On the Turnpike traces the origin and history of the Indian Economic Service and in the process provides fascinating glimpses into how economic policy in India was shaped, the drama behind the various Budgets, and the thinking and compulsions that led to key decisions being made. It also captures the personalities of the key players who shaped these policies.

The book describes the circumstances under which the Cadre for advising and shaping economic policy under the Ministry of Finance was born, the contributions it has made, the challenges it has faced and the path ahead.

Those looking for a quick and comprehensible insights into the wisdom and follies of Indian economic policy over the last 60 years will find this book instructive and amusing.

The 21st century is witnessing a profound shift in global dynamics, driven by the fast-rising new powers of the developing world. China has overtaken Japan as the world’s second biggest economy, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the process. India is reshaping its future with new entrepreneurial creativity and social policy innovation. Brazil is raising its living standards by expanding international relationships and antipoverty programmes that are emulated worldwide.

But the “Rise of the South” is a much larger phenomenon. Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and other developing countries are becoming leading actors on the world stage. The 2013 Human Development Report identifies more than 40 developing countries that have done better than expected in human development in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the past 10 years.

Each of these countries has its own unique history and has chosen its own distinct development pathway. Yet they share important characteristics and face many of the same challenges. They are also becoming more interconnected and interdependent. And people throughout the developing world are increasingly demanding to be heard, as they share ideas through new communications channels and seek greater accountability from governments and international institutions.

The 2013 Human Development Report analyses the causes and consequences of the continuing “Rise of the South” and identifies policies rooted in this new reality that could promote greater progress throughout the world for decades to come. The Report calls for far better representation of the South in global governance systems and points to potential new sources of financing within the South for essential public goods. With fresh analytical insights and clear proposals for policy reforms, the Report charts a course for people in all regions to face shared human development challenges together, fairly and effectively.

Every person aspires to a good life. But what does “a good or a better life” mean? This report looks at the most important aspects that shape people’s lives and well-being: income, jobs, housing, health, work and life balance, education, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environment, personal security and subjective well-being. It paints a comprehensive picture of well-being in OECD countries and other major economies, by looking at people’s material living conditions and quality of life across the population. The report responds to the needs of citizens for better information on well-being and of policy makers to give a more accurate picture of societal progress.

The report finds that well-being has increased on average over the past fifteen years: people are richer and more likely to be employed; they enjoy better housing conditions and are exposed to lower air pollution; they live longer and are more educated; they are also exposed to fewer crimes. But differences across countries are large. Furthermore, some groups of the population, particularly less educated and low-income people, tend to fare systematically worse in all dimensions of well-being considered in this report: for instance they live shorter lives and report greater health problems; their children obtain worse school results; they participate less in political activities; they can rely on lower social networks in case of needs; they are more exposed to crime and pollution; they tend to be less satisfied with their life as a whole than more educated and higher-income people.

How’s Life? is part of the OECD Better Life Initiative, launched by the Organization on the occasion of its 50th Anniversary. The OECD Better Life Initiative aims to promote “Better Policies for Better Lives”, in line with the OECD’s overarching mission. One of the other pillars of the OECD Better Life Initiative is the Your Better Life Index (www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org), an interactive composite index of well-being that aims at involving citizens in the debate on societal progress.

Seismic events have convulsed global markets since 2008, when this book was first published, and world news has been full of stories reflecting a profound sense of uncertainty about global futures. In response, this new edition of From Poverty to Power has been fully revised and now includes a new chapter with an in-depth analysis of the human impact of the global financial and food crises.

From Poverty to Power argues that a radical redistribution of power, opportunities, and assets rather than traditional models of charitable or government aid is required to break the cycle of poverty and inequality. Active citizens and effective states are driving this transformation.

Why active citizens? Because people living in poverty must have a voice in deciding their own destiny and holding the state and the private sector to account. Why effective states? Because history shows that no country has prospered without a state structure that can actively manage the development process.

There is now an added urgency: climate change. We need to build a secure, fair, and sustainable world within the limits set by scarce resources and ecological realities.

From Poverty to Power should be read by students, researchers, NGO workers and all those who want to contribute to ending global poverty.

Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB.

Gujarat's macroeconomic growth story has been commented upon. This is not just about a double-digit GSDP growth in the last 10 years. It is also about an even more remarkable double-digit growth in agriculture. However, questions are often raised about this growth. Isn't this just about industry and manufacturing? What about the social sectors? What about deprived segments of the population and deprived geographical areas? Haven't they been bypassed ?

Growth isn't the same as development.

This book isn't about Gujarat's growth alone. It is about development too. It isn't just about vibrant industry. It is also about the perceptible improvement in social sectors, especially noticeable after 2007. It is a story of education and health, water, electricity and roads. It is a story of how these benefits have trickled down and how deprived segments have been main-streamed. That Gujarat model, so to speak, has implications for other States too, since it is about governance, efficient public expenditure, decentralisation and participatory planning. The focus of this book, deliberately not written in an academic style, is to draw attention to that development template. While there can be disagreement about what the Gujarat model represents, and what it does not, and about what made the Gujarat model work, before any debate, there ought to be a statement of the facts. That's what this book sets out to do.

During 2008-2009, the world experienced its worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis followed the effects of the food and fuel price hikes in 2007 and 2008. In 2009, global output contracted by 2 per cent.

This 2011 Report on the World Social Situation reviews the ongoing adverse social consequences of these crises after an overview of its causes and transmission. While a deeper, more pro-longed global recession has been averted by coordinated stimulus measures, the recovery is nonetheless fragile and uneven. The economic slowdown has reduced social spending in most developing countries while the turn to fiscal austerity has undermined social spending in developed countries.

The Report points to the rapid rise in unemployment and vulnerability, especially in developing countries without comprehensive social protection in the wake of the global economic crisis. Tens of millions more people fell into, or were trapped in, extreme poverty because of the global crisis, while the number of people living in hunger in the world rose to over a billion in 2009, the highest on record.

The global economic downturn has had wide-ranging negative social outcomes and set back progress towards achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. Given the fragility of the economic recovery and uneven progress in major economies, social conditions are only expected to recover slowly. The increased levels of poverty, hunger and unemployment will continue to affect billions for years to come.

The Report strongly underscores important lessons from national responses to the global crisis, the importance of inclusive social policies and the need for universal social protection. A key conclusion is that countries need to be able to pursue countercyclical policies in a consistent manner.

The annual Global Employment Trends assesses economic and social developments in global and regional labour markets. Based on the most recently available data and taking into account the macroeconomic context, the report sheds light on employment and unemployment dynamics, providing estimates and short-term projections of employment by sector, vulnerable employment, labour productivity and the working poor, as well as offering analysis of country-level issues and emerging labour market trends. Building on the ILO's Key Indicators of the Labour Market, the report also includes a consistent set of tables with regional and global estimates and projections of these labour market indicators.

Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a deeper jobs crisis reveals a global labour market in severe distress, with one out of three people in the labour market currently either unemployed or poor. The report calls for decisive, coordinated action to reduce the uncertainties that are holding back private investment and to restart the engine of global job creation.

The Asia-Pacific region continues to face a deeply challenging external environment. The V-shaped recovery from the depths of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis in 2010 proved to be short-lived, as the world economy entered the second stage of the crisis in 2011, due to euro zone debt concerns and the continued uncertain outlook for the United States economy. The region will be affected by slackening demand for its exports and higher costs of capital, as well as by loose monetary policies and trade protection measures of some advanced economies.

Despite the slowdown, Asia and the Pacific remains the fastest growing region globally. It also serves as an anchor of stability and has emerged as a growth pole for the world economy. South-South trade with Asia and the Pacific in 2012 will help other developing regions, such as Africa and Latin America, further reduce their dependence on low-growth developed economies.

Another key challenge for the Asia-Pacific region is volatile and high commodity prices, which are likely to become the "new normal" of the global economy. The commodity boom presents risks as well as opportunities. Price shifts will change incentives, but the cautionary message is that less-developed economies should resist the impulse towards commodity specialization, which, in turn, can delay industrialization and economic diversification.

The 2012 edition of the oldest and most comprehensive annual review of development in this vast and diverse region, the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific highlights critical challenges and options for policymakers. These include the need to better manage the balance between growth and inflation; coping with capital flows and exchange rate volatility; addressing jobless growth and unemployment; and tackling serious and growing inequalities.

Turbulence and volatility generate uncertainty. In these challenging times, the Survey 2012 can serve as a important resource to achieve more resilient, inclusive and sustainable development for Asia and the Pacific.

The World Trade Report 2012 ventures beyond tariffs to examine other policy measures that can affect trade. Regulatory measures for trade in goods and services raise new and pressing challenges for international cooperation in the 21st century. More than many other measures, they reflect public policy goals (such as ensuring the health, safety and well-being of consumers) but they may also be designed and applied in a manner that unnecessarily frustrates trade. The focus of this report is on technical barriers to trade (TBT), sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures (concerning food safety and animal/plant health) and domestic regulation in services.

The Report examines why governments use non-tariff measures (NTMs) and services measures and the extent to which these measures may distort international trade. It looks at the availability of information on NTMs and the latest trends concerning usage. The Report also discusses the impact that NTMs and services measures have on trade and examines how regulatory harmonization and/or mutual recognition of standards may help to reduce any trade-hindering effects.

Finally, the Report discusses international cooperation on NTMs and services measures. It reviews the economic rationale for such cooperation and discusses the efficient design of rules on NTMs in a trade agreement. It examines how cooperation has occurred on TBT/SPS measures and services regulation in the multilateral trading system, and within other international forums and institutions. A legal analysis is provided regarding the treatment of NTMs in WTO dispute system and interpretations of the rules that have emerged in recent international trade disputes. The Report concludes with a discussion of outstanding challenges and key policy implications.

One-Page Case Summaries provides a succinct summary of the key findings of every dispute panel report up to the end of 2011 and, where applicable, the subsequent Appellate Body report.

The Guide has been developed to contribute to the enhancement of developing countries’ capacity to analyse and implement trade policy. It is aimed at government expertsengaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research.

This book will be of particular interest to the science, policy, academic and business communities worldwide, as well as to a general audience interested in development and innovation.

The book has indeed come of age, and would become a significant source of work on microfinance and financial inclusion in India. This book is unique in that it combines financial inclusion, microfinance and special financial institutions striving for providing access to financial services to the poor. This aptly timed book will be relevant for the academic world, researchers, policymakers, government, business organisations, not for profit organisations and development thinkers.

Professor J.J. Anjaria presents a lucid overview of the role of the State in Hindu thought and its connection to the modern State. The starting point is Dharma, which in Hinduism furnishes the elegant conceptual framework to understand the universe—and thereby also the nature of political obligation and the purpose of human activity. In particular, Hindu thought sees the State and its rulers as subservient to Dharma.

Prof. Anjaria argues that in modern times State regulation of men and institutions based on birth, power, wealth, or gender will block the fulfillment of the individual’s true aspirations and the development of a harmonious society. He calls for a renewed concept of Dharma, which would allow the State, in a true democracy, to fulfill its crucial role of supporting individual human endeavor. This requires moving away from the old view of Dharma, which over the centuries came to be implemented as a rigid, static set of rules that sought to preserve a status quo.

This work offers fresh insight into ancient Hindu political theory and a new perspective on Prof. Anjaria’s scholarship.

The book is about the times in which we live. The context is the current global economic and financial crisis, caused by human inter-ventions that were bereft of transparency and commitment to sound market discipline. Governments and central banks are groping for quick solutions to assuage the growing anger of societies over the rising economic inequalities, unemployment and inflation.

The need of the hour is to set in place good monetary governance. Monetary governance consists essentially of institutional mechanisms and processes required for sound functioning of the tasks that devolve on Governments and central banks. It focusses on issues relating to the functional area of macroeconomic management. It is distinct from financial governance which deals mainly with portfolio management and asset distribution within the context of the principles and policies laid down by macroeconomic managers.

The book deals with the institutional requirements, the rainbow of interests, the analytics and the international dimensions of monetary governance in detail from the point of view of emerging market economies. Vasudevan argues, the way forward from the present state of policy-disarray lies in bestowing focus on accountability, knowledge-centric information and structural reforms as the points of policy pursuit.

India has come a long way and today the world acknowledges this achievement but much more needs to be done on the ‘human face’ aspects of reforms which has been well covered in various papers in this book.

It is increasingly recognised that to achieve inclusive growth and sustain growth momentum, regional economy is of criti- cal importance. Given the divergence in growth potential, financial developments and inflation across regions in India, studies on regional economies become particularly relevant. This volume makes an attempt to place in public domain select work on various aspects of the regional economy by economists working in the central and regional offices of Reserve Bank of India.

The papers find that while the share of agriculture has shrunk across the states, the share of services has risen sharply. However, industrial growth remains uneven. Urban-rural inequality has worsened. There is a need for concerted action on agricultural growth and infra-structure development besides increasing the penetration of formal financial sector to alleviate the constraints on growth and to control inflation. There is also need to prioritise expenditure towards social sector to develop the quality of the labour force and promote well-being.

This volume is aimed at stimulating further policy-oriented research on various aspects of regional economy as well as contributing to better policymaking.

Under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule led by the charismatic Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Bihar, one of the poorest states in India has seen a spectacular turnaround since 2006 so much so that some see the potential of the next green revolution in India sprouting from this Gangetic plain.

The book, Structural Innovation for Inclusive Development in Bihar: The Navodaya Shahar Model explores this recent resurgence in Bihar and shows that policy options in the medium term are highly limited. The usual route of rural-urban transformation stands blocked and the vast rank of the rural landless continues to swell in this second most populous state in India. Floods of outmigration have provided a safety valve. But unless internal mobility is generated through rapid structural transformation, the human development baseline will not budge, nor will the specter of mass poverty begin to thaw.

This book gives a substantive account of the evolution of the WTO Doha Development Agenda (DDA) Negotiations and the role of developing country coalitions and alliances. The reflections are those of former and current developing country negotiators on their firsthand experience of WTO nego¬tiations. They have explained the mandate for these negotiations, particularly the development dimension; have described the progress including developments at key moments like the WTO Ministerial Confer¬ences in Cancun (2003) and Hong Kong (2005); and have drawn lessons from negotiating strategies and tactics applied to-date by developing countries.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I provides an overview, giving insights on how negotiations on trade and econo¬mic relations are conducted in the multi¬lateral trading system as well as the key points of DDA substantive negotiations and main developing country alliances and coali¬tions. Part II covers the negotiating experi¬ence on specific subjects in the Doha Round including cross-cutting issues. Finally, Part III deals with coalition building efforts by developing countries and the impact of these coalitions on the negotiations.

The sixteen chapters included in the publication give a rich resume of increasing and more effective developing country participation in the WTO. Authors have brought to fore the twists and turns of the decade long Doha Round, often based on their own experience and perspectives. Such intimate insights are rarely found in the existing literature on the WTO negotia¬tions. Authors have also offered suggestions to unlock the stalemate in the DDA and reach a balanced and development-friendly conclusion.

The development of independent India from an agrarian stage to a modern economy began in the early 1950s. After the first four decades of planning, India embarked upon a series of economic and financial sector reforms in the early 1990s. While India has continually been undergoing a socio-economic and structural transformation, its economic growth has accelerated in the past two decades. Since 2004, it has been on an even higher growth trajectory. This pocket book from EPW Research Foundation captures these trends and patterns, from data sets for a variety of social and economic indicators and presents them in a compact manner in both discrete and continuous annual series. The five major components of data sets are: Macro Economy, Social Sector, Infrastructure, Profile of States and International Comparison. It is a quick and handy reference tool for academics, executives, students and researchers and for anybody interested in the saga of India’s development.

This book indicates several novel opportunities for new investments that can catalyse the development process of the NER with special focus on agriculture and tries to propagate a new principle on the promotion of sustainable agriculture while conserving the biodiversity.

Choong Yong Ahn is a distinguished Professor of Graduate School of International Studies at Chung-Ang University, Korea. He is also a Foreign Investment Ombudsman at Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency.

Pravakar Sahoo is an Associate Professor at Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), Delhi University, India. Prior to joining IEG as Associate Professor (February 2009), he was working as senior fellow in Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi.

Rapid capacity additions and improved efficiencies in electricity generation, transmission and distribution, are still absent or inadequate. The Electricity Act, 2003 introduced concepts not formally recognised earlier—competition in electricity, safeguarding consumer interests, encouraging investment, captive generation, merchant power, electricity trading, electricity exchanges and markets, consumer choice, open access to transmission and distribution wires, tariff-based bidding and independent Central and state regulatory commissions. Measures were also introduced to promote larger capacity generation, guarantee coal availability and encourage renewable energy. This volume helps to improve understanding of the ways in which these ideas were implemented and can be used.

THIS book draws on the work of thinkers and doers throughout the world who have grappled with the challenge of planning complex institutions, especially health systems and development projects. Their problem: Conventional planning methods often do not work. The solution: Involve all the key stakeholders in making the plan. The challenge: Devise a planning system that the principals and stakeholders can trust, and that is inclusive, balanced and dynamic.

Facilitated participatory planning (or FPP) is a new way of planning for a world that is complex, competitive, and fast-changing; a world where managers, staff and other stakeholders must have their say and own the ideas for any plan to work. This book charts the evolution of FPP from pioneer concepts of awareness, empowerment, learning-by-doing, visualisation, creative group processes, and incremental questions into a complete and up-to-date system of principles and techniques. It carries case studies that show how FPP has been used successfully where other planning methods have failed.

To mitigate, develop and improve the lives of those vulnerable to intense natural disasters, climate change and food insecurity, many agencies are funding and implementing diverse activities from reconstruction to rehabilitation. In particular, mid-to long-term interventions, strategies, and practical approaches are being designed and adopted to build the resilience of the poor. This book presents the lessons and impacts from a collection of these projects, describing concepts, strategies, processes, and tools in such a way that they can be easily replicated and shared with a wider audience. It describes valuable practical experiences and lessons from the field, capturing a range of diverse interventions from implementing agencies involved in post-disaster rehabilitation.

Part 1 presents an overview of the coastal threats and post-tsunami issues faced by the coastal communities of South Asia. Part 2 examines the concept of risk reduction and, in doing so, brings together the focal elements of resilience, mitigation and adaptation. Part 3 describes the pathways for building the capacity of vulnerable communities to withstand and rebuild from natural disasters. Part 4 presents real-life stories of how post-disaster rehabilitation and resilience-building projects have led to positive change at the community level.

In this timely book—a festschrift for Dr. C. Rangarajan—top experts, policymakers and economists offer their assessments of India’s performance in the area of economic and financial reforms and analyse the successes and continued challenges. It provides an insight into critical macroeconomic and macro-finance issues of today. The book covers a broad set of topics, including fiscal, monetary and external sector policies, drivers of banking and financial growth, infrastructure and financial inclusion.

A strategy of gradual economic liberalisation combined with risk-averse prudential regulation in the banking and financial sector helped limit India’s exposure to the recent financial crises and the subsequent global economic slowdown. The improved economic performance in recent years encouraged the country to become more globally and regionally integrated. This process is unlikely to be reversed by the current global economic slowdown, given the economic and strategic benefits India has derived so far.

The authors in this festschrift share a critical, but overall positive, view of the country’s future and outline several areas and recommendations for bettering the lives of citizens. Empirically rich and topically diverse, the book is broad in scope and full of deep analytic insights and will serve as a useful reference and planning tool for administrators, planners, policymakers and students of development economics, monetary economics and finance.

Reconnecting Britain and India: Ideas for an Enhanced Partnership”
seeks to survey the main features of a diverse and complex bilateral relationship. As the shadows of the colonial period fade into history, this book aims to analyse the scope for a new relationship that recognises the role the UK can play in India’s quest for international stature. Original essays from more than three dozen thought-leaders from the worlds of academia, business, politics and the arts assess the potential for the two countries to forge an ‘enhanced partnership’, the objective set out by the two prime ministers, Manmohan Singh and David Cameron during the latter’s 2010 visit to India.

By 2040, over half of India's population will live in cities and towns. How many of them will live in slums? To prevent intense migration pressure on the handful of metros and state capitals and the resulting urban dehumanisation, policymakers must urgently focus on reviving India's small towns and big villages. Yet, most small town municipalities are in shambles; they lack resources, planning, data, maps, incentives and proper accounting. Corruption and power politics dog them, and citizens have no say or role in their running.

This book looks at the kaleidoscope of municipal finance issues in India, keeping the small towns at the core, and argues for a radical change in the constitution and working of these municipalities, with effective devolution of funds, functions, and functionaries from the state level. It contends that municipal bodies need to function independently and with real participation of citizens to be the force of change that gives birth to a new urban India.

Future belongs to Asia. Already a major transition of wealth and power from the West to the East is being witnessed as never before. Asia could withstand the economic Tsunami which engulfed most of the developed world in 2008. Asian powers like China and India are being envisaged as the drivers of the future global economy. On the other hand, Asia is also facing major security challenges. How Asian states continue with the present pace of their economic growth and simultaneously deal with myriad international security threats is an intriguing question for the world at large.

Bringing together a pool of renowned international experts, the book deals with the potential drivers of future change in Asia like economic growth, climate change, demographics, urbanisation, migration, resource competition, technology, military modernisation, globalisation, nationalism and identity politics, radical movements, extremism and terrorism, and great power competition. It not only attempts to describe the future for Asia in 2030, but also offers exciting alternative future scenarios.

Indian agriculture is at cross-roads. At one end, is the problem of ecologically unsound public policies which have led to deep ecological distress. On the other, despite large number of nutrition safety net programmes introduced by Central and state governments, India still remains the home for the largest number of malnourished children and adults in the world. The need of the hour is to convert the green revolution into an ‘evergreen revolution’ by mainstreaming the principles of ecology in technology development and dissemination. India also urgently needs to focus on developing a sustainable and equitable food security system.

Authored by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, a world scientist of rare distinction and a living legend, this book stresses on considering the problem of food production holistically. Evergreen revolution along with small farm management revolution are hence the most important ingredients for hunger-free India movement. Swaminathan’s consistent point has been, “rather than predicting the future, it is our job to shape it.”

After a long career in central banking, the distinguished economist S.S. Tarapore has been writing columns in financial dailies. There was a felt need to reach out to a wider audience in a regional language. During the period October 2005-August 2008, he turned to writing a regular column in the widely circulating Gujarati newspaper, the Divya Bhaskar. This volume brings to the English speaking readers, for the first time, his writings in the Divya Bhaskar on monetary, fiscal, banking and external sector management, but essentially from the viewpoint of the aam aadmi. The volume would be of interest to the general reader who wishes to stay abreast of developments in financial policies and it would also be of interest to policymakers, opinion makers, bankers, academics and students.

Assumptions and Conventions

Preface

Joint Foreword to World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability Report

Executive Summary

Chapter 1. Global Prospects and Policies

Chapter 2. Country and Regional Perspectives

Chapter 3. Unemployment Dynamics during Recessions and Recoveries: Okun’s Law and Beyond

Chapter 4. Getting the Balance Right: Transitioning out of Sustained Current Account Surpluses

Capitals of big countries like India are supposed to have a Long View of their world. Does Delhi have one? The US government, when presented with a Long View from Washington by Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute in the early seventies is supposed to have protested “But they employed only three people for the study.” Kahn replied “True, but that was three more than the government employed to look at the future”. Laymen imagine that those in the lofty reaches of government spend time in contemplation, brainstorming where their societies will be two decades hence. Disappointed they are when they learn that politicians drive policy more to ensure re-election four years later, than to shape their environment. They say they have no choice.

This book, the first such attempt, by Menon and Kumar, uses the Net Assessment Method to write the scenarios India will be confronted with in 2020. Policy, they feel, should address scenarios, that will inevitably evolve from myriad complex drivers. Scenarios cannot be created: only God does that. Menon and Kumar follow a transparent method to build, brick by brick, three scenarios that India could face, comparing them to three others evolved by the United States National Intelligence Council and by a group of Indian practitioners. The book closes with a possible Grand Strategy of Foreign Policy that will leave readers in India, and abroad with a clearer understanding of the choices that await a rising India.

This book is one of the first of its kind on socioeconomic aspects of agricultural biotechnology in the country. It covers a range of issues relating to potential, performance and concerns regarding biotechnology in India and offers valuable suggestions for policymaking. The debate on biotechnology so far focused mainly on the likely risks instead of objectively assessing the technology on a case-by-case basis to come out with suitable policy implications.

The present book attempts to fill this serious gap by discussing the nature and organisation of biotechnology, present pattern of product development, concerns for poverty reduction arising from the nature and pattern of product development and the performance of the first biotech product in the country viz., Bt cotton. It uses the results of two longitudinal surveys conducted in all the cotton growing agro-climatic zones of Andhra Pradesh and employs a conceptual framework to bring out the performance of this technology.

The essays in this book, Regional Disparities, Smaller States and Statehood for Telangana, written on different occasions over a period of four decades reflect the understanding and vision of the author with regard to the complex issues of regional disparities and emerging regional tensions, and the revival of the demands for the creation of smaller states.

The author observes that inter-state and intra-state disparities in development have not only persisted but have even increased in certain cases especially where backward regions do not have the necessary political clout in decision-making regarding public investment and provision of jobs. This has led to regional tensions and persistent demands for carving out separate states consisting of such backward areas. Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are some recent examples.

The need to reduce regional disparities in development has emerged as one of the biggest challenges in the post-reform period. According to Professor Rao, to ensure greater accountability for the development of backward regions in bigger states, it may be desirable to constitute Regional Development Boards and, where necessary, to carve out separate states comprising some of the backward regions. As early as 1969, he had argued for the economic viability of a separate Telangana state, “There is every reason to believe that separation would create conditions for the proper development of material as well as human resources of the region.”

The book is of great relevance today in view of the renewed interest in the subject.

Putting the right infrastructure is critical to India’s plans for inclusive growth. Increasingly, responsibilities for infrastructure development will be decentralised to the local governments, whether rural or urban. There is now an increasingly urgent need for large-scale environmental improvement programmes and for strengthening governance and the capacity of local institutions to plan, implement, and finance infrastructure provision and service delivery.

Building from the Bottom: Infrastructure and Poverty Alleviation provides critical insights into infrastructure governance from different angles—policy making, urban and rural aspects, technology, connectivity, capacity building and participation. Some of the most distinguished scholars and practitioners have contributed to this volume that encapsulates the key issues in mainstreaming poverty alleviation strategies in infrastructure programmes. Some important questions it seeks to answer are: How can we ensure infrastructure access and affordability for the poor? What are the implications for development planning and decision-making processes? What are the financing options? The book also contains a number of best practice case studies to reflect community participation, innovation and commitment, all vital ingredients to the process of building from the bottom.

The book will serve as a useful reference and planning tool for administrators, planners, policymakers and researchers of development economics.

The strategic partnership between India and Russia was signed during the visit of President Putin to India in the year 2000. Since then, the Indo-Russian relationship has diversified enormously and today it is uniquely strong and also expanding in the areas of defence, nuclear energy, hydrocarbons, space research and in science & technology. This relationship is based on a strong national consensus in both countries that has cut across ideologies or political differences. Although differences arise over certain issues on certain occasions, the overall parallelism in the Indo-Russian relationship definitely symbolises the trust that still exists between them.

India and Russia have now reached a stage where the economies of both the countries are resurgent and at the same time diversifying. Both economies are developing significantly to provide a good base for expanding business contacts and promoting new projects. Nonetheless, in spite of accelerated growth and immense opportunities, statistics show that business transaction is much less than the potential which exists between them. On the whole, it is necessary to publicise the positive experiences and growth of both countries, which will help people in both countries to orient themselves to the present realities and will boost bilateral cooperation in various fields.

With these aspects as a backdrop, this book India-Russia Strategic Partnership: Challenges and Prospects has been conceived. This book is an outcome of the research papers presented during the conference held at Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, India, along with the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The book covers a wide spectrum of issues and concerns related to India-Russia Strategic Partnership, and outlines various challenges and prospects for developing this relationship further. An attempt has been made here to contextualise the debate in a more cogent form.

Today more than ever it is evident that financial organizations that fail to heed the principles of sound financial management will rapidly find themselves in trouble. Over ten years ago, Robert Peck Christen observed this in the context of microfinance programs burgeoning in the late 1990's. His concern spurred the writing of this manual.

Developed to help microfinance program administrators manage for financial success, this best-selling manual today still offers practical and clear applications of traditional financial topics to microfinance institutions.

In this manual, Christen addresses interest rate policy, management of assets and liabilities, capital and portfolio risk, and strategic financial planning—all key issues for microfinance institutions and all important for the donors, consultants, and regulators who work regularly with microfinance institutions to understand. The manual presents the theoretical framework along with numerous examples, allowing the reader to deepen his or her understanding of the subject matter.

Today more than ever it is evident that financial organizations that fail to heed the principles of sound financial management will rapidly find themselves in trouble. Over ten years ago, Robert Peck Christen observed this in the context of microfinance programs burgeoning in the late 1990's. His concern spurred the writing of this manual.

Developed to help microfinance program administrators manage for financial success, this best-selling manual today still offers practical and clear applications of traditional financial topics to microfinance institutions.

In this manual, Christen addresses interest rate policy, management of assets and liabilities, capital and portfolio risk, and strategic financial planning—all key issues for microfinance institutions and all important for the donors, consultants, and regulators who work regularly with microfinance institutions to understand. The manual presents the theoretical framework along with numerous examples, allowing the reader to deepen his or her understanding of the subject matter.

The Uttarakhand Development Report review the experience of Uttarakhand and highlights issues critical for the State's development in the years ahead. The report is expected to be an important document and will impart value for development practitioners interested in the state and act as a road map for accelerated growth in the future has decided to prepare State Development Reports (SDRs) for all States and Union Territories. The purpose of bringing out these reports is to provide quality reference document of the development profile of the States. The SDRs aim at spelling out the constraints and challenges facing the States and suggest blueprints for their overall progress and prosperity.

Vijay Laxman Kelkar has been one of the most creative, contemplative and versatile public policy makers of India. Whether it has been articulating a vision for the role of markets and government, or stressing for the importance of a sound public sector balance sheet, or arguing for tax reform and fiscal federalism, or making simple and sound policies through consensus, his contributions are non-parallel. The essays in this festschrift are by some of the leading economists, bankers and policy planners of India. While saluting his visionary role in the government, they also provide an insight into some current and critical macroeconomic and finance issues. The writings cover a broad set of topics, among them fiscal, monetary and external sector policies, infrastructure, financial inclusion and education.

This volume commemorates the conferring of the Skoch Challenger Lifetime Achievement Award 2010 on Dr. Kelkar for his unique contributions to the Indian economy in general and his key role in financial sector reforms process in particular. This timely book will appeal to policy makers, political scientists, economists and other social scientists conducting research and teaching courses in political economy, fiscal and monetary policy, development studies, public policy and governance.

India grapples with the paradox of endemic backwardness in over 200 districts while certain sections and sectors are moving at a pace that is making global headlines. This report on “Creating Vibrant Public-Private-Panchayat Partnership (PPPP) for Inclusive Growth through Inclusive Governance” presents some new perspectives and solutions by bringing together the local governance agenda through the Panchayati Raj, the issue of agricultural development which influences the livelihoods of a vast majority of Indians, and the role that the business sector could play in rural transformation. It presents case studies which show that partnership models which could ensure an income of over Rs.25,000 per annum on 0.5 hectare plots are feasible even in the context of a highly hostile eco-environment.

In view of its cross-cutting theme, this crisp report is a ‘must read’ for policy makers and practitioners in the area of pro-poor growth, rural development, local governance and public-private partnership.

This book in your hands, I Can Do Financial Planning, is a valuable addition to the several ongoing efforts of the Reserve Bank towards enhancing financial literacy. It is aimed at youth who are just about getting into jobs and careers, and who will have to wade through a complex array of financial products and make judgements. It is an attempt towards educating the readers on the importance of thrift and equipping them with the skills of planning and budgeting for a financially secure future. Written in an easy style and simple language with live examples, the book’s central message is that people can improve their financial security through defining their financial goals, then drawing up and implementing a savings and investment plan to achieve those goals.

Jobless growth is a major concern in today’s world. Over and above, employment becomes the first casualty of financial crises that seem to occur almost in a periodic manner. How well the countries have mainstreamed employment in their macro strategies? How coherent are the macro policies that countries follow from the perspective of centrality of Decent Work in the context of investment and growth?

The volume scans the macro-economic settings of the seven countries of South Asian subregion that include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and explores how well the macro economic strategies pursued by these countries cohere with the Decent Work objectives.

The papers contributed by various authors in this volume present elaborate research based empirical information and analyses for the readers, researchers, policy makers and multilateral institutions.

The analytical import in this volume also provides a perspective on globalization. Are these countries reaping the benefits of this process? Is globalization helping in achieving the Decent Work goals? The book raises many issues and opens up wide areas of debate.

The present volume makes an important contribution to the rich literature on impact of trade reforms on growth and employment by undertaking an indepth investigation into relevant issues in the context of the developing economy of Bangladesh. The study tracks and investigates the various phases of trade reforms pursued by Bangladesh over the past years. By applying appropriate analytical and estimation techniques, the study captures how and to what extent trade reforms have impacted on growth of manufacturing sector of the country during the various stages of the reforms and how employment scenarios have changed in labour-intensive and export-oriented sectors of the country over the corresponding periods as a consequence of the reforms. The book argues that further trade reforms should be guided by concerns of employment creation and should be tailored to the demands of accelerated industrial growth as Bangladesh enters into a heightened pace of global integration of her economy.

Developed country experts on international affairs and the global economy have consistently underestimated the speed with which China’s economy and power would rise relative to Germany, Japan and the USA. They are now similarly underestimating the speed at which India’s economy will close the economic size and power gaps. This book shows, why and how a tri-polar global power structure will emerge from the current confused system variously described as ‘multipolar’, ‘apolar’, ‘pluripolar’, ‘West and the rest’ and ‘unipolar with an oligopolistic fringe’. The Book goes on to draw out the implications and consequences of this evolving global power structure and makes suggestions on the policy options that need to be explored and pursued to increase the possibility of a peaceful transformation .

These essays have wide-ranging themes on different aspects of socio-economic development. All of them were written during the last four decades and some were published in well-known national and international journals like Economic and Political Weekly, International Journal of Development Banking in India, American Economic Review (USA), Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Economics and Statistics (UK) and KYKLOS (Europe). Some others were published in the publications of international institutes like United Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The context in which these essays were written (as others in author's develop-ment perspectives) is indicated in his latest book Perspectives on Development: Memoirs of a Development Economist (Academic Foundation, 2008).

The South Asia Economics Students' Meet is a unique platform created in 2003-04 to give young undergraduate students of Economics an opportunity to interact academically and discuss important contemporary economic issues pertaining to South Asia. The papers in this volume were presented at the 5th Meet, held in Delhi in March 2008, on the theme “Economic Challenges to Make South Asia Free from Poverty and Deprivation.”

This collection of papers is special in several ways. It is topical; it not only reiterates the capabilities of the young contributors, it also reflects the quality of teaching and academics on the sub-continent. The youth of the contributors is well compensated by their intellectual maturity. This volume is the repository of the hope and effort that we have invested in our students, and in our future. It will give the reader some idea of the capabilities of our ‘future economists'.

Agriculture production and farm incomes in India are frequently affected by weather and climatic aberrations like droughts, floods, cyclone, frost, storms, land slides, etc. Outbreak of epidemics, fire, and market fluctuations are the other factors which seriously affect production and farm income. All these events are beyond the control of the farmers. With the growing commercialisation of agriculture, the magnitude of shock due to unfavourable eventualities is increasing and the need to protect farmers against production and income losses is becoming stronger. Agricultural insurance is considered an important mechanism to effectively address the risk to output and income resulting from various natural and manmade events. Despite various schemes launched from time to time, agricultural insurance in India has not made much headway even though the need to protect country’s farmers from agricultural variability has been a continuing concern of agriculture policy. This book examines the genesis of agricultural insurance in India and discusses various agricultural insurance schemes launched in the country from time to time and the coverage provided by them. The book also looks into the role of government in implementing various agricultural insurance schemes and suggest effective agriculture insurance programme for India.

The South Asian Yearbook of Trade and Development is an annual series of publication launched by the Centre for Trade and Development (Centad) New Delhi, India in 2005, with the primary objective of articulating debates on development impacts of trade through rigorous policy research and analysis. The Yearbook is envisaged as a comprehensive collection of research papers, which attempt to reflect the South Asian perspectives at the multilateral and regional trade negotiations and provides policy suggestions for the trade negotiators and policy makers of the region

The South Asian region is becoming increasingly prominent as an economic power house on the world stage particularly as India's economic prowess expands at a breath-taking pace....The value of this yearbook is that it examines the challenges the region is facing in this process of growth, and provides policy makers, business and civil society groups an opportunity to pause and reflect on how the potential in the region can be shaped for the betterment of all... commendable that Centas's tackled these challenges from a development perspective in this yearbook.

The International Civil Service of the United Nations is not fully aligned with the compelling demands of the 21st century. Once reputed as one of the most attractive organisations to work due to its noble objectives, global outreach, and attractive conditions of service, the world body has been fast losing its lustre and pulling power and its ability to perform. As a result, the organisation has been sustaining loss in its ability to deliver on its principles, purposes and mandates in a timely, efficient and effective fashion and in its good will, image and reputation. If it does not pursue far-reaching reforms urgently, particularly in the area of human resource management (HRM), the United Nations will surely decline and become irrelevant not too far into the future.

This book identifies strategic issues facing the HRM of the world body, analyses their impacts on its performance, suggests remedies to address these lacunas and proposes measures to make the entity competitive, efficient, and effective. It tells you where you need to strengthen UN's HRM, where to make cutbacks, and where to remove duplication and overlaps. Frequent references to the HRM of the European Commission and national governments gives a refreshing taste of best practices. This volume will make an interesting read for general readers and a great source of information for experts and professionals. In particular, it is a must-read for politicians and diplomats as a reference source, for UN staff to have a better perspective of their HRM, and for academics and students of international relations, diplomacy and political science in universities and colleges as a textbook and reference material. There is a special chapter to assist prospective new entrants seeking a career with the United Nations.

Community participation or people's participation in the process of development has entered into development lexicon permanently in the past 50 years. New methods, tools and approaches (variously called as Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) or its earlier incarnation Rapid Rural Appraisal) to enlist people's participation, have been invented, improvised and developed by development practitioners and academicians all over the world.

This book is an unique exercise in exploration and synthesis, demonstrating and documenting the experiments which have revealed that the participatory tools, methods and approaches can be very efficiently used in several fields of human exploration, including organisation and institutional development, action research (on the need to adopt an inter-sectoral approach to dealing with development issues, on hunger, participatory poverty assessment, bio-diversity conservation and conflict resolution over sharing of resources), macro-policy evaluation and democratic processes. Each chapter, dealing with these issues, describes both the process followed in the application of participatory tools and methods in the respective field and the synthesis of the theory of participation with practice as well. The book will be an invaluable guide to practitioners, researchers, academicians and students of development economics and poverty planning.

Demographic processes and health outcomes are highly gendered in India. At the same time, studies on the impact of gender on demography and health issues are scarce and the impact of demographic changes on gender is nearly nonexistent. Mere recognition of the gender issues does not provide policy guidance to make appropriate changes in the programmes. This calls for innovative methods to understand demographic changes, health scenario and gender systems and also a critical analysis of various public interventions. India is also experiencing rapid demographic changes in recent years which will have definite implications for demographic pattern, gender system, health progress and governmental policies and programmes. There are several policy and programmatic interventions to generate conducive demographic and health changes through gender equity.

This volume brings together contributions from scholars on demographic changes, gender and health system and health policies and programmes in India. It highlights achievements and challenges facing the country in the area of population, gender and health in different settings. It also brings up new methods of analysing the relationship. This volume, undoubtedly, will be a useful guide to students, researchers and policy makers in India and across the world.

The importance of Uttar Pradesh in India's socio-political firmament is never overstated. That evolves naturally on account of a variety factors, which includes its position as the most populous State in the country and the consequent influence wielded by its people and their leadership in the nation's polity. This unique status has been the subject of consistent debate among the political class as well as the academia. The studies and reflections in this volume, Uttar Pradesh: The Road Ahead, advances this debate addressing a number of specific issues from historical, contemporary and futuristic perspectives. The components of the volume were first presented in a two-day national seminar conducted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in 2008.

Central to this volume is the churning that manifold manifestations of identity politics brought to Uttar Pradesh since the mid-1980s, the seemingly never-ending political instability that it imposed as well as the possibilities and problems that the stability verdict of 2007 offers to the State. These issues are addressed by experts in the fields of politics, economics, sociology, governance and public administration.

Scaling-up access to finance for India’s rural poor presents a formidable developmental challenge in a country as vast and varied as India. It was in this context that Skoch Development Foundation undertook the first-ever nationwide multi-stakeholder study entitled "National Study on Speeding Financial Inclusion". This study sought to collate primary research based on our grassroots experiences from several project sites and field visits; and, views from all stakeholders so as to arrive at key interventions and intermediations to speed up the process of financial inclusion, and thereby poverty alleviation. Apart from providing key recommendations in the form of a roadmap to speed up the process of financial inclusion, the study also sought to determine the viability and cost-effectiveness of the Business Correspondent (BC) model and has identified several options to make the model viable.

The idea of trilateral cooperation between Russia-India-China, launched in the 1990s, has been growing from strength-to-strength. The track one and half dialogue, which began with the meeting of the Foreign Ministers, culminated at the gathering of the heads of states of the three countries. Since 2001, experts, scholars and diplomats have met to demarcate areas of collaboration in various sectors. Trade and economic sector and energy security are the vital area for cooperation as all the three countries have registered the fastest growth rates in the world. They are equally concerned with issues of disarmament and non-proliferation. Conscious of the damage being caused to natural resources, Russia, India and China have sought to address the issue of restoring the environment and tackling climate change.

While there are differences among these three countries, the areas where their interests converge are several. They hold similar views on multilateralism, giving primacy of place to a multi-polar world order, the need to democratise international relations and develop a just international system. They hold similar perspectives on the emerging threat of terrorism, the importance of promoting the regional cooperative mechanism to address the problems faced by the region, the challenges posed by globalisation, as well as new threats like the current financial crisis that have effected them to some degree or other.

The evolving relationship between India, the US and China is generally regarded by scholars of international relations as among the key features, perhaps even the most crucial one, that will shape the geopolitical contours of the emerging international political landscape in the twenty-first century.

Written by a scholar and academician who for long years served as a career diplomat and hence a practitioner of international relations, the book meticulously analyses each strand of the mutual bilateral relations of the three countries, including their troubled past and uncertain present, to unravel clues for the possible future course of their relationship

Ultimately, this book is aimed at an informing its readers – scholars and laypersons alike - about the forces at work in the evolving saga of the triangular relationship between the world’s most powerful nation, the world’s largest nation and the world’s largest democracy.

This volume offers an in-depth comparative analysis of FDI policies pursued by India and China since opening up. The nature, type, sources and direction of inflows to both the countries have been analysed exhaustively. It is an incisive and comprehensive work which brings to fore the key differences in their policy framework, approaches and the implementation strategies. The far reaching impact of FDI on trade, transfer of techno-logy and employment generation has been examined critically. It also explores the reasons for skewed regional distribution of FDI in both the countries.

The book articulates the role played by pragmatic policy, developed infrastructure and conducive operating environment in driving massive FDI flows into China. The author convincingly advocates reorientation of Indian policies relating to development of infrastructure for export-oriented labour-intensive manufacture, labour laws regime and vesting of authority for investment approval in favour of state governments to accelerate the pace of FDI inflows. The conclusions are based on rich empirical evidence supported by statistical backup. The book contains cogent and compelling arguments and interesting insights. It will prove useful to policy planners, researchers, academicians and students of international trade.

This book of late Manu Shroff contains his assorted articles and lectures on different aspects of the Indian economy in its transition from the highly interventionist regime to a liberalised open economic system and also some international issues which had a bearing on the Indian economy. The first part of the book focuses on the variegated dimensions of the Indian economic landscape in its current phase when his articles were published and in prospect. This imparts to his writings certain freshness, individuality and timeless relevance. The second part addresses the international repercussions of economic development with emphasis on capital flows, international monetary issues and globalisation which all radicalised the approach to economic policy as distinct from the autarky which characterised the period up to 1980s.

The IDSA Working Group on Security Implications of Climate Change for India felt that while it would be proper to oppose the securitisation of climate change, it would be prudent not to ignore its likely security dimensions. The Working Group Report identifies India's key vulnerabilities. Future projections of surface warming over India indicate that the annual mean area averaged surface warming is likely to be between 2 degrees and 3 degrees celcius and 3.5 and 5.5 degrees celcius by the middle and end of 21st century respectively. Trends in sea level rise indicate a possible rise between 1.06 to 2.75 mm per year. Every 1.0 degree rise in temperature would reduce wheat production by 4 to 5 million tonnes. Water scarcity will threaten food supplies in India. A quarter of our biodiversity could be lost.

The Working Group felt that climate change cannot be delinked from the overall energy security and economic growth. The National Action Plan on Climate Change is a good beginning but its time-bound implementation needs to be ensured. India needs to improve energy efficiency in the industrial, household and transport sectors. The Working Group also looked at the possible adverse impact on the strategy and tactics of Indian armed forces. India should use climate change as an opportunity to make socio-economic development more sustainable.

As the world witnesses a flux in the nuclear world order—in terms of civilian nuclear energy as well as non-proliferation regime and legitimacy of nuclear weapons, India has a cautious path to tread to achieve its energy security, nuclear security and make its disarmament calls more plausible and practical. The challenges before the global nuclear order have vindicated India’s position and bestowed it with an opportunity to play a more confident and active role in reshaping the world—towards a more reliable, democratic and universal non-proliferation regime, preventing nuclear terrorism, forming a better architecture for civilian nuclear trade, and finally to evolve practical and universal steps towards comprehensive disarmament. This insightful book, with contributions by leading experts on the nuclear issue in India, covers all such important aspects and provides robust analysis of the global nuclear order in terms of its implications for India and global disarmament.

The existing space regime is facing new challenges as a result of the recent advances in space techno-logy and the emergence of space security is a critical dimension in national security calculus. This necessitates a proactive approach and a comprehensive space policy.

This volume is an attempt in this direction to sensitise experts, policy makers and interested general audiences about the developments and debates in this area and their implications for India. The objective of this report, prepared by a Working Group comprising leading experts in the field is to provide a multi-disciplinary analysis including the technological, legal, political, diplomatic, and security dimensions.

The Indian Government took the historic step of launching the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in December 2005 with a view to give fillip to urban infrastructure development in 65 major cities by mobilising Rs.50,000 crore from the Central budget and by getting a matching Rs.50,000 crore from the State governments and the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). The response to JNNURM has been very good. As a consequence, projects costing Rs.95,385 crore have already been sanctioned and are under various stages of implementation. This book reveals the nuances and thinking behind the JNNURM, its implementation and status on the ground and suggests the way forward. The current urban reform process undoubtedly offers tremendous opportunities to rethink economic and development priorities. This book is timely given the re-affirmed commitment of the government to urban development. It is an essential read for all interested in policy, planning, urban develop-ment and renewal issues.

India runs the world's oldest and one of the most comprehensive affirmative action policies in the form of reservations or quotas for its disadvantaged sections. Ever since its adaptation, this critical public policy remains the most controversial and polarising public policy that the Independent India has adopted as yet. While much of the national preoccupation over reservation have been devoted to debate its necessity and relevance in addressing exclusion and inequality, the country still seems to lack a data-based understanding of its enforcement across different domains. How earnestly state and its agencies have enforced the reservation policies? We know less about the trends of implementation in different domains and how or what percentage of population among these social groups have benefited from it. Fact is there are very few credible research studies on the issue of affirmative policies in India. This publication is an attempt to fill some of the void by compiling data on key domains of reservation policy apart from flagging crucial issues relating to linkages among the three key domains of reservations, namely, higher education, employment, and political representation. A comparison of all three domains in terms of implementation of reservation policies, across different time periods (e.g., pre- and post-Mandal phases) and among different regions, provides useful insights about these linkages. In doing so, the work throws some critical insights on the processes at work, and identifies areas for further research.

This book begins with an in-depth reappraisal of Keynes, the prime architect of modern economics and many-sided genius who towered as a preceptor, economic statesman, institutional architect and progenitor of the IMF and the World Bank. It addresses the core question: In what sense was there a Keynesian Revolution? It also reviews the least known aspects of Keynes as a civil servant, as a social philosopher, and pro bono activist in causes of conscience.

The second part comprises assorted essays that analyse significant themes of finance, development and central banking as well as the defining aspects of colonial Indian economic history. It evaluates the mainsprings of economic growth, taking account of the contribution of Arthur Lewis, the Nobel Laureate and evaluates the political economy of aid. It argues the case for a constitutionally independent Federal Reserve Bank of India. It has an archival essay on an American economist, Ralph Whitenack, who figures as modern India’s pioneer economic adviser. It surveys the interface between economics and philosophy, including the economic philoso-phy of Joan Robinson, the eminent British economist and presents an agenda for inter-disciplinary collaboration.

THE volume covers a wide spectrum of topics ranging from monetary policy and financial stability to globalisation and economic growth and social development. The essay on "Financial Stability" though written much before the current crisis, had anticipated many of the issues that are being debated today. The essay on "Monetary Policy" argues that maintaining price stability should be the dominant objective of monetary policy. The essay on "Globalisation" points out that India should seek to wrest maximum advantages from globalisation by identifying the comparative advantages that India possesses. In the essay “Economic Growth and Social Development”, the author pleads for an approach that weaves equity and efficiency into a coherent pattern of growth. Economic growth and social development are the two legs on which a nation should walk. Ignoring any one leg will only mean that the nation will limp along.

The book is divided into four sections: Monetary Policy and Fiscal Issues; Growth and Development; Sectoral Issues – Industry, Power, Banking and Agriculture; and External Sector and Globalisation. The book contains in all 25 essays and should interest a wide cross section of audience.

Why have the least developed countries, and other poorer countries, failed to grow as fast as other economies during recent period of globalisation?

Professor Srinivasan explores the broad links between growth in income, globalisation, and poverty reduction. He argues that past domestic and international policies have failed to serve the interests of the poorest countries, and suggests that the current array of international institution, in their unreformed state, are ill-suited to bring about the change required.

Finally he makes recommendations on needed reforms to the institutions that manage the global economic system.

This is the final report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, which was set up by the Government of India on 20th September 2004 under the chairmanship of Dr. Arjun K. Sengupta to "review the status of unorganized/informal sector in India including the nature of enterprises, their size, spread and scope, and magnitude of employment." This was the first step taken towards fulfilling the commitment of the new UPA government to ensure "the welfare and well-being of all workers, particularly those in the unorganised sector, who constitute more than 93% of our workforce" (likely to be around 502 million by 2012 as the Commission estimates).

During the four and a half year of its existence, the Commission examined in detail all the literature and statistical evidence that exists on this sector, held numerous consultations with different stakeholders, such as government officials and policy makers at the Centre and in the States, trade unions and associations of workers representatives, civil society organisations, academics and experts. This final report on 'The Challenge of Employment in India: An Informal Economy Perspective' is now presented as an overarching report based on all the earlier work of the Commission, to provide a perspective and strategy for expanding employment in India. The report takes an aggregative perspective of what the Commission calls the central problem of the challenge of employment namely, deficit in its quantity and quality. The comprehensive report also examines the issue of labour market reforms in India.

Indian agriculture has been facing one of the worst crises since Independence. The contribution of agriculture to national income is declining at a faster pace compared to the percentage of population depending on it. The trends in profitability are not consistent across the years, which is a typical character of agriculture. A number of studies have tried to examine and understand the reasons; important ones include technological, environmental, and policy related. The poor performance and the declining profitability of agriculture due to one or more reasons have resulted in widespread household indebtedness, which is often identified as the main reason for the farmer suicides.

This volume is a collection of papers in honour of Padma Bhushan Prof. Vijay Shankar Vyas who is amongst the first and leading policy economists in India. He has had significant policy contributions at the national and international levels. This collection is a reflection of his research interests and contribution to agricultural policy research. In total, 16 eminent scholars have contributed to the volume. These papers have been put together in a thematic format and deal mainly with five important aspects of Indian agriculture: i) Indian Agriculture: Policies and Performance, ii) Resource Policies and Agriculture, iii) Employment and Decent Work, iv) New Trends in Agriculture and Challenges, and v) Experiences from Other Countries. It also includes a paper on China which deals with poverty and inequality in the context of reforms. Most of the papers provide an all India perspective. Though some of the papers are specific to the themes and locations, they provide valuable insights in to the broader array of issues and problems afflicting the agricultural sector in India. The authors through their contributions have touched upon issues that are dear to Prof. Vyas and also provide futuristic scenario of Asian agriculture of which Indian agriculture is a vital cog.

Poverty and ill health are intertwined; therefore, social responses need to address the links between the two. There has been increasing attention paid towards the role of microcredit as a poverty alleviation strategy (that especially targets women), yet little scrutiny of how microcredit may influence population health in general and women's health in particular. In this book, we ask: can microcredit be considered a “pro-health” poverty alleviation strategy for women? Using a multi-disciplinary approach, the linkages between poverty alleviation and women's health are investigated from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The theoretical perspective draws upon Amartya Sen's capability approach and population health models and theories. The empirical perspective is based on a study examining female participation in self help groups (a form of microcredit) and their health in the South Indian state of Kerala.

How bad is the Global Crisis? Will the Indian economy be hit hard? What can we do to protect ourselves from global turmoil? Is a growth recession inevitable? How well did we cope with the massive foreign capital inflows in the last five years? Did we follow a good exchange rate policy? What explains the surge in national savings and investment? Can we revive the economic boom of 2003-08? Do we have good roadmaps for reform of banking and finance? Do oil bonds make sense? How long can we sustain massive subsidies? Are economic disparities in India rising? Where are the new jobs? How good (or bad) is the UPA Government’s economic legacy?

In these short essays Shankar Acharya provides crisp answers to these and many other questions about India’s economic policies and performance.

Though the country witnessed high growth in the past two decades, the problems of slackening pace in poverty reduction and employment creation, widening regional disparities, ever increasing rural-urban divide and agrarian distress manifested in the form of suicides of farmers are disturbing to say the least. These developments in contemporary India have once again led to the realisation of the need for 'inclusive growth' being articulated by policy makers, intelligentsia and the civil society. In this context, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad organised an international conference on the “Perspectives on Equitable Development” as a part of its Silver Jubilee celebrations. This book is a collection of the research papers presented in the conference by eminent scholars across the country and focus on different aspects of equitable development. These are presented in six interrelated themesmacroeconomic performance and policies; employment, food security and poverty; physical and social infrastructure; agriculture and rural industrialisation; foreign direct investment in manufacturing and services; and socio-political issues in the reform process.

The Delhi Development Report reviews the experience of NCT Delhi and highlights issues critical for the State's development in the years ahead. The Report is expected to be an important value document and will impart value for development practitioners interested in the State and act as a roadmap for accelerated growth in the future.

The Planning Commission during the Eleventh Plan made a significant departure from the past practice. Instead of relying on a single in-house model it was decided to request some of the reputed institutes in the field of economic model building to carry out modelling exercises that could be used not only for the purpose of plan formulation but also could answer some of the questions that arise from time to time such as the impact of rising oil prices on the performance of Indian economy, the impact of global meltdown, etc.

This volume contains essays by the relevant model builders reporting on the various models used in the course of formulating the Eleventh Plan and an overview paper by Dr. Kirit S. Parikh.

In recent times, there has been debate over the entry of large corporate houses into the retail sector in India. This study finds that both traditional and organised retail can not only coexist but also achieve rapid and sustained growth in the coming years.

The findings of this study are based on the largest ever survey of various stakeholders and an extensive review of international experience, particularly emerging countries of relevance to India.

There has been competitive response from traditional retailers through improved business practices and technology upgradation. Consumers and farmers gain considerably from the entry of organised retail.

The organised retail sector is capable of taking care of itself, but public policy needs to help create a level playing field for traditional retailers.

Based on the results of the surveys, the authors have made a number of specific policy recommendations for regulating the interaction of large retailers with small suppliers and for strengthening the competitive response of the traditional retailers.

This book provides some important perspectives on the emerging nuclear order. The contributors discuss most burning questions of the day: What are the challenges to the global nuclear regime? What are the consequences of a nuclear Iran for West Asian peace and stability? Will it give rise to a nuclear quest among the important West Asian states? How would the West respond in such an eventuality? What would be the response of major Asian powers to nuclear Iran? What are the consequences of changes in the East Asian nuclear order for stability and peace in the region and beyond? How would major regional players respond? What are the implications of non-state actors acquiring nuclear weapon technology and capabilities? What did the international community learn from the discovery of the A.Q. Khan network? What are the possibilities for international cooperation against nuclear proliferation?

This book is about the future of Afghanistan which seems to be rapidly slipping into chaos. It contains perspectives on counter-insurgency and nation-building in Afghanistan. The expert contributors in this book focus on some key issues like, the character of the conflict in Afghanistan; the role of regional actors; the nature of engagement of the US and its allies; the assessment of the future course of action by major actors and the role played by INGOs and the international community at large. More significantly, the experts sought to answer the crucial question: what can be done to stabilise Afghanistan? This volume is a collection of their insightful papers.

In current debates on the geopolitics of energy security, the spotlight has fallen on Africa as a key source of oil and gas outside the volatile West Asia. The American, European and Asian oil companies are rushing to acquire a stake in Africa’s oil wealth. This book represents an effort to go beyond state-centred views of energy security, bridging local perspectives on energy resources and global framing of energy as a security concern. It brings together contributions from an international team of experts and eminent persons in African affairs to provide an analytically rich assessment of Africa’s role in the global search for oil, the multiple consequences of energy production across the African continent and India’s multifarious approach to Africa. The analysis is enriched by Indian and African perspectives and anchored in detailed country case studies.

The Haryana State Development Report reviews the State's development experience and highlights issues critical for its future growth. Haryana's potential in horticulture, livestock, tourism, pharmaceuticals, IT and its rapid structural change is well documented in the report. The report is expected to serve as a useful reference and stimulate informed debate on the policy issues facing the state.

Knowledge has been recognised as the key driving force in the 21st century and India’s ability to emerge as a globally competitive player will substantially depend on its knowledge resources. To foster generational change, a systemic transformation is required that seeks to address the concerns of the entire knowledge spectrum. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) was constituted in June 2005 by the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Sam Pitroda, to prepare a blueprint of reform of India’s knowledge related institutions and infrastructure.

High-value crops and marketing…. studies the case of high-value agriculture in the state of Uttarakhand in the context of rapid changes in marketing at the national and international level. Uttarakhand is characterized by a significant number of opportunities in high-value agriculture. They include the presence of a high number of endemic crops, diversity in agro-climatic conditions, possibilities to produce for 'off-season' markets, organic production practices, the relative high education of producers, a strong agricultural research capacity, an active civil society, a competitive production environment and a location relatively close to terminal consumer markets, at least for part of the state. On the other hand, agriculture in Uttarakhand also faces significant challenges that limit the competitiveness of its farmers with farmers in other Indian states and outside India. These include the high number of small scattered farms creating problems of aggregation and transport costs, migration and land conversion, increasing water and climatic change problems, environmental vulnerability, wildlife attacks, and a problematic regulatory environment. This book looks at these problems in a holistic manner and suggest ways on how Uttarakhand can prepare itself better to take advantage of the changing agricultural marketing environment.

There is witnessed an emergence of a new paradigm of governance alongside the process of globalisation. Pluralisation of state is the major feature of the new governance. The state is expected to shed its pre-eminence over development and resources. The three actors of development, state, market and civil society have to work together for arriving at a synergetic solution to developmental problems. The harmony is to be attained, guided by the principles of good governance like participation, accountability and transparency. As the contours of the new paradigm and its impact unfold rapidly, there is a growing debate over its relevance in developing countries like India. While the proponents see it as a newer mantra of development complementing the process of globalisation, serious concerns have been raised by the critics over the ramifications of adopting the neo-liberal path of development as advocated by the new paradigm. The critics believe that, if adopted whole hog, there could be many detrimental effects of the new paradigm for attaining a more inclusive development. Moreover, the harmonisation expected among the three actors of development in terms of their goals and actions may prove to be elusive given many interest conflicts.

Role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in rural development in India is quite appreciated. ICT has gained the status of infrastructure, and numerous approaches have been taken to exploit opportunities that ICT provides. Despite phenomenal changes in the policy level improvements in rural ICT infrastructure, digital divide has still remained a challenge for national policy makers, state agencies and service providers. Various agencies have piloted many projects showcasing usability of ICT at its core to extend services in the rural sector and address issues related to digital divide. Many of the pilot projects are being considered for scale up at the national level under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). However, most of the projects have remained to be “supply-driven” leaving much scope to transform them as “citizen-centric”. Therefore, this limitation is an important dimension of the digital divide which needs attention of policy makers and implementers.

This book is a collection of essays on main issues of money and monetary policies, national and international aspects of financial policies in less developed countries, political economy of development in all its facets and reshaping of the international monetary system which were debated over the last few decades by economic theorists and the policy makers. They reveal the author's grasp of the analytics, the nuanced reasoning underlying them, prescience on several issues such as brain-drain and profile of leadership in developing societies and deep understanding of the context in which the policies based on them have evolved over the years. Author's discussion of some of India's economic development within the overall perspective of development economics is both fascinating and original.

THE contemporary strategic context is increasingly defined by the rapid growth of major Asian economies and the rapidly increasing interest the major powers are evincing in the region. It has also resulted in a perceptible shift in power to the Asian continent. An assessment of how each of the major Asian powers and important external actors are responding to these developments is necessary for understanding the underlying concerns about peace and security in Asia in the 21st Century. What is the character of the emerging strategic context in Asia? How are the processes of globalisation, economic interdependence and diffusion of technologies shaping the Asian strategic context? What does the ‘Rise of Asia’ mean for global peace? How do regional perspectives inform the debate? What are the common threats and challenges? What are the prospects of fostering cooperative state behaviour in confronting the transnational threats? These are some of the issues that expert contributors discuss in this volume.

The 73rd and the 74th Constitutional Amendments became law more than a decade ago but their implementation in different states of India has been tardy and uneven. The course of implementation has also been marked by numerous disputes, both political and legal. It is estimated there are more than 500 cases which have been adjudicated during the period in the various High Courts and the Supreme Court.

This book is the outcome of a comprehensive study which seeks to bring out the genesis, the points of jurisprudence and what can be regarded as settled law common to both the panchayats and the municipalities pertaining to issues like elections, delimitation, reservation, planning and functional domain etc.

The book is of interest and use to policy makers, scholars and researchers interested in decentralisation as well as the legal fraternity.

The last two decades have been marked by a sea change in the world of regulation—regulatory laws which facilitate the creation of independent regulators have been passed in many countries, both developed and developing. However, it has been observed that mere adoption of regulatory laws is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for changes in regulatory/economic outcomes. Implementation often constitutes the crucial difference between success and failure and this is particularly true in developing countries.

The mentioned premise constitutes the starting point of this volume compiled by CUTS as a part of a project entitled the Competition Regulation and Development Research Forum (CDRF), which is a compendium of studies devoted to characterising the state of the world in regulation in developing countries and identifying the political economy and governance constraints that often frustrate the successful implementation of regulatory laws in the developing world. Such detailed identification of constraints is necessary if we are to solve the puzzle of how regulatory objectives/provisions that look so good on paper end up being so ineffective in practice.

The study will be of interest to almost the entire spectrum of professionals connected to regulation or its use: academicians, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, members of competition authorities or sector regulatory agencies etc. It is hoped that through this volume the study of regulation in developing countries emerges as a distinct field, as it should, given that these countries have regulatory needs and constraints that differ markedly from those developed countries.

For the last five decades artificial satellites are being used to perform diverse roles in astronomy, atmospheric studies and education. They have been found useful for reconnaissance, meteorology, navigation, communication and search & rescue.

Space technologies are offering benefits to space faring nations and space derived products are available at a price. Space is also been seen as the ultimate high ground and gives armies and space faring nations tremendous advantage on the battlefield. After the Chinese ASAT test in January 2007, the global community has now become more concerned about the likely weaponisation of space.

With these aspects as a backdrop, this book Space Security and Global Cooperation is a collection of papers that were presented at the Space Security Conference organised by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi and the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies, London. The book covers a wide spectrum of issues related to the field of space security, emerging technologies, regional perspectives, space tourism, space law and global cooperation. It is an attempt to contextualise the debates in a more cogent form.

This compilation is the result of action research and field visits across India spread over last 10-years that have been punctuated with seminars and workshops providing multi-stakeholder consultations. These were conducted by Skoch Consultancy Services with recently added support from Skoch Development Foundation. The compilation focuses on various facets of financial inclusion ranging from opening up of no-frills accounts to micro-credit to financial literacy, while emphasising the role of process changes, technology enablement, capacity building and outreach mechanism. It looks at examples of local bodies, post offices and tele-centres having been used effectively. It also proposes a model of inclusive development, emphasising that inclusive economics leads to inclusive governance and vice-versa. The book provides a holistic view based on practitioners’ perspective and grassroots learning. A must read for all involved in inclusive development of India.

The United States' mercurial foreign policies toward the Muslim world—including actions taken against Islamic countries who have attempted to challenge the United States' regional dominance; and alliances with Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia—are expertly examined in this incisive treatise. Islamic revivalism, the emergence of a highly political Islamic population, the rise of terrorism, and other recent socio-political changes are also thoroughly discussed.

How the US has reconfigured its policy towards the radical and the conservative group of Muslim countries and how its new mission against terrorism has affected international relations, particularly US-Indian relations, is the central focus of the study.

Governance in current debates demands pluralism of actors in the societal spheres of state, civil society and business. There is an inherent assumption of harmony among these spheres, which appears to optimise complimentary outcomes in ‘good governance’. In the real world, however, conflict is the norm rather than the exception.

Conflicts over the access and control of natural resources have amplified over time with large-scale resource transformation, especially through technological innovation. Today, the key challenge before natural resource governance is the need to balance economic growth with the demands and aspirations of the differentiated social structure, the future generations and the environment. Studies in this volume examine the competing, and diverging, interests that generate certain forms of natural resource conflicts. The studies bring into focus the changing role of the State and the social and environmental impact of State interventions in triggering conflict and mobilising resistance.

