The book points out that there is ample scope for faster mobilisation of deposits in the rural centres – the unbanked and underbanked areas – where bank deposit is the only profitable savings instrument available. The data presented in this book is enriched by a comparative analysis of the growth of bank deposits in ten selected economically developed states, and in ten developing areas for the years 1973 and 1999.
The economically developed states studied were Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Delhi and the developing areas examined were Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
Economics and its Stories demystifies technical terminology and goes to the heart of the matter.
The narrative of the book starts with the birth of economics from societal anxieties of pre-industrial Europe. It then follows up its growth into a self-conscious and assertive discipline. Along with the account, Amal Sanyal, with his characteristic lucidity of style, is able to breathe life into the colourful 18th, 19th and 20th century gurus such as Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Walras, Keynes. The narrative strings together the events and traditions of the era of these mentors with the economics they developed and controversies around them. In the process the book explains the concepts that are indispensable for understanding our economic world today.
Economics and its stories has chapters on the theory of markets; market failure and the role of the government; the labour market and unemployment; money and finance; international economics and globalisation; and economic development.
The book should appeal to the interested reader as well as students of economics.
Education, Unemployment and Masculinities in India re-evaluates debates on education, modernity, and social change in contemporary development studies and anthropology. Education is widely imputed with the capacity to transform the prospects of the poor. But in the context of widespread unemployment in rural north India, it is better understood as a contradictory resource, providing marginalized youth with certain freedoms but also drawing them more tightly into systems of inequality.
The book advances this argument through detailed case studies of educated but unemployed or underemployed young men in rural western Uttar Pradesh. This book draws on fourteen months’ ethnographic research with young men from middle caste Hindu, Muslim, and ex-Untouchable backgrounds. In addition to offering a new perspective on how education affects the rural poor in South Asia, Education, Unemployment and Masculinities in India includes in-depth reflection on the politics of modernity, changing rural masculinities, and caste and communal politics.
The book presents an analysis of contemporary labour politics in India’s informal economy. Following increased integration in global economic networks, India’s informal sectors, in some parts of the country, have expanded drastically over recent decades and are employing an increasing number of the country’s working population.
Drawing on detailed ethnographic accounts of three textile industries in Tamil Nadu, collected during two and a half years of fieldwork between 1995 and 2000, the author describes everyday labour activism, explores the character of trade unionism and individualized forms of resistance, and depicts the political culture of the shop floor. Interesting case studies illustrate how labour politics have been shaped both by the social mobility of some communities and the increased feminization of some occupations.
Globalization is a controversial subject. While some argue that it promotes economic growth that translates into social progress, others believe that it is detrimental to social advancement. There is a broad consensus in the international community that all states should be urged to improve their social conditions, a position most strongly articulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) declaration of the United Nations.
Globalization and the Millennium Development Goals brings together conceptual and empirical insights into the interaction of globalization and the social sectors, focusing especially on the MDGs. Some of the papers included here explicitly look at the Indian experience with social progress in the context of globalization. The volume with introductory remarks by Meghnad Desai, reflects the multifarious views regarding the interplay between economic development and social progress and attempts to answer the question: Can globalization have a human face?
The book emphasizes the need to go beyond the conventional definition of poverty and look at the various human aspects of the problem. Eminent social scientists study poverty in its wider sense, in the light of the latest data available for India.
The Indian economy continues to grow rapidly, taking in its stride poor harvests and rising oil prices. Industrial output, which had tended to be relatively low, has increased to double-digit levels, accompanied by rising levels of savings and investment. India’s healthy export performance has resulted in increased amounts of foreign exchange reserves, insuring against a large balance of payments (BOP) deficit in the future. An important factor in this process has been India’s relative political stability. Democracy is well entrenched and changes of government occur reasonably peacefully.
Is there a fly in the ointment? Could the growth process slacken or can it be accelerated further? What are the constraints to maintaining a high rate of growth over the next decade or two? These questions acquire special significance as we try to understand long-term growth in the current context of global economic slowdown. The papers in this volume seek to answer these questions.
This abundantly illustrated, accessible and perceptive account of the Indo-Swiss cooperation in India’s development programme is a remarkable book. The cooperation dates back to 1958, and it is not widely known that Switzerland was the first country to enter into a treaty of friendship with the then newly independent India on 14 August 1948.
Development interests were preceded by business interests and the first Swiss watches reached the subcontinent around 1600. By the end of 2005, Switzerland ranked tenth among foreign investors in India.
Partners in Development, as the title suggests, brings out the rare quality of a partnership between a donor and a recipient country. Written with a dispassionate assessment of this dynamic relationship which has undergone changes as India has itself become a donor country, the book throws open many important questions relating to development programmes in India today. The book states candidly that however important in specific instances, development cooperation should not be overestimated and that the Indo-Swiss development cooperation has benefited both sides. Nevertheless it comments that India is indeed a world economic power today, and Switzerland, jointly with other foreign agencies, has contributed to this success.
The book begins with an excellent introduction of the country’s brief history from independence to the present day, and concludes that India’s ‘economic miracle’, however important, is not as impressive as the survival and vitality of the country’s democratic institutions. This idea has been echoed by Gerster and other contributors to this volume. It then moves on to dwell on areas where the cooperation has been successful as well as where it has not. The important areas of success have been in vocational training, animal husbandry and dairy farming, biotechnology and microfinance and methodology. The book brings in a note of uncertainty about the future of development programmes in India. It ends by pointing out that there are many issues that can be resolved only through international cooperation.
What distinguishes Persistence of Poverty from most other poverty studies is the way in which it conceptualises the problem. This volume offers a variety of alternative analytical perspectives and fresh insights into poverty that are key to addressing the problem. In looking at the day to day lived realities of the poor the volume points out that in order to understand poverty one must take into account the wider system of class and power relations in which it is rooted. This volume suggests that democracy in India may be as big a part of the problem as it is of the solution.
It is widely believed that economic reforms widen inequalities in societies which are already highly unequal and the impact of economic reforms on social sectors, particularly in developing economies like India, has therefore been a subject of great concern These economies, it is argued, face the double problem of poverty, deprivation and inequality on the one hand and cutbacks in fiscal expenditures (to prune budgetary expenditures) on the other. This book addresses this problem, drawing out the debates in each of the themes of poverty alleviation, nutrition, health and education with the use of theoretical and empirical analysis.