India has been a growth champion in recent years and has succeeded in taming inflation, the current account deficit and non-performing loans. India's participation in the global economy has risen, with outstanding performances in some services, while the largest diaspora in the world is an asset in developing new markets. India has also lifted many millions of people out of poverty and has made access to housing for all a priority. Ambitious structural reforms -- including better targeted household support, financial inclusion initiatives, the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the new approach to federalism and the corporate income tax reform -- have played a key role.
Essays by leading academics, policymakers, and industrialists examine India's economic success in the late 1990s. India's economy over the last decade looks in many ways like a success story; after a major economic crisis in 1991, followed by bold reform measures, the economy has experienced a rapid economic growth rate, more foreign investment, and a boom in the information technology sector. Yet many in the country still suffer from crushing poverty, and social and political unrest remains a problem. These essays by leading academics, policymakers, and industrialists -- including one by Amartya Sen, the 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on poverty and inequality -- examine the facts of India's recent economic successes and their social and cultural context. India's rate of economic growth after the 1991 reforms were instituted reached a remarkable 7 percent for three consecutive years, from 1994 to 1997. Several contributors to India's Emerging Economy ask what this means for the nation as a whole. In his essay "Democracy and Secularism in India," Amartya Sen argues that economic progress is not the only way to measure a nation's performance. Other essays examine the actual effect India's economic growth has had on reducing poverty and recommend policies to empower the poor. Essays also address such issues as globalization and the vulnerabilities and opportunities it creates, India's experience with monetary and fiscal reform, the rapid growth of the information technology sector (including a case study of India's software industry), and India's grassroots economy.
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.
As India enters its seventy-fifth year of independence, conventional policy is unlikely to combat the breadth of its economic challenges. Across a range of areas-human capital, technology, agriculture, finance, trade, public service delivery and more-new ideas must now be on the table. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only cost India many lives and livelihoods, it has also exposed major structural weaknesses in the economy. A huge farm and jobs crisis, rising and massive inequalities, tepid investment growth, and chronic banking sector challenges have plagued the economy, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also exposed the limitations of the Indian state, which tries to control too much-and ends up stifling the economy and the inherent energies of its young population. Climate change is no longer a distant threat, while disruptive technology has huge implications for India's demographic dividend. In addition, the dangerous lurch towards majoritarianism will cast its shadow on India's pursuit of prosperity for all. Unshackling India examines the question: Can India use the next twenty-five years, when it will reach the hundredth year of independence, to restructure not only its economy but rejuvenate its democratic energy and unshackle its potential-to become a genuinely developed economy by 2047? The book argues that India can foster a prosperous and inclusive economy if it sets its mind to it, acknowledges the hard truths, and lays out the clear choices and new ideas India must adopt towards that end.
After nearly five decades of insulation from world markets, state controls, and slow growth, India embarked in 1991 on a process of liberalization of controls and progressive integration with the global economy in an effort to put its economy on a path of rapid and sustained growth. Despite major changes in the government since then, the thrust on reforms has been maintained. According to the World Bank, only 10 out of 145 countries had more rapid growth than India at over 6 percent per year in the 1990s and two had the same as India's. In this study, T.N. Srinivasan and Suresh D. Tendulkar analyze the economics and politics of India's recent and growing integration with the world economy. They argue that this process has to be nurtured and accelerated if India is to eradicate its poverty and take its rightful place in the global economic system.The study covers the historical roots and the political economy of India's late integration; domestic and external constraints on integration; external capital inflows including foreign direct investment; and India's emerging comparative advantage in the information technology industry and services, particularly computer software. The final chapter offers policy recommendations including proposals that India could make at the ongoing Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations.
The subject of India's rapid growth in the past two decades has become a prominent focus in the public eye. A book that documents this unique and unprecedented surge, and addresses the issues raised by it, is sorely needed. Arvind Panagariya fills that gap with this sweeping, ambitious survey. India: The Emerging Giant comprehensively describes and analyzes India's economic development since its independence, as well as its prospects for the future. The author argues that India's growth experience since its independence is unique among developing countries and can be divided into four periods, each of which is marked by distinctive characteristics: the post-independence period, marked by liberal policies with regard to foreign trade and investment, the socialist period during which Indira Ghandi and her son blocked liberalization and industrial development, a period of stealthy liberalization, and the most recent, openly liberal period. Against this historical background, Panagariya addresses today's poverty and inequality, macroeconomic policies, microeconomic policies, and issues that bear upon India's previous growth experience and future growth prospects. These provide important insights and suggestions for reform that should change much of the current thinking on the current state of the Indian economy. India: The Emerging Giant will attract a wide variety of readers, including academic economists, policy makers, and research staff in national governments and international institutions. It should also serve as a core text in undergraduate and graduate courses that deal with Indias economic development and policies.
"In the global knowledge economy of the twenty-first century, India's development policy challenges will require it to use knowledge more effectively to raise the productivity of agriculture, industry, and services and reduce poverty. India has made tremendous strides in its economic and social development in the past two decades. Its impressive growth in recent years-8.2 percent in 2003-can be attributed to the far-reaching reforms embarked on in 1991 and to opening the economy to global competition. In addition, India can count on a number of strengths as it strives to transform itself into a knowledge-based economy-availability of skilled human capital, a democratic system, widespread use of English, macroeconomic stability, a dynamic private sector, institutions of a free market economy; a local market that is one of the largest in the world; a well-developed financial sector; and a broad and diversified science and technology infrastructure, and global niches in IT. But India can do more-much more-to leverage its strengths and grasp today's opportunities. India and the Knowledge Economy assesses India's progress in becoming a knowledge economy and suggests actions to strengthen the economic and institutional regime, develop educated and skilled workers, create an efficient innovation system, and build a dynamic information infrastructure. It highlights that to get the greatest benefits from the knowledge revolution, India will need to press on with the economic reform agenda that it put into motion a decade ago and continue to implement the various policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate growth. In so doing, it will be able to improve its international competitivenessand join the ranks of countries that are making a successful transition to the knowledge economy."
This book is a collection of fifteen contributions that undertake a detailed analysis of seven broad dimensions of India’s economy and society. All the contributions approach the problems in their respective areas empirically, while being theoretically informed. The book begins with a section containing detailed and empirically supported chapters on the recent crisis in India’s agricultural sector and the reforms in the agricultural markets. Another section is dedicated to the issue of infrastructure financing, and new ways of financing large infrastructural projects are critically examined. Other sections are related to innovations and technology impacts on industry; international trade; health and education; labor and employment; and the very important issue of gender. The selected discussion topics are both of contemporary importance and expected to remain so for some time. Most of the chapters introduce readers to data in addition to methods of analyzing this data, to arrive at policy-oriented conclusions. The rich collection carries learnings for researchers working on a wide range of topics related to development studies, as well as for policymakers and corporate watchers.