Recent years have witnessed major paradigm shifts in many faces of economics; its philosophical foundations, empirical methodologies and policy issues. The papers put together in this volume give us in one place rigorous and refreshing insight into the unresolved problems in search for appropriate models of economic behaviour, methodologies for policy analysis and a number of issues which have become vital for sustainability of the current pace of economic development. While the Indian Economy provides the backdrop to the discussion of poverty alleviation for shared prosperity, costs of environmental degradation, regulation of public utilities, promotion of financial efficiency, articulation of monetary management under a new paradigm of economic policy and macroeconomic policies in the emerging market economy, they do indeed have a universal relevance today. That the various contributions deal with these issues of today even though many of these were put forth some years back is indeed remarkable. Given the scholastic credentials of the distinguished authors and their long experience of dealing with economic policy, teachers, researchers, and students of economics could not have asked for more.

Recent years have witnessed major paradigm shifts in many faces of economics; its philosophical foundations, empirical methodologies and policy issues. The papers put together in this volume give us in one place rigorous and refreshing insight into the unresolved problems in search for appropriate models of economic behaviour, methodologies for policy analysis and a number of issues which have become vital for sustainability of the current pace of economic development. While the Indian Economy provides the backdrop to the discussion of poverty alleviation for shared prosperity, costs of environmental degradation, regulation of public utilities, promotion of financial efficiency, articulation of monetary management under a new paradigm of economic policy and macroeconomic policies in the emerging market economy, they do indeed have a universal relevance today. That the various contributions deal with these issues of today even though many of these were put forth some years back is indeed remarkable. Given the scholastic credentials of the distinguished authors and their long experience of dealing with economic policy, teachers, researchers, and students of economics could not have asked for more.

Economic freedom provides a right of property ownership, realised freedoms of movement for labour, capital, and goods, and absence of coercion or constraint of economic liberty beyond the extent necessary for citizens to protect and maintain liberty. This book attempts to showcase the degree to which the policies and institutions are supportive of economic freedom in the States of India. Most states have shown a marked improvement in terms of legal structure and security of property rights, but continue to remain heavily regulated. It is the third successive edition, which tracks the performance of Indian states over a three year period. Some states have bettered their performance in certain areas, but few states have slipped down for slow pace of reforms. The point to be noted is that all states have scope for improvement in providing an economically free environment for their citizens; however, the individual areas requiring attention differ from one state to the other. In other words, the analysis points out specific areas which require government action for economic freedom. This book should be of interest to all, especially entrepreneurs, industry, and policy makers, alike.

The first in a new series of ILO reports focusing on wage developments, this volume reviews major trends in the level and distribution of wages around the world since 1995. It considers the effects of economic growth and globalization on wage trends, looking closely at the role of minimum wages and collective bargaining, and suggests ways to improve wage levels and to enable more equal distribution.

Wages are a major component of decent work, yet there is a serious knowledge gap in this increasingly important area which this report begins to address. Part one summarizes the main trends in average wages and distribution of wages, providing a statistical analysis of the links between wages and economic growth, along with wage forecasts for 2008 and 2009. Part two examines the relationship between minimum wage policies and collective bargaining, highlighting the effects of institutions on wage outcomes and the importance of coherent policy articulation. Part three concludes with concrete policy recommendations and identifies key issues for further research. The report includes full technical and statistical annexes.

The contents of this volume add useful dimensions to the ongoing debate on various issues relating to India's transition to the new economic policy regime. The papers in this volume were written specifically for the National Conference on Industrial Development and Economic Policy Issues, organised by the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development during June 27-28, 2008. The Conference was held in honour of Professor S.K. Goyal and was anchored on his research interests. While some of the contributions deal specifically with the Indian scenario, others provide an overall context for the debate. They are thus an interesting mixture of specifics and the general.

Section I deals with the issue of industrialisation and employment especially in the context of increasing importance of the services sector and deceleration of the agricultural sector. Section II examines the historical context of the development of corporate sector in India as well as the present ownership pattern of the sector which has direct implications for industrialisation and distributional aspects respectively. This section also deals with the developments in the banking sector. Section III focuses on the role of foreign direct investment in development and innovation, the performance of different constituents of the corporate sector in terms of exports and India's preparedness for a free trade agreement with China. Section IV is about globalisation issues in general and India's experience in this context in particular. Section V focuses on issues relating to poverty and inequality. Section VI covers a different set of issues namely, political and cultural dimensions of the new era.

A path-breaking book which examines India’s highly controversial yet most successful state: Gujarat.

It is difficult to argue with Gujarat’s success— a consistently growing state income, massive contribution to India’s coffers, and high marks in industry, agriculture, and higher education.

How did Gujarat come to be India’s second most industrialised state, a toast among experts on economic development? And what lies ahead? In 11 well-researched, well-thought-out essays, some of the country’s leading experts on Gujarat give you the answers.

Convincingly woven by editor, R. Swaminathan, Gujarat: Perspectives of the Future takes more than a cursory look at the industrial development that has swiftly taken place in the state. The volume goes deep into the phenomenon, providing analyses for various issues such as the macroeconomic framework for Gujarat’s industrialisation and the dynamics of its corollary urban development. More importantly, the book examines the way forward: what challenges await Gujarat?

This book makes a compelling argument for a blueprint that will address the state’s serious problems including environmental degradation, discrimination against women, poor health care and nutrition, and lack of quality basic education. A blueprint which will then, make Gujarat’s remarkable development truly sustainable.

The twenty-first century will be defined by the fight against the scourges of poverty, inequality, and the threat of environmental collapse—as the fight against slavery or for universal suffrage defined earlier eras.

From Poverty to Power argues that it requires a radical redistribution of power, opportunities, and assets to break the cycle to poverty and inequality and to give poor people power over their own destinies. The forces driving this transformation are active citizens and effective states.

Why active citizens? Because people living in poverty must have a voice in deciding their own destiny, fighting for rights and justice in their own society, and holding the state and the private sector to account.

Why effective states? Because history shows that no country has prospered without a state structure than can actively manage the development process.

There is now an added urgency beyond the moral case for tackling poverty and inequality: we need to build a secure, fair, and sustainable world before climate change makes it impossible. This book argues that leaders, organisations, and individuals need to act together, while th ere is still time.

IDSA Asian Strategic Review 2008, the second volume in the series of Annual Surveys revived by the Institute in the previous year, is divided into six sections. The first section, on international security, discusses some significant developments in the Asian security landscape, while taking stock of the persisting, unresolved concerns. The issues covered include space security in the aftermath of China’s anti-satellite test of 11 January 2007, energy security in the face of galloping oil prices, the growing concern regarding climate change, an evaluation of the current state of the global war on terror, and the evolving situation in Iraq, the safety of Pakistan’s strategic assets, and an assessment of the Sixth Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention.

The next section focuses on the theme related directly to India’s security concerns. Accordingly, India’s strengthened partnerships with the United States and Russia, its ocean security in the backdrop of capacity additions to its Navy, India’s Look East policy with imperatives for Northeast security and India’s acknowledged most pressing internal security challenge, the Maoist insurgency, are analysed in depth.

This volume on “Renewable Energy Technologies” has a special focus on distributed power generation (DPG) to highlight the easy applicability of the alternative energy technology, particularly for rural sector in India. In times of rising oil prices and focus on clean technologies, the renewable technologies have an important role to play in future and the book relates the technology to Indian conditions and for ready usability independent of power supply grids and their associated problems.

The significance of database for agriculture and allied activities lies in the value addition it makes to research and policy formulation. The "Agricultural Statistics at a Glance" is a much awaited publication since it provides authentic information in a comprehensive manner. It provides wide range of data on crop production and productivity across States/regions, markets and prices, terms of trade, price support and procurement, domestic and international trade, credit, insurance, etc. The book will be greatly useful for economists, policy makers, researchers, agricultural scientists, students, different government and non-governmental organisations working in the agricultural sector and the public at large.

This is an unusual book of memoirs of both a distinguished economist and a successful public servant. His contributions qua economist could surpass those of many others who devoted their life-time only to teaching and research in India. He has figured conspicuously in the top international journals in economics with articles on different aspects of the subject.

Bhatt as a memorialist has scrupulously avoided being on a self-adulatory ego-trip; he has focused mainly on contextualising his personality in the economic profession of his time in India. He imbibed his apparatus of thought from his great teachers at Harvard like professors, J. Schumpeter, W. Leontief, A. Hansan and A. Gerschenkron, which he harnessed with great success for his creativity in economics. His memoirs are a unique narrative of how economics as a rigorous social discipline evolved in India, superseding most of the arid descriptive economics of his predecessors in pre-war India. He meticulously but without being self-referential describes how the research department of the Reserve Bank of India created a niche for itself in economic research, even overtaking the leading and older central banks in the US and the European continent.

In conducting monetary policy, a Central Bank primarily tries to influence behaviour of the commercial banks. The response of commercial banks to monetary policy actions is, thus, a key element of monetary policy. In view of the resurgence of the credit channel of monetary policy and episodes of credit crunch, world-over the issue has gained currency.

Against the backdrop of financial sector reforms in India, this book looks into the theory, stylised facts and empirical evidence on the relationship between commercial banks’ behaviour and monetary policy. The book presents an analytical account of the credit channel of monetary transmission and looks into the modified IS-LM model with an independent banking sector. Econometric evidence of the book is pointer to the fact that not all the banks respond uniformly to monetary policy. Attributes like ownership, size, liquidity, or capitalisation play important roles in determining the nature of response. The book also examines futuristic issues like consolidation of the banking sector in light of the evidence.

Privatisation of State owned enterprises has raised a lot of passion, heat and dust around the world, especially after the huge successes this policy had in the United Kingdom and Germany, Latin American countries, Asia and Africa. But very soon, it came to be recognised that privatisation did create many problems, such as lack of transparency, pseudo capitalism and many other associated evils. The welfare aspects of privatisation also tended to be given inadequate attention in the privatisation process.

In the rush to privatise, many countries ignored the welfare role of the State. In particular, the negative aspects of privatisation relating to labour came to be recognised and initiatives began to be taken to lessen these negative social aspects. These were, however, not adequate and resulted in impoverishment and considerable hardship to labour and led to questions on the wisdom of pursuing privatisation policies.

In this book, the author examines the privatisation processes in Sri Lanka and India and the implications that it has for various sections of society. The book also examines the measures that need to be adopted to minimise the negative societal implications of labour restructuring on account of privatisation, in the light of international experience.

This book is the first detailed analysis of the subject of societal implications of labour restructuring in Asia and will serve as a useful reference book for researchers and scholars of privatisation, besides policy makers and practitioners.

India and West Asia represent a confluence of civilisations which is a paradigm for our times. Over the millennia, the religious, ethnic, political, commercial, cultural, literary and linguistic ties that bind the peoples of the two regions have endured. Today these ties are marked by a mutuality of interest and benefit with India's emergence as a global player. Never has the need for maintaining security, peace and prosperity in our region been greater with the retrograde developments witnessed in recent years. The conjunction of these events has inevitably led to calls for India to play a helpful role in the search for solutions to the festering conflicts in the region. This compendium explores the possibilities, challenges and parameters of such an engagement. While the jury is still out, the papers presented here highlight its multi-dimensional character.

This volume endeavours to present the terrain of development thinking in various fields of specialisation. The authors include Prof. V.K.R.V. Rao Chair Professors and winners of V.K.R.V. Rao Prizes instituted by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi. The subjects covered are as varied as economic theory, macro models, differing approaches to explaining development, concerns of inequality and poverty, changes in community life, India’s foreign policy questions, empowering vulnerable sections, etc. The most important feature of this volume is its in-depth analysis of these develop-mental issues and the challenges to the Indian academia.

This volume contains 31 reminiscences by colleagues, friends and kin who were associated with the late V.K.R.V. Rao during his life-time, particularly in his life-long mission to nurture social science in the country and build centres of excellence in social science research. It is a tribute to his memory on the occasion of his centenary and focuses mainly on the third and final Institution, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore that Prof. Rao founded. The incidents covered and personalities referred to in the contributions give a good idea about the man who rode as a colossus in the academic and intellectual arena of the country for over 50 years, the personal and professional challenges he faced in his relentless quest and always emerged victorious. It is hoped that the collection would provide for us and the posterity a glimpse of the exemplary zeal with which Prof. Rao went about fulfilling his mission and inspired scores of young academics to participate in it.

Over the past several decades Asia’s maize economy has expanded significantly, and in recent years Asia’s share of maize production has risen more rapidly. It is poised to grow even further, owing to direct and indirect demand generated from the region’s burgeoning animal feed and industrial sectors. This study covers seven Asian countries, namely China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Together, these countries generate over 90 per cent of Asia’s maize production, and a quarter of the world’s maize supply. The basic objectives of the study were to:

• review the production, consumption and trade in maize in Asia;

• highlight the policy environment in each country;

• analyse the incentives available for maize producers; and

• forecast the nature of the maize economy in Asia in 2025.

The publication provides a summary overview of population policies and dynamics for each of the United Nations Member and non-member States for which data are available at mid-decade for the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and for 2007. 

This publication shows, on a country-by-country basis, the evolution of Government views and policies from 1976 to 2007 with respect to population size and growth, population age structure, fertility and family planning, health and mortality, spatial distribution and international migration. Within the context of demographic, social and economic change. The material is presented in the form of two-page data sheets: the first page contains population policy data for each country for 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2007, and the second page provides population indicators for the corresponding years.

India and the European Union have stepped up efforts to improve relations, especially since the first EU India Summit of 2000. However, there seems to be a growing gap between their expectations from each other in most areas and their perceptions of the world order. What are the reasons for this state of affairs? Do they have the capacity to become ‘strategic partners’ in the near future? Will India prefer the US to the EU after the implementation of the India-US nuclear deal? Would the EU and India be able to settle their differences on human rights issues? ... Read inside what distinguished scholars and experts have to say.

Dam assessment, by its very nature, is a complex undertaking. Many of the benefits and costs associated with dam development have quite different time streams. These benefits and costs are faced by different sectors and there are inter-relationships between sectors. The effects of dams are distributed across different spatial scales, from local to basin, to regional to national, and in some cases, to trans-national. To add to the complexity, while some of the impacts of the dam projects are ‘direct’, the others are ‘indirect’ with the definition of what constitutes ‘direct’ versus ‘indirect’ impacts also varying.

The aim of the present study has been to evaluate some of the above interactions, in particular the ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ economic impacts of dams. The study ex-post evaluates the magnitude of multipliers, a measure of the total benefits (direct plus indirect) of the project in relation to its direct benefits, and assesses the distributional and poverty reduction impacts of dam projects. The four cases studied in the present book include three large projects—Bhakra Dam System (India), Aswan High Dam (Egypt) and Sobradinho Dam (and the set of cascading reservoirs) (Brazil)— and one small check dam—Bunga (India).
 

This compilation has emerged from a recent National Consultation on Infrastructure and Governance called India @ Work Summit, organised by Skoch Consultancy Services, providing critical insights into the subject of infrastructure and governance, all pointing to a common goal of inclusive growth.

The book opens with a chapter entitled: Participatory Democracy, Infrastructure and Empowerment. Offering the concerned reader the collective wisdom of eminent policy makers and distinguished experts, the content in this volume is organised under seven sections, namely:

The Kerala Development Report reviews the course of development of the State and the aspects in which the State holds a unique position among the States and Union Territories in India, such as universalisation of school education, reduction in fertility and mortality rates, development of health- care sector, growth of infrastructural facilities and expansion of financial institutions, It has also highlighted the pitfalls on its road to progress such as declining agriculture, stagnating industry, mounting unemployment and growing consumerism. The great strength of conviction that the State has acquired through incessant social reform struggles, progressive political movements, and land reform legislations is lending support to its pace of progress along egalitarian lines. The merging conflicts in the matters of private partnership in educational development, reservations to depressed communities in educational institutions and in government services, and participation of foreign investors in Kerala's development endeavours have added new dimensions to the path and pace of progress that the State may choose to tread. New problems that have arisen due to its spectacular success in bringing out a demographic transition such as the mounting proportions of the elderly and the aged in the State's population have also been highlighted in the report. The SDR of Kerala has also furnished a roadmap to development that the State may like to pursue in important economic sectors such as agriculture, traditional and small-scale industries and modern manufacturing industries.

The Sikkim Development Report attempts to assess the main strengths and weaknesses of the state in achieving a high level of development. Based on the analysis of the economy's fundamentals, it recommends a development strategy that takes into account the state's potential and builds on its strengths: a peaceful environment, diverse agro-climatic topography, supply of cheap labour and vast potential in tourism, hydro-power, and horticulture. The sustainable developmental strategy recommended will seek to (i) empower people by strengthening the social infrastructure, in the form of education and skill formation and easy access to good health systems, and physical infrastructure, such as a good connectivity and communications network, quality energy supply, and (ii) vastly changed role for the government as an enabler rather than a direct participant in the production-distribution processes.

