Authors: Brad Glosserman, CSIS, Peter Walkenhorst and Ting Xu, Bertelsmann Foundation
The most recent sign of the global order’s age and obsolescence was the BRICS summit held in New Delhi on 29 March 2012. Even though the group of countries that make up BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will not reorder global politics, their determination to articulate the grievances of emerging states should not be ignored.
Take, for example, their call for a new development bank to complement the World Bank by placing greater emphasis on the needs and priorities of developing economies as those nations themselves see them. Read more…
Author: Ashima Goyal, IGIDR
Statistics can abet illusions unless properly understood and used, and the current heated debates in India about the poverty line and budget deficits reflect a lack of understanding of the meaning and purpose of these measures.
Instead, the debates have triggered preconceptions and emotions which are largely unrelated to the real significance of these measures. Let us first consider India’s poverty line. Read more…
Author: K. P. Mohanan, IISER-Pune
The 21st century seems to have brought to India a new optimism, a confidence that it can become a global economic superpower alongside the US and China, and an eagerness to achieve this as quickly as possible.
Government agencies in control of funds are aware that an important prerequisite to economic growth is innovation and leadership in science and technology. Read more…
Author: Nabeel A. Mancheri, NIAS
The provision of infrastructure and other public utility services has traditionally remained the domain of government and statutory bodies in India.
But with a phenomenal upsurge in the demand for transport; water supply; and effective sewerage, drainage and solid waste management systems, India’s government has found itself lacking in the financial, technical and executive capacities that are needed to plug the demand–supply gap in infrastructure. Read more…
Author: Frank Jotzo, ANU
The economic rise of Asia brings with it an unprecedented growth in energy use.
How that growth in energy demand will be met depends on technology development and policy for climate change and energy security. These choices will profoundly affect the prospects of energy exporters such as Australia. Read more…
Author: Louise Merrington, ANU
Although the disputed border between China and India is often highlighted as the major sticking point in Sino–Indian relations, in reality it has remained relatively peaceful since the end of the 1962 war, and the potential for overt military conflict in the region remains minimal.
Of much greater concern is the strategic quadrilateral relationship in South Asia involving China, India, the United States and Pakistan. Read more…
Authors: Ankush Agrawal, IEG, and Vikas Kumar, Azim Premji University
Developing nations like India are data intensive: they need socio-economic information about their population to design redistributive policies.
And, given their obsession with global rankings, they also need information to compare themselves with other countries. But India’s official statistics are not free of errors. Read more…
Author: Mukul G. Asher, NUS
The announcement of the April 2012–March 2013 budget for India’s western state of Gujarat is a timely reminder that state budgets deserve a more prominent role in policy debates about India’s public financial management.
States play a critical role in delivering public services and in implementing central government schemes. Read more…
Author: Sugata Marjit, CