India S Development Experience

This volume covers a broad selection of Guhan's academic writings on various development issues such as measurement of poverty, rural poverty alleviation, social security for the unorganized sector, health issues and center-state relations.

In This Study, The Author A Distinguished Economist Known For His Consistently Progressive, Pro-Poor Positions On Major Socio-Economic And Political Issues, Makes The `High Growth` Strategy Of The 1980S The Focal Point Of A Wide-Ranging Re-Examination Of India`S Development Experience.

The papers included in this volume cover several aspects of human capital. It starts with the role of human capital in influencing productivity, employment and growth of employment. The chapters show that Indian States that have been neglecting schooling and health facilities have become victims in terms of low productivity and lower rates of employment. Consequently, employment cannot be increased without spending on education and health. Furthermore, the unorganised sector in India cannot provide gainful employment as productivity in this sector is low and is also declining. Skill intensity influences mainly productivity in the organised sector. As a result, states that have been neglecting human capital would lose on both counts. The chapters also reveal that human capital could be substituted for energy use and help in reducing energy consumption and pollution. India is also one of the important exporters of human capital and the non resident Indians send remittances back to India. The volume indicates that remittances play a significant role in poverty reduction and increase in per capita consumption levels. In addition remittances, unlike foreign direct investments and portfolio investments, are less erratic and are not influenced by slowdown in the world economy. Poverty could also be directly attacked through the use of anti poverty programmes like NREGA. This volume provides an analytical framework and a theoretical model to analyse the impact of these programmes to examine their influence on labour demand, income, prices and productivity. The volume also emphasises the crucial role of the government in directly running education institutions. As seen from the volume government run engineering institutions are technically more efficient than the private run ones.

A comprehensive review of Indian planning in the light of development theory and the debates on planning carried out in other countries.

The author starts with discussing the historical position of women in Indian society and points out the key issues which have affected women's lives. She then goes on to discuss the policies and programmes instituted by the government as part of planned development after independence. Another crucial issue she deals with is the status of the girl child, adressed in the context of the sex ratio, child mortality indices, nutricional status and health services. She evaluates women's health programmes and the unequal employment opportunities available to women in spite of sevral government employment schemes.

This work is an indepth analysis of the entire gamut of problems afflicting the rural economy. Some of the questions specifically looked into are: With how much of sincerity the plans were prepared, and how these were implemented? What were the effects on productivity and expansion of activities in different sectors of the rural economy? How much of attention was given to the problems of the weaker sections, and what improvements came over the years? What were the state of social and economic infrastructure? Did human resource development receive the attention it deserved?

The authors (professors of economics at the U. of Queensland, Australia) offer a comparative analysis of the developmental experiences of China and India, applying quantitative analysis to investigation of economic, social, political, and environmental aspects of the countries' development from the 1950s forward. After comparing the initial conditi