This book reviews the history of labour relations in Nepal and considers criticisms of the existing industrial relations system. It reports on the re-emergence of the militant Maoist trade union and the recent upsurge in strikes and demonstrations in Nepal. A reduction in workplace tension is needed to cement in place the recent peace agreement, facilitate political stability and promote economic growth.

Focusing on broad economic developments since 1990, it sheds light on how labour legislation and labour institutions have influenced investment, growth and jobs over the long term. The views of those most directly affected by the labour legislation, institutions and attitudes that govern industrial relations in Nepal have been collected through surveys and interviews with managing directors and entrepreneurs, trade union leaders and hundreds of ordinary workers from a range of locations, industries and occupations. These views have heavily influenced the conclusions presented in this volume.

The world faces a huge challenge of creating productive jobs for its expanding labour force. Unlike the challenge of sustaining global economic growth or that of correcting global trade imbalances, this global employment challenge is barely recognized and its nature and magnitude are certainly not well understood. Indeed, there is a widespread (though rarely stated) belief that even in an era of globalization employment remains a national concern, so that there can be no such thing as a global employment challenge. Yet the employment challenge today is global in several important respects. Inadequate availability of productive jobs is now a worldwide phenomenon. Global forces – cross-border flows of trade, capital and labour – have significant con - sequences for employment in individual countries. Also, international policies are now as important as national policies for expanding opportunities for productive employment in less developed countries, which is where most of the world’s workers live and where almost all of the world’s new workers will live.

The relatively faster growth of tertiary sector vis-a-vis other broad sectors of the economics, as they experience a higher growth rate, has become almost a universal phenomenon. This has given rise to contemporary issues related to this form of economic development. The topicality of this issue is the broad theme of this book.

Numerous studies have been devoted to the growth of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors of the developing countries, but the services sector has received far too inadequate attention of the researchers. An attempt has been made in this book to fill this gap.

A unique feature of the book is that it attempts to answer the following set of questions in a systematic manner.

With contributions from India's most distinguished economists, this collection of papers—commissioned for the Silver Jubilee conference of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations—addresses important policy challenges facing India as it becomes increasingly integrated in global economy.

The Indian Economic Journal is the main Journal of the Indian Economic Association. It is published quarterly and it is a fully refereed Journal. Its main objective is to provide a forum for dissemination of the research findings of scholars from all over the world, on Issues of analytical, methodological and practical value to the professional community. The IEJ is now in its 55th year of publication.

Growth-induced structural changes have precipitated a phenomenal increase in energy consumption in the economies of the Asian region. Importantly, Asia’s burgeoning demand for oil and gas is a crucial factor in the current world energy market and has occupied centre stage in the contemporary discourse on global energy security. This book explores one aspect of such transition, envisaging the emerging pattern of energy interdependence between India as a major energy consuming and importing country and the prominence of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries as the major source of energy supplies for India and the Asian region as a whole. The book argues that the evolving pattern of energy related links and tendencies will act as a stimulant to boost bilateral economic relations between India and the GCC to an elevated trajectory.

In this book the author explores the relevance of communitarian institutional approach for sustainable management of renewable natural resources in Rajasthan. The book is interdisciplinary and closely verifies institutional development within the power theoretic framework. Moving from case to case, it searches for a conceivable strategy for equitable management of renewable natural resources in the public domain. While having followed proven methodologies, it has examined several aspects of institutional interventions and ecological changes that have serious implications for livelihood generation.

Despite the fact that the rural society is socially and economically heterogeneous, the book reveals that institutional sustainability against the backdrop of unequal power relations may succeed in restoring degraded eco-system by means of expanding bio-diversity. And, by doing so, it could ensure livelihood of the poor and the disadvantaged in a drought that prevailed for more than three years. All these bring missing links between poverty reduction and ecological restoration to the centre of the development discourse. Prof. Ray has systematically drawn some insightful lessons from the scenario analysis of the institutions and explores complementarity between market and community institutions. While conflicts on command over renewable resources in the state are inescapable, their resolution must be sought in the public domain, suggests Prof. Ray. It may call for vertical integration between the state, civil society organisations and community institutions.

Authentic and authoritative, this presentation in two volumes shares a comprehensive overview of the extensive research undertaken by the Agro Economic Research Centres (AERCs) and the concerns confronting Indian agriculture. Established across the states in India to provide policy feedback to the Ministry of Agriculture, the AERCs generated many important research initiatives and debates over five decades.

The volume on macro premise deals with the broader themes like macro policy changes, WTO, tariff policy, institutional issues, minimum support prices etc., whereas, the volume on micro issues addresses the problems confronted by each of the participating states at the regional level.

According to WESP 2008, the world economy is facing serious challenges in sustaining the strong pace of economic growth seen over the past few years. While the baseline forecast is for world economic growth to moderate somewhat in 2008, the risks associated with the bursting of the housing bubble in the United States, the related unfolding credit crisis, the decline of the dollar, large global imbalances and high oil prices are all pointing to the downside. The report draws some lessons from the global financial turmoil of 2007, which was triggered by the meltdown of sub-prime mortgages in the United States, and points out that the various measures adopted by central banks of the major economies did not address the root causes of the turmoil: the huge global imbalances. In an alternative scenario, which takes into account the possibility of a sharper-than-expected decline in house prices in the United States and a hard landing of the US dollar, the United States economy would fall into a recession, while global growth would be significantly lower than the baseline. In addition to trends in international trade and capital flows, WESP 2008 also covers the latest progress and policy issues related to international trade negotiations and reform of the international financial system.

The Planning Commission has decided to prepare State Development Reports (SDRs) for all States and Union Territories of India. The objective in bringing out these reports is to provide a credible independent quality reference document on the development profile, set out strategies for accelerating the growth rate of States, lessen disparities and reduce poverty. The SDR is meant to discuss the constraints and challenges faced by a State and provide a vision, blueprint or a roadmap for its socioeconomic progress.

Each SDR is being prepared with the assistance of reputed national-level agencies, under the supervision of a core committee, headed by a Member of the Planning Commission, and including a senior representative of the State Government. The publication of the Maharashtra Development Report follows the recently published SDRs of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, while SDRs of many other States and Union Territories of India are under various stages of preparation.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Development Report highlights issues related to the development priorities of the islands and the road ahead in health, education, tribal development, environment, agriculture, ports, shipping and air connectivity. The report suggests a long-term plan to restore the livelihoods, adversity affected by the Tsunami in December 2004. It is expected to serve as a useful reference material and stimulate informed debate on the policy issues faced by the Union Territory.

This authoritative compendium brings together the latest thinking of leading academics, actuaries, and development professionals in the microinsurance field. The result is a practical, wide-ranging resource which provides the most thorough overview of the subject to date.

The book allows readers to benefit from the valuable lessons learned from a project launched by the CGAP Working Group on Microinsurance analysing operations around the world. Essential reading for insurance professionals, practitioners and anyone involved with offering insurance to low-income persons, this volume covers the many aspects of microinsurance in detail, including product design, marketing, premium collection and governance.

It also discusses the various institutional arrangements available for delivery such as the community- based approach, insurance companies owned by networks of savings and credit cooperatives and microfinance institutions.

The roles of key stakeholders are also explored and the book offers insightful strategies for achieving the right balance between coverage, costs and price.

Founded in 1958 by the great academic visionary and institution-builder Professor V.K.R.V. Rao, the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi today ranks amongst the premier research institutes of the country. It is always the people belonging to an institution who are responsible for its greatness. Commemorating the fiftieth year of the Institute, several illustrious members of the ‘IEG family’, including present faculty, the former faculty, visiting fellows and Ph.D. students, have come forward to share their thoughts, memories and feelings for their institute—the IEG.

With 36 chapters in six parts, 17 boxes and 26 photographs, this festschrift volume also reflects the evolution of research in social sciences at the IEG during the period 1958-2007. These recollections and reflections together provide an interesting insight into how the institution was set up and how it has evolved and contributed to research, training, teaching and policymaking. The small anecdotes throughout the book—in the form of boxes, reflecting informal profiles of some distinguished academics as also aspects of campus life—provide an interesting read.

Promoted by Transparency International India, this book has been compiled to create awareness about the current state of governance in India and directions needed to improve governance in the country. The volume seeks to analyse the efforts made in this direction and the various tools available to the common man for availing hassle free public services one is entitled to.

The book is divided into four parts.

— The first part deals with the perception about governance since time  immemorial.

— Part two covers the state of governance in four major monopolistic services, namely, the police, judiciary, income tax and property registration, and the efforts required to improve these services.

— Part three attempts at creating awareness amongst readers about various tools of improving governance and means and ways to use them. These tools include: Citizens' Charters, Right to Information, e-Governance, Social Audits, Report Card and Integrity Pact.

— Part four contains some exemplary initiatives to enable the concerned quarters to replicate them in order to improve the public service delivery system in some of the major public services.

This Report is focused on the informal or the unorganised sector of the economy, which accounts for an overwhelming proportion of the poor and vulnerable population in an otherwise shining India. It concentrates on a detailed analysis of the conditions of work and lives of the unorganised workers consisting of about 92 per cent of the total workforce of about 457 million.

One of the major highlights of this Report is the quantification of unorganised or informal workers, defined as those who do not have employment security, work security and social security. These workers are engaged not only in the unorganised sector but in the organised sector as well. The picture that the Report presents is based on the latest available set of data from the Sixty-first Round of the National Sample Survey in 2004-05. This has been supplemented with data from other sources.

World Investment Report 2007 (WIR07) is the seventeenth in a series published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Report analyses the latest trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) and puts a special focus in 2007 on the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the extraction of oil, gas, and metal minerals.

Higher prices for many minerals have led to renewed investor interest in the extractive industries. TNCs—including some of the world´s largest corporations—play a key role in the mining of metals and in the extraction of oil and gas. Privately owned TNCs dominate the harvesting of metal minerals, while State-owned companies from developing and transition economies are key players in oil and gas. Many such State-owned firms are emerging as TNCs in their own right.

The Trade and Development Report 2007, subtitled "Regional cooperation for development", recommends that developing countries should strengthen regional cooperation with other developing countries, but proceed carefully with regard to North-South bilateral or regional preferential trade agreements. Such agreements may offer gains in terms of market access and higher foreign direct investment, but they can also limit national policy space, which can play an important role in the medium- and long-term growth of competitive industries. By contrast, strengthened regional cooperation among developing countries can help accelerate industrialization and structural change and ease integration into the global economy. However, to achieve this, trade liberalization is not enough; active regional cooperation should also extend to areas of policy that strengthen the potential for growth and structural change, including monetary and financial arrangements, large infrastructure and knowledge-generation projects, and industrial policies.

Rice has long been one of the most protected commodities in world trade. Now the probable significant liberalisation of trade in rice is likely to have huge welfare implications for many countries dependent on its production and trade, particularly those in South Asia.

This book explores the poverty and welfare implications of this liberalisation for India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and identifies the effects on different groups within poor rice-dependent developing countries.

This book will be of great interest to researchers and policy makers, in South Asia and elsewhere, looking at the distributional consequences of multilateral trade agreements in terms of poverty and welfare within individual countries.

This comprehensive and accessible text fills the need for a political economy view of global environmental politics, focusing on the ways key economic processes affect environmental outcomes. It examines the main actors and forces shaping global environmental management, particularly in the developing world. Moving beyond the usual academic emphasis on inter-national agreements and institutions, it strives to integrate debates within the real world of global policy and the academic world of theory.

The book maps out an original typology of four contrasting worldviews of environmental change—those of market liberals, institutionalists, bioenvironmentalists, and social greens— and uses these as a framework to examine the links between the global political economy and ecological change. This typology not only helps students understand and participate in debates about these worldviews but also provides a common language for students and instructors to discuss the issues across the social sciences. The book covers globalization and its consequences for the environment; the evolution of global discourse and global environmental governance; wealth, poverty, and consumption; the impact on the environment of global trade and trade agreements; transnational corporations and differential environmental standards; and the environmental effects of international financing, including multilateral lending and aid and bilateral and private finance. Brief, illustrative case studies appear throughout the text.

From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security revisits the findings of “The Global 2000 Report to the President” — commissioned by President Jimmy Carter and released in 1980 — and presents an up-to-date over-view, informed by the earlier projections, of such critical topics as population, water, food, energy, climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity. It examines current environmental trends in order to consider the state of the global environment over the next thirty years and discusses what can be done now to achieve ecological security.

The contributors to From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security find that the world population will likely continue to level off, but the population decline in many industrialized countries will create new socioeconomic and political problems — including the "reverse demographic shock" of disproportionately large aging populations. Although world food production is likely to increase at a rate that keeps up with population growth, greater demand in China as well as distributional issues will keep significant numbers of people malnourished. In addition to these continuing scarcity issues, ecological insecurity may increase because of new threats that include global warming, loss of biodiversity, bioinvasion, and the rapid worldwide spread of new diseases. Assessing Limits to Growth not only analyzes the nature of these impending problems but also suggests ways to solve them.

The book carries contributions by eminent social scientists on some very important topics relating to India's economic and social development.

The volume begins with issues relating to human development, such as education, health and governance. This is followed by comparison of India and China development paths. In a diverse country like India, fiscal matters at State level are important. These are discussed in the section on Indian fiscal federalism. Another section covers issues on employment, unemployment, safety nets for the poor and social dimensions of globalisation. The volume concludes with an analysis of the recent issues in agriculture.

The volume, divided into four sections, deals with strategic developments pertaining to Asia. Recognising the diverse 'push' and 'pull' factors impinging on a country's strategic posture, the volume starts off by dealing with issues which the Advisory Committee of Experts guiding this publication felt were of immediate relevance. Accordingly, the first section, on “International Security Issues” has articles analysing India's responses to the global energy security challenges, the resurgent Russia, the emerging military technologies and their security implications for India, the 'global war on terror' and the issues concerning the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

The next three parts contain in-depth analyses of major events in South, East and the West and Central regions of Asia. These constitute India's immediate and extended strategic neighbourhood. The wide range of issues dealt with include the evolving partnership between India and the United States, the changes in the contours of the Sino-Indian and the Sino-Japanese relationship, an evaluation of the India-Pakistan peace process, the challenges of institutionalising democracies in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Afghanistan, the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, the East Asian 'economic dynamism and political flux', Pyongyang's nuclear 'brinkmanship', Iran's nuclear programme, developments in Israel-Palestinian relations, and the role of major powers in Central Asia.

The volume also presents a Statistical Appendix containing defence and conflict-related data for important countries in Asia.

The report focuses on the Buildinge-Community Centres for Rural Development Workshop co-organized by UNESCAP and ADBI, aimed at examining the various issues related to CeCs in the Asia and the Pacific region and share good practices that can be used as models for successful development and operation of these centres.

Earlier versions of the papers in this volume were presented at the “Regional Conference on Migration and Development in Asia”, held in Lanzhou, China, 14-16 March 2005. The conference, hosted by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was organised by IOM and funded by Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Though there has been increasing attention paid to the potential role migration can play in fostering development, most of that attention has tended to focus on international migration. Internal migration has been somewhat neglected but is also an extremely important policy area.

One of the key aims of the Lanzhou conference was to identify more effective ways to enhance the benefits of internal migration for poverty reduction and development, and how this could be complemented by strategies to ensure that migrants have decent working conditions and access to health and social services.

OECD's first economic survey of the Indian economy. It opens with a broad overview of economic developments over the past twenty years, showing how India has grown to become the third largest economy in the world. It then examines a series of specific policy areas including the unbalanced growth across states, competition policy and reforming India's product and service markets, improving the performance of labour markets, improving the financial system, improving the fiscal system, improving infrastructure, and upgrading the educational system. For each policy area, a series of recommendations is made.

Authored by the distinguished economist N.A. Mujumdar, the bunch of 19 papers brought together in this book seeks to argue that in the present Indian context, inclusive growth has become both, a growth and a development imperative: growth, because a high GDP growth like 8 or 9 per cent can be sustained only if other sectors or segments of the economy, which have been sluggish because of number of factors including policy neglect, can be activated; development, because this is perhaps the best route by which the bulk of the poor can be provided with livelihood and food security.

Facilitating inclusive growth is a far more complicated process, involving micro planning, evolving area specific solutions and participation of a number of actors panchayati raj institutions, central and state Governments and NGOs, SHGs, etc. Inclusive growth also demands a committed bureaucracy and more imaginative policymakers, from both of whom a pro-active role is warranted. The exploratory work embodied in this book, it is hoped, would provoke further studies on the subject.

