India Emerging

Kumar and Puranam study a new, more visible, consumer-oriented kind of innovation emerging in India of compact, low-cost, robust, and efficient products. New products such as Tata's Nano, Going Green's G-Wiz car, and GE's ECG machine exemplify this unique kind of Indian innovation which is marked by robustness.

The subject of India's rapid growth in the past two decades has become a prominent focus in the public eye. A book that documents this unique and unprecedented surge, and addresses the issues raised by it, is sorely needed. Arvind Panagariya fills that gap with this sweeping, ambitious survey. India: The Emerging Giant comprehensively describes and analyzes India's economic development since its independence, as well as its prospects for the future. The author argues that India's growth experience since its independence is unique among developing countries and can be divided into four periods, each of which is marked by distinctive characteristics: the post-independence period, marked by liberal policies with regard to foreign trade and investment, the socialist period during which Indira Ghandi and her son blocked liberalization and industrial development, a period of stealthy liberalization, and the most recent, openly liberal period. Against this historical background, Panagariya addresses today's poverty and inequality, macroeconomic policies, microeconomic policies, and issues that bear upon India's previous growth experience and future growth prospects. These provide important insights and suggestions for reform that should change much of the current thinking on the current state of the Indian economy. India: The Emerging Giant will attract a wide variety of readers, including academic economists, policy makers, and research staff in national governments and international institutions. It should also serve as a core text in undergraduate and graduate courses that deal with Indias economic development and policies.

Essays by leading academics, policymakers, and industrialists examine India's economic success in the late 1990s. India's economy over the last decade looks in many ways like a success story; after a major economic crisis in 1991, followed by bold reform measures, the economy has experienced a rapid economic growth rate, more foreign investment, and a boom in the information technology sector. Yet many in the country still suffer from crushing poverty, and social and political unrest remains a problem. These essays by leading academics, policymakers, and industrialists -- including one by Amartya Sen, the 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on poverty and inequality -- examine the facts of India's recent economic successes and their social and cultural context. India's rate of economic growth after the 1991 reforms were instituted reached a remarkable 7 percent for three consecutive years, from 1994 to 1997. Several contributors to India's Emerging Economy ask what this means for the nation as a whole. In his essay "Democracy and Secularism in India," Amartya Sen argues that economic progress is not the only way to measure a nation's performance. Other essays examine the actual effect India's economic growth has had on reducing poverty and recommend policies to empower the poor. Essays also address such issues as globalization and the vulnerabilities and opportunities it creates, India's experience with monetary and fiscal reform, the rapid growth of the information technology sector (including a case study of India's software industry), and India's grassroots economy.

India, like most democratic developing nations, is prone to populist politics. In the search of votes, politicians look for popular solutions with mass appeal. Some popular solutions benefit the poor, some hurt the economy. Poor economics leads to falling numbers. Falling numbers get statistically captured as economic data. And, the impact of such economic data is immense. This data can lift or crash currency markets, stock markets, affect credit ratings, fuel inflation, affect new investments and even result in mass layoffs. However, there is always a story behind the data. These stories are guided mostly by executive decisions. Some decisions are far-reaching and beneficial to the masses, some cater to political vote banks, some are guided by increasing activism, some serve the need for social justice, some are aimed at environmental protection, while some are simply driven by the greed of power or wealth. This is the story of every regime. The book narrates this compelling data story in a layman's language. Even where data is wrong it leaves behind a tell-tale mark of anomalies, which trips the economy sooner than later. Fudged, incorrect or lazily collected data is worse than genuine but unimpressive data as you do not know what to correct. India Emerging thus captures this dialogue on the pros and cons of economic and political decisions that can be understood by the common voter who is neither an economist nor an academician.

This landmark book provides the first comprehensive assessment of India as a political and strategic power since Indias nuclear tests, its 1999 war with Pakistan, and its breakthrough economic achievements.

These essays examine India's relations with key powers including the Russian Federation, China and the USA and with key adversaries in the global arena in the aftermath of the Cold War. One positive relationship is that of India's relations with Israel since 1992.

This book brings together a wide range of experts to present a comprehensive insight into doing business in India. With expert coverage of the emerging political, legal and social frameworks, the book provides a rounded picture of business in the region.

India faces a defining period. Its status as a global power is not only recognized but increasingly institutionalized, even as geopolitical shifts create both opportunities and challenges. With critical interests in almost every multilateral regime and vital stakes in emerging ones, India has no choice but to influence the evolving multilateral order. If India seeks to affect the multilateral order, how will it do so? In the past, it had little choice but to be content with rule taking—adhering to existing international norms and institutions. Will it now focus on rule breaking—challenging the present order primarily for effect and seeking greater accommodation in existing institutions? Or will it focus on rule shaping—contributing in partnership with others to shape emerging norms and regimes, particularly on energy, food, climate, oceans, and cyber security? And how do India’s troubled neighborhood, complex domestic politics, and limited capacity inhibit its rule-shaping ability? Despite limitations, India increasingly has the ideas, people, and tools to shape the global order—in the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, “not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.” Will India emerge as one of the shapers of the emerging international order? This volume seeks to answer that question.