, especially focusing on the role of population. The respective chapters explore various aspects, but mainly focus on promoting greater sustainability in terms of population growth, child survival, and economic growth. As such, the book will be of interest to students, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of population studies, economics, and international development.

This book highlights the development disparities in India and considers three complex areas of development – economic wellbeing, human progress and agricultural development – over a period of forty years since the 1970s. The novelty of the book lies in is its rich analytical foundation and the use of sophisticated statistical and economic tools to determine the causes of socioeconomic disparity between Indian states. The trends of inequality, polarization and disparity are highlighted with regard to income, human development indicators and agricultural production and productivity. The book also identifies the factors underlying divergence in economic and social activity in India and provides policy suggestions for bringing about more balanced and inclusive development in India.

This book explores the relationship between the state, development policy, and gender (in)equality in India. It discusses the formation of state policy on gender and development in India in the post-1990 period through three key organising concepts of institutions, discourse, and agency. The book pays particular attention to whether the international policy language of gender mainstreaming has been adopted by the Indian state, and if so, to what extent and with what results. The author examines how these issues play out at multiple levels of governance – at both the national and the subnational (state) level in federal India. This comparative aspect is particularly important in the context of increasing autonomy in development policymaking in India in the 1990s, divergent development policy approaches and outcomes among states, and the emerging importance of subnational state development policies and programmes for women in this period. The author argues that the state is not a monolith but a heterogeneous, internally differentiated collection of institutions, which offers complex and varying opportunities and consequences for feminists engaging the state. Demonstrating that the Indian empirical case is illuminating for studies of the gendered politics of development, and international debates on gender mainstreaming, the book highlights the politics of negotiating gender equality strategies in the contemporary context of neo-liberal development and brings together complex issues of modernity, postcolonialism, identity politics, federalism, and equality within the broader context of the world’s largest democracy. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in the politics of gender equality, state feminism, and gender mainstreaming; federalism and multi-level governance; and development studies and gender in South Asia.

Economic development of frontier and remote regions has long been a central theme of development studies. This book examines the development experience in the northeastern region in India in relation to the processes of globalisation and liberalisation of the economy. Bringing together researchers and scholars, from both within and outside the region, the volume offers a comprehensive and updated analysis of governance and development issues in relation to the northeastern economy. With its multidisciplinary approaches, the chapters cover a variety of sectors and concerns such as land, agriculture, industry, infrastructure, finance, human development, human security, trade and policy. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of economics, public policy, governance and development, geopolitics, geography, development studies, politics and sociology of development and area studies as well as observers and policymakers interested in the Northeast.