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Indian economic development is only five decades old. Its future course seems to be bright but uncertain. There are lots of good and impressive points about India’s emergence as a prominent economic power and people in industrialized countries are taking note of these changes. India’s huge middle class, that increasingly includes the rural well to do, are all aspiring for a higher standard of life for themselves and for their children. They are making their children seek better marks and learn new skills; they are doing their best in all walks of life to get ahead and catch up with global standards. It is this middle class that is the driving force behind the great push forward that can make India great in the future. In this thrust forward, this book discusses the role of the government. But more importantly, the book aims at explaining the workings of the Indian economy, not to the ‘initiated’, but to the intelligent reader who is interested in knowing more about India’s changing economic pattern. It aims at presenting the various intricacies of the Indian economic system simply and clearly.

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The key ingredients of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and protection of the person and property. Economic freedom liberates individuals and families from government dependence and gives them control of their own future. Empirical research shows this spurs economic growth by unleashing individual dynamism. It also leads to democracy and other freedoms as people are unfettered from government dependence.

The annual Economic Freedom of the World Report ranks countries on their level of economic freedom. This comprehensive index, constructed under the leadership of The Fraser Institute and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, is the most objective and accurate measure of economic freedom published to date by any organization and the only one that uses reproducible measures appropriate for peer-reviewed research.

An ancient Chinese proverb tells us “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The same can be said for development assistance. Solutions provided by outside “experts” are often rejected or politely shelved. However, solutions based on the principle of “self-help” are far more likely to take root.

This book explores the self-help, peer learning approach of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), comparing it with that of IDRC. It focuses on the importance of networks to development and growth, and demonstrates that network management is fundamentally different from the management of companies, organizations, or other bodies that fall under a single authority.

The book will be of interest to planners, policymakers, and researchers in the industrialised and developing worlds, and particularly in the new and emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.

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World Economic and Social Survey 2007: Development in an Ageing World

Greater longevity is an indicator of human progress in general. At the same time, increased life expectancy and lower fertility rates are changing the population structure worldwide in a major way: the proportion of older persons is rapidly increasing, a process known as population ageing. The process is inevitable and is already advanced in developed countries and progressing quite rapidly in developing ones.

The World Economic and Social Survey has also come of age as it celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of the publication, which first appeared in 1948 (then called the World Economic Survey).

The Survey argues that the challenges are not insurmountable, but that societies everywhere need to put in place the policies required to confront those challenges effectively and to ensure an adequate standard of living for each of their members, while respecting and promoting the contribution and participation of all.

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The Planning Commission has decided to prepare State Development Reports (SDRs) for all States and Union Territories of India. The objective in bringing out these reports is to provide a credible independent quality reference document on the development profile, set out strategies for accelerating the growth rate of States, lessen disparities and reduce poverty. The SDR is meant to discuss the constraints and challenges faced by a State and provide a vision, blueprint or a roadmap for its socioeconomic progress.

The Lakshadweep Development Report highlights issues related to the development of small islands and the road ahead for the progress of the Union Territory. Lakshadweep's potential in tourism, coconut development and its transformation in social sectors are well documented in the report. Infrastructure, human development, biodiversity and environment protection, governance and economic issues of Lakshadweep are adequately addressed in the report. The report is expected to serve as a useful reference material and stimulate informed debate on the policy issues facing the Union Territory.

Rajasthan, the largest state in India, started its quest for development with several handicaps and a few advantages. Nearly two-third of its area is arid or semi-arid, with low and irregular rainfall characterised with extremes of climate. For a predominantly agrarian economy these conditions prove a major handicap in ensuring sustainable growth.

If geography of the state is proving a stumbling block, its history—especially, recent history— makes the task of sustainable growth all the more daunting. The feudal tendencies had a deep sway over social organisation, which was characterised by hierarchical outlook, paternalistic institutions, low status of women and sharp social and economic discrimination against certain sections of population.

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Economic instruments have become increasingly popular worldwide as s strategy to achieve environmental goals. The National Environment Policy, 2006 recommends the use of economic instruments to supplement regulation. Unlike emission taxes or tradable permits which require legal and institutional capacity, ecotaxes on polluting inputs and outputs can be easily implemented through the existing system of central taxes. For dispersed non-point source pollution, a tax on input/output is an ideal instrument for controlling pollution. This volume contains ecotax proposals for coal, automobiles, detergents, paper and pulp, pesticides, fertilisers, lead acid batteries and plastics.

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After six decades of Independence about half of rural households in the country do not have access to electricity and the quality and quantity of electricity provided to rural users are far from expectation. Large technical and commercial loss makes the rural electricity system financially unviable. The overall governance of rural electricity system has polluted the existing socio-political and economic environment to an extent that rational decision making has become far too difficult. The structural reform in electricity sector that started since early nineties has not resulted in improved services to the rural customers in spite of a significant increase in electricity tariff. From the experiences in India and around the world, the book provides directions for rural electricity system development in the country considering the development concerns, regulatory and policy issues, technology options and tariff, and governance mechanism.

The book will be useful for the policymakers, regulators, rural electricity service providers, financial institutions, academicians, students and civil society organisations interested in rural electricity.

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The Indian economy clearly seems to have followed a higher growth trajectory with over 9 per cent growth in GDP for the fiscal year 2006-07. Despite some improvements, the performance of agriculture sector, however, continues to be the cause of concern. The dream of inclusive growth cannot be realised without revival of sagging agriculture sector. A number of challenges are being encountered in the sector. Some of these challenges are: (i) increasing number of small and marginal farmers; (ii) increased competition due to globalisation process; (iii) reduced capital formation; (iv) poor infrastructure; and (v) decline of State support to agriculture. Thus, in present context governance and strengthening of institutional mechanisms to revive agriculture growth is of paramount need.

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Participatory Monitoring and Learning (PM&L) is a process of collaborative review and problem solving, through the generation and use of information on a regular basis throughout the project cycle. It is a process that leads to corrective action or improvement within the project, based on the shared decision-making of a number of stakeholders.

Action for Social Advancement (ASA) launched a pilot initiative that experimented with the Participatory Monitoring and Learning (PM&L) approach, within three World Bank assisted rural development projects in Madhya Pradesh, India—the District Poverty Initiative Project (MP-DPIP), Rural Women’s Empowerment Project (Swashakti) and MP Forestry Project.

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Recent progress in molecular biology and biotechnology is impacting the life sciences as well as the lives of people in unprecedented ways. Plant genetic transformation and molecular marker technologies have led to a paradigm shift in plant genetic resource management and crop improvement. Granting patent protection to genes has not only provided incentive for gene discovery and placed monetary value on germplasm resources, but also raised concerns about ownership and access to genetic resources. This book is an outcome of the presentations made during Dr. B.P. Pal Birth Centenary Symposium organized by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), New Delhi, India, in February 2006. It begins with the commemorative lectures, which trace the evolution of approaches to the search for new genes in the last seven decades, since the seminal article written by Dr. B.P. Pal on the ‘Search for new genes’ in 1936. The book provides a comprehensive update of the modern biotechnological options for biodiversity management, gene prospecting, development of ‘designer crops’ and bioremediation. The power of molecular genetics in dissection of complex biological processes, and the potential utility of the knowledge that links genes to metabolic pathways and phenotypes for plant improvement are highlighted. The book covers strategies for harnessing the community and individual knowledge for genetic resource management and gene discovery, and presents models for benefit sharing and participatory plant breeding. Written by eminent experts in the field, the book shall be of significant interest not only to the academic and research community worldwide, but also to the policy makers and science administrators.

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Till recently the mention of traditional knowledge would only elicit metaphors like the Vedas and Upanishads, Aryabhatta, Panini and Charaka, or the invention of zero. The perspective is changing. This book deals with the traditional and indigenous knowledge of common men and women of India, that of its tribal and Dalit population, fisher folk, craftsmen, artisans and leather workers, their agriculture, housing and irrigation methods, medicinal knowledge, drinking water collection, arts and culture. Different chapters establish that the economic significance of such knowledge in the modern world is continuing, even increasing, and is being utilised in a wide variety of ways. Globally, there is an increased interest in traditional and indigenous knowledge. It is now recognised as an underutilised resource that can help to reduce poverty, and also as a dormant reserve with considerable commercial potential.

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National income statistics, which form the basis for measuring and monitoring the performance of an economy, do not include environmental resources adequately, with the result that they fail to provide the required inputs for the formulation of sound economic policies, particularly in the context of sustainable development. Coastal resources are important in a country like India, which is surrounded by sea from three sides, and mangroves, the salt tolerant forest ecosystem that is one of the richest ecosystems in the world, provides a wide range of ecological and economic products and services, including carbon sequestration and protection to life and property under severe cyclones and tsunamis. However, mangroves are neglected, as their value is not incorporated in the national income data. The present study, which is a methodological study, compiles economic value of mangroves in India and shows that this rich ecosystem contributes significantly to the economy, and it needs to be strengthened in order to promote sustainable development of coastal regions and to protect coastal population from cyclones and tsunamis.

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No study of globalisation is possible, nor is it thinkable, without referring to China, India, and Russia, that is to say, without an analysis of their firms and including them in the global network of firms. The three countries under study had socialist economies and are now going through a process of transition towards a market economy with various degrees of success and, more importantly, using different methods as far as the relationship between the State and the firms is concerned. Also, to a large extent, researchers in economics have until now viewed these countries in a somewhat unbalanced manner and they have seldom been the object of a comparative study from the perspective of the globalisation of their firms. The evolution in policy issues has been strongly backed by a similar evolution in economic theory, the effects strongly felt in former socialist countries, namely Russia and China, as well as in countries which had and still have a large 'public sector' like India. Neither the markets nor the States are nowadays seen as perfect, and this book deals at many places much more with their subtle interactions or coordination, than opposition.

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After a solid and broad-based growth for three consecutive years, the world economy is expected to decelerate in 2007, mainly dragged by a slowdown of the United States. Growth in Europe and Japan, meanwhile, will not be sufficient for these economies to act as locomotives of global growth. The outlook remains mostly positive for developing countries, but a degree of moderation is also expected. Sustained high growth in China, India and a few other major emerging economies seems to have engendered synergy among developing countries so that growth in this group is more endogenous. However, a large number of developing countries remain highly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of commodity prices and the volatility of international financial markets. The report highlights the need for greater employment growth, which has not kept pace with output growth. The global economic outlook also encompasses a number of important downside risks: bursts in the housing bubbles in a number of countries, uncertainties in oil prices and mounting global imbalances. The report calls for international macroeconomic policy coordination in order to facilitate an orderly adjustment of global imbalances.

The Planning Commission has decided to prepare State Development Reports (SDRs) for all States and Union Territories of India. The objective in bringing out these reports is to provide a credible independent quality reference document on the development profile, set out strategies for accelerating the growth rate of States, lessen disparities and reduce poverty. The SDR is meant to discuss the constraints and challenges faced by a State and provide a vision, blueprint or a roadmap for its socioeconomic progress.

Each SDR is being prepared with the assistance of reputed national-level agencies, under the supervision of a Core Committee, headed by a Member of the Planning Commission, and including a senior representative of the State Government. The publication of the Karnataka Development Report follows the recently published SDRs of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, while SDRs of many other States and Union Territories of India are under various stages of preparation.

The Maharashtra Development Report reviews the State's development experience and highlights issues critical for its future progress. The report is expected to serve as a useful reference and stimulate informed debate on the policy issues facing the state.

After the Hong Kong meetings in December 2005, what are the key trade and development issues that face developing countries in the closing stages of the Doha Round? Leading economic analysts, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, examine the detailed issues that developing country negotiators must understand. As always, the devil lies in the detail, and it is at the detailed level that the costs and benefits of trade agreements will be determined.

Essential reading for policy makers, government officials, scholars and students interested in the making and conduct of international trade negotiations and policy

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Can India grow without Bharat? Can we reap the “demographic dividend” of a young population? How should we revive industrial employment? Is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act affordable? Why have reforms sputtered despite the “dream team”? How is growth so strong though reforms have stalled? How can populism be restrained? Can 8 % growth be sustained? Should we deploy forex reserves to build infrastructure? What must we do to renew our decaying cities? What is the solution to the coming water crisis? Who are India’s tax reformers? Can bilateral trade agreements substitute for the Doha Round? Should SAARC have a common currency? Is “fiscal responsibility” working? Does monetary policy work? Can we really aspire to China’s economic league---or is it all hype? How good is our foreign policy?

The eminent economist Shankar Acharya provides forthright and provocative answers to these key issues about India’s development.

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While scientists can develop yield enhancing technologies, these will not make an impact on production and productivity without appropriate support from public policy and investment. National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) has from time to time assembled groups of eminent scientists to analyse public policy issues in important areas related to agriculture and prepare papers relevant to policy formulation. The present book includes 39 policy papers issued by the Academy during the last 15 years covering a wide range of issues like: Sustainable Livelihood and Nutrition Security, Water Resources Management, Soil Health Enhancement and Fertiliser Use, Agro-biodiversity and Biosafety, Agricultural Research and Education, and Globalisation and Agri-Exports. Many of the suggestions and recommendations contained in the book present a road map for rescuing the fate of farmers and farming from the present agrarian crisis prevailing in several parts of the country.

This book will be useful for scholars in agricultural universities and research institutions and for policy and investment decisions in the field of agriculture.

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West Asia is in the throes of acute political turbulence today. Given West Asia’s energy resources, developments in the region have profound implications for the wider world. The international community has been deeply concerned with the fragile conditions of the region in recent years. This book tries to analyse the evolving security environment in West Asia and its implication for global security. This edited volume discusses critical issues of our times: religious extremism, democratization, WMD proliferation, international terrorism, external intervention in the region, and energy security. The articles in the book analyse these issues critically and suggest possible alternatives for securing peace and prosperity in West Asia.

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The World Economy brings together two major reference works by Angus Maddison:

The World Economy: A Millenial Perspective, first published in 2001 and

The World Economy: Historical Statistics, published in 2003.

This new edition contains Statlinks, a service providing access to the underlying data in Excel® format. The World Economy is a “must” for scholars and students of economics and economic history as well as for statisticians, while the casual reader will find much of fascinating interest.

Written by the distinguished economic historian, Angus Maddison, together, the two volumes (bound-in-one) comprising The World Economy, hold authoritative analysis along with extensive supporting data on a global level for the growth and performance of various economies across the world, over a very large span of time. They undoubtedly provide answers to many a big question and promise to offer clues to still unanswered paradoxes. This ‘only one of its kind’ publication is made more attractive in the present format (‘two-in-one edition’, hard cover) that is sure to be a valuable addition to any library, personal or otherwise.

Community-Driven Development (CDD), in the World Bank parlance, refers to an approach where communities have direct control over key project decisions as well as management of investment funds. The CDD approach treats poor people as assets and partners in the development process, building on their institutions and resources. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the CDD context can potentially be much more than an input-output-outcome monitoring and a reporting mechanism. This guidebook (a World Bank co-publication) is all about improving the implementation of CDD projects using M&E as a management tool. It is built on the contention that a ‘learning-based’ M&E system, which involves different project management levels and other stakeholders in a continuous process of ‘learning’, can help the project management make course corrections, guiding project strategy on an ongoing basis, ultimately leading to better project outcomes.

The Planning Commission has decided to prepare State Development Reports (SDRs) for all States and Union Territories of India. The objective in bringing out these reports is to provide a credible independent quality reference document on the development profile, set out strategies for accelerating the growth rate of States, lessen disparities and reduce poverty. The SDR is meant to discuss the constraints and challenges faced by a State and provide a vision, blueprint or a roadmap for its socioeconomic progress.

Each SDR is being prepared with the assistance of reputed national-level agencies, under the supervision of a Core Committee, headed by a Member of the Planning Commission, and including a senior representative of the State Government. The publication of the Karnataka Development Report follows the recently published SDRs of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, while SDRs of many other States and Union Territories of India are under various stages of preparation.

The Karnataka Development Report dwells upon the entire gamut of the State, across sections ranging from real and financial sector, regional disparities, human and social development, environmental sustainability, governance and service delivery. Karnataka's strength lies in four major areas viz., good governance (transparency and accountability), solid resources (i.e. a good accumulation of human capital), near absence of communal conflicts and a good track record of management. The State however needs to address the stagnancy in agriculture, persisting regional disparity in respect of industrial development, income inequality, and levels of living related issues and social security. The report brings together exclusive chapters dedicated to the statement of a vision for future development in all these while also prescribing policy directions and ‘drivers'.

This publication explores the meaning of agriculture and guides the reader into new territory, where food, ecology, and culture converge. In the food systems of South Asia, the margin between cultivated and uncultivated biodiversity dissolves through women’s day-to-day practice of collecting and cooking food, constituting a feminine landscape. The authors bring this practice to light, and demonstrate the value of food production and consumption systems that are localized rather than globalized. Based on extensive field research in India and Bangladesh, with and by farming communities, the book offers both people-based and evidence-based perspectives on the value of ecological farming, the survival strategies of the very poor, and the ongoing contribution of biodiversity to livelihoods. It also introduces new concepts such as “the social landscape” and “the ethical relations underlying production systems” relevant to key debates concerning the cultural politics of food sovereignty, land tenure, and the economics of food systems. The authors are leading activists and accomplished researchers with a long history of engagement with farming communities and the peasant world in South Asia and elsewhere.

The story of a rising India has surprised the world but also captured its imagination. It is said that no other democracy has ever achieved levels of sustained economic growth comparable to India's over the last two decades. Exploring India's growing global importance and its domestic and external challenges, this unique volume examines the complexities of India's political, economic, and social evolution in the coming decade.

Combining lively discussions with back-ground essays contributed by a galaxy of prominent individuals from different spheres of life—distinguished scholars, policymakers, economists, corporate leaders, journalists, educationists and film-makers—the book offers compelling insights into the democracy, economy, and society of an emerging power.

Vulnerability to poverty is clearly linked to the Poor’s access to primary entitlements, which in turn depends on a functioning ‘public realm’. Justice and judicial reforms are central to this. Policy-making for an efficient and citizen-oriented judiciary in India has always lacked a comprehensive approach. The ‘piece meal’ initiatives hitherto initiated never became imbedded. The essays in the book articulates for the very first time for India, a wide-ranging judicial reform agenda that includes improvements in judicial governance, its linkages to economic growth, alternate dispute resolution, human resource development in the judicial branches, the use of IT, legal education, judicial and non-judicial training, and funding civil society initiatives for legal empowerment. Every essay forms a vital arm in the area of Judicial Reforms. However, the trajectory of suggested judicial reforms echoes the classic law and development movement bypassing the legal profession, which is less by design and more by default.

The increasing use of anti-dumping measures covering a wide range of sectors, both by developed and developing countries in recent years, indicates a policy substitution to protect domestic industries in the face of tariff reforms. While the developing countries are demanding special and different treatment to protect their interest against a possible misuse of this provision by their developed counterparts, many of them also rank among the major violators. In this scenario, a systemic review and subsequent modification/ scrapping of the anti-dumping agreement is the need of the hour. Responding to this need the Hong Kong Ministerial declaration (December 2005) has noted that negotiations on anti-dumping should, as appropriate, "clarify and improve the rules" in three major concern areas (determination of dumping, procedures and the level, scope and duration of adopted measures). The eight chapters in the current volume focus on the current scenario in select developed and developing countries, use of this provision in intra-developing country trade and analysis of anti-dumping cases lodged at the WTO dispute settlement body. The discussions in the volume significantly contribute in the ongoing debate and serve as an important input for current negotiations.

Pro-poor opportunities are rapidly unfolding in South Asia, spurred by new lifestyles and tastes, stimulated by increasing incomes, spreading urbanisation, and expanding globalisation. Dietary patterns are changing of both the poor and the rich, as well as rural and urban consumers, from staple foodgrains to high-value-commodities such as fruits, vegetables, milk, meat, eggs, and fish. The real challenge is how to grab these opportunities to alleviate poverty and improve quality of life, particularly for smallholders. This book, Comprising contributions by experts from various countries, the book provides a range of information, analysis, and the beginnings of pathways to accelerate agricultural diversification and facilitate inclusiveness of small holders through correcting incentives, evolving institutions, and developing infrastructure.

The Planning Commission has decided to prepare State Development Reports (SDRs) for all States and Union Territories of India. The objective in bringing out these reports is to provide a credible independent quality reference document on the development profile, set out strategies for accelerating the growth rate of States, lessen disparities and reduce poverty. The SDR is meant to discuss the constraints and challenges faced by a State and provide a vision, blueprint or a roadmap for its socio-economic progress

Each SDR is being prepared with the assistance of reputed expert national-level agencies, under the supervision of a Core Committee, headed by a Member of the Planning Commission, and including a senior representative of the State Government. The publication of the Uttar Pradesh Development Report follows the recently published SDRs of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, while SDRs of many other States and Union Territories of India are under various stages of preparation.

The Uttar Pradesh Development Report reviews the State's development experience and highlights issues critical for its future progress. Uttar Pradesh's latent potential in irrigation, power, transport, agriculture, and tourism is well documented in the report. The report is expected to serve as a useful reference and stimulate informed debate on the policy issues facing the most populous state of the country.

For more than five decades, United Nations has been giving development aid to developing countries for their economic and social development. At its birth, this was hailed as one of the greatest achievements of the UN and for humanity. The UN operated three aid programmes from its founding in 1945 until the creation of UNDP in 1996. But despite the scale and scope of these programmes, they did not attract much serious attention from scholars and institutions interested in multilateral aid.

This book presents for the first time a comprehensive survey and critical analysis of these programmes. The author explains in detail the political struggles and considerations underlying the birth of each of these programmes and some inherent flaws in their conceptualisation. In analysing their growth and changes in structures, the author discusses the modalities and chronic problems encountered in implementation, in coordination at all levels and in the evaluation of their impact on economic development in the recipient countries.

World Investment Report 2006 focuses on the rise of foreign direct investment (FDI) by transnational corporations (TNCs) from developing and transition economies.

New sources of FDI are emerging among developing and transition economies. This phenomenon has been particularly marked in the past ten years, and a growing number of TNCs from these economies are emerging as major regional - or sometimes even global - players. The new links these TNCs are forging with the rest of the world will have far-reaching repercussions in shaping the global economic landscape of the coming decades.

The Trade and Development Report 2006 offers relevant ideas and general principles for designing macroeconomic, sectoral and trade policies that can help developing countries to succeed in today's global economic environment. Particular attention is given to policies that support the creative forces of markets and the entrepreneurial dimension of investment.

The Report also argues that a global partnership for development will be incomplete without an effective system of global economic governance. Such a system should take into account the specific needs of developing countries. At the same time it should ensure the right balance between sovereignty in national economic policy-making on the one hand, and multilateral disciplines and collective governance on the other.

The key ingredients of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and protection of the person and property. Economic freedom liberates individuals and families from government dependence and gives them control of their own future. Empirical research shows this spurs economic growth by unleashing individual dynamism. It also leads to democracy and other freedoms as people are unfettered from government dependence.

The annual Economic Freedom of the World Report ranks countries on their level of economic freedom. This comprehensive index, constructed under the leadership of The Fraser Institute and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, is the most objective and accurate measure of economic freedom published to date by any organization and the only one that uses reproducible measures appropriate for peer-reviewed research.

This volume includes contributions by some of the most distinguished economists/experts and provides rare insights into India's development journey through time and space—the successes and failures, and the new challenges emerging from integration with the world economy. Opportunities offered by the forces of globalisation offer India immense scope to improve the quality of life of its people provided appropriate policies are put in place.

India's Economy: A Journey in Time and Space, is the hundredth volume of Economic Developments in India. This is a selection of 20 articles from over 500 published in Economic Developments in India since its inception in 1998 upto December 2005. This volume, in three sections, covers the most vital issues relating to the journey: (i) Growth, Poverty and Reforms (ii) Globalisation and (iii) Sectoral Developments: Agriculture, Industry, Financial and External Sectors. The general message which emerges is that India's future problems are no doubt large but manageable. In this context, the book examines the challenges ahead, outlines policies, and identifies lacunae in their implementation, which lie at the root of most of the difficulties facing the nation today. Covering a broad range of critical issues, the book will be of interest to policy-makers, researchers, students of Indian economy and India-watchers.

With progressive liberalisation of quantitative restrictions and tariff barriers following multilateral trade negotiations in WTO, environmental standards have emerged as significant trade barriers for developing countries’ exports. In this volume, leading experts examine the incidence of environmental requirements in the North and their impact on market access for Southern products especially those from South Asia. The book deals with various dimensions of such environmental and health related standards and their impact on South Asian trade in terms of their prohibitive effect, discriminatory impact and high compliance costs. The volume concludes with an agenda of action points for governments, business houses and international agencies to address the challenge.

According to the 2006 World Economic and Social Survey, world inequality is high and rising. The main reason is that in the industrialized world the income level over the last five decades has grown steadily, while it has failed to do so in many developing countries. Not more than a few developing countries have been growing at sustained rates in recent decades, but these include, most notably, the world’s two most populous countries, China and India. Considering that these two countries alone account for more than one third of world population, inequality across the globe is beginning to decline. When these countries are left out, however, international income inequality is seen as having continued to rise strongly from already high levels. Because more than 70 per cent of global inequality is explained by the income divergence between countries, its causes and implications are the focus of the 2006 Survey.

The new turn in India's economic policies and performance in the last decade of the 20th Century; the success of Indian enterprise in the post-WTO world; the emergence of a confident professional middle-class; a demonstrated nuclear capability; and, the resilience of an open society and an open economy, in the face of multiple and complex challenges—these have all shaped India's response to the tectonic shifts in the global balance of power in the post-Cold War era. No economist has paid a closer attention to the strategic consequences of India's increasingly impressive economic performance than Sanjaya Baru.

In this collection of academic essays and newspaper columns, that experts and lay readers would find equally stimulating, Baru explores the business of diplomacy and the diplomacy of business in a rising India. The role of India's cultural and intellectual ‘soft power’ in shaping global perceptions of India are examined. The book offers a panoramic view of the geopolitics and the geoeconomics of India's recent rise as a free market democracy.

This edited volume successfully highlights the nature of labour market regulation and deregulation process that some Asian countries have experienced in recent decades. The understanding that emerges would help develop an interface of growth/development and its sustainability with welfare-distribution of gains. Based on individual country experiences, the book suggests ways to put in place, labour market regulations to foster fairer labour practices in certain countries in Asia.

For years we have believed in development. Indeed, with all its hopes of a more just and materially prosperous world, development has fascinated societies in both North and South. Looking at this collective fancy in retrospect, Gilbert Rist shows the underlying similarities of its various theories and strategies, and their shared inability to transform the world. He argues persuasively that development has always been a kind of collective delusion which in reality has simply promoted a widening of market relations despite the good intentions of its advocates.

Now this era is over. Globalization has taken over. Former development promises have been shelved and replaced by a new but narrower slogan, 'the struggle against poverty'. Yet in spite of the failures of development, aggravated now by globalization, we are told that growth - which nobody would risk abandoning - is still the only means of salvation. It is clear that the need for belief is stronger than any doubts about its actual wisdom.

What, then, are the origins of this naive faith? Why have people put so much energy into proclaiming it and seeking to make it a reality? Why has it proved an illusion, and what future does it now have? These are some of the questions which this thoughtful and penetrating history of the concept of development explores.

This book is an invitation to rethink contemporary problems and to prepare ourselves for what might be called the post-development era.

There is no doubt that we live in a truly global economy—Japanese automobiles are manufactured in American plants and exported to Europe; McDonald’s Golden Arches beckon to customers in over 100 countries; skyrocketing oil prices have a ripple effect on the cost of thousands of goods worldwide. Encyclopedia of the Global Economy illuminates these issues and many more, covering a wide spectrum of concepts, people, and organizations related to economic globalization from its origins in the quest for exotic spices in the 16th century to the debates and controversies that reflect it today.

Volume 1 features over 150 entries, organized alphabetically, with definitions and descriptions, examples, photographic illustrations, references, and exhibits featuring the most current data. Topics include:

• international trade • corporate social responsibility • foreign investment
• child labor • transnational corporations • sustainable consumption
• economic and human development and the digital divide
• offshore outsourcing

This volume also includes profiles of prominent economists, business leaders, and policymakers as well as a timeline of major events and a glossary of key concepts and institutions.

Volume 2 includes a wide array of primary documents, a "data bank" of world statistics on demographic and economic trends, and print and Internet resources for further research. Each document is introduced with an explanation of its context and linked to related articles in Volume 1. Examples include the text of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), reports on environmental degradation and poverty reduction from the United Nations, and dozens of tables and graphs reflecting international investment, business activity, productivity, labor, and socioeconomic conditions around the world.

Reviving the Invisible Hand is an uncompromising call for a global return to a classical liberal economic order, free of interference from governments and international organizations. Arguing for a revival of the invisible hand of free international trade and global capital, eminent economist Deepak Lal vigorously defends the view that statist attempts to ameliorate the impact of markets threaten global economic progress and stability. And in an unusual move, he not only defends globalization economically, but also answers the cultural and moral objections of antiglobalizers.

Taking a broad cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach, Lal argues that there are two groups opposed to globalization: cultural nationalists who oppose not capitalism but Westernization, and “new dirigistes” who oppose not Westernization but capitalism. In response, Lal contends that capitalism doesn’t have to lead to Westernization, as the examples of Japan, China, and India show, and that “new dirigiste” complaints have more to do with the demoralization of their societies than with the capitalist instruments of prosperity.

“Deepak Lal’s Reviving the Invisible Hand is a brilliant account of modern economic theory and policy written from a rigorous classical liberal perspective. Lal shows a thorough knowledge of classical liberal theory and an enviable ability to apply it to any economy. Furthermore, he demonstrates that the greatest threat to world economic progress and stability comes not from old-fashioned socialism, but from the recent, fashionable modifications of the classical liberal model. It is remarkable that a technical economist should display such competence and originality in areas seemingly far removed from the diagrams and equations of orthodoxy. And his style is rigorous, well-paced, and just a little cheeky.”

— NORMAN BARRY, University of Buckingham, England,
author of Classical Liberalism in the Age of Post-Communism

The publication provides a summary overview of population policies and dynamics for each of the United Nations Member and non-member States for which data are available at mid-decade for the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and for 2005.

This publication shows, on a country-by-country basis, the evolution of Government views and policies from 1976 to 2005 with respect to population size and growth, population age structure, fertility and family planning, health and mortality, spatial distribution and international migration. Within the context of demographic, social and economic change. The material is presented in the form of two-page data sheets: the first page contains population policy data for each country for 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2005, and the second page provides population indicators for the corresponding years.

The growth rate of the global economy slowed to 3.2 per cent in 2005 down from the 4.0 growth rate in 2004; the growth rate of ESCAP developing countries also decelerated moderately in 2005, primarily as a result of high oil prices and a softening of growth in global trade.

Prospects for 2006 are for growth in the region to maintain its current momentum and for price pressures to abate slightly, provided oil prices do not increase significantly and global external imbalances do not unwind suddenly. Prospects for the ESCAP region also would be affected if avian influenza develops into a human pandemic.

Efforts are needed both at the regional and national levels to ensure that the benefits of high growth in the region are passed on to the poor by creating opportunities for decent employment for all. It is only then that the problems of the working poor, jobless growth and youth unemployment, which are haunting the region, will be addressed properly.

Together, the two volumes review the economic history of India from Independence to the current period and then go on to make forecasts about the future of the Indian economy and its role in the World. The objective is not criticism for the sake of it. Throughout the focus is on policy and institutional reforms to solve identified policy mistakes and problems.

Volume I shows that there have been two phases in India's economic history. The period of socialist stagnation, till the end of the seventies, in which India's growth rate was among the lowest in the World and poverty increased despite professions of socialism. The second period of market reform starting in 1980s walted us to the top of the growth sweepstakes and led a sharp and continuing decline in poverty. The book shows how India is poised to become a global power in the next 15 to 20 years, and why India is likely to become, over the next 30 years, the third pole in the emerging tripolar world of the 21st century.

Essential reading for all those concerned with the history and practice of industrial relations, this landmark volume chronicles the evolution of the field to date. It focuses on the largely untold story of how the globalization of industrial relations took hold, and explores in depth the pivotal events, ideas and people behind it.

KEY FEATURES:

• Provides the only comprehensive, up-to-date account of the evolution of the industrial relations field

• Outlines the four pillars that led to the internationalization of industrial relations after World War II

• Includes substantive background on the roots of industrial relations in the Anglo-Saxon countries, including the role of the IIRA

• Traces the development of modern industrial relations in continental Europe, Japan, Republic of Korea, India, Africa and Latin America

• Discusses the future prospects for the field of industrial relations

Notwithstanding the WTO objective, even eleven years after the inception of the multilateral body, the trade barriers, both in developed and developing countries are quite significant and unilateral liberalisation is not easily forthcoming. Although this lack of market access hurt the developing countries much more severely than their developed counterparts, the former group never systematically bargained at the negotiating table with the latter before the Doha Ministerial (2001). Looking at the negotiating strategies of India and several other WTO members over the years, the nine papers in this volume explore the current negotiating scenario and the concerns for India and other developing countries.

While some papers attempt to chalk out the future of global free trade and the determinants of protectionism of major players, the other ones look into the future of India's sectoral negotiating strategy. The introduction notes that judging by the experience of Cancun (2003) and the recent Hong Kong Ministerial (2005), developing countries are fast emerging as quick learners of the rules of the game, but need to sharpen those skills further : “It is quite prudent to understand that hidden from public glare, both the battle and the war will now continue in Geneva, which is less of a free trade bastion than Hong Kong. It is by now a time-honoured fact that the intensity of liberalisation undertaken at home makes handling the WTO-induced reforms easier, and the priorities for Indian policy makers are therefore, obvious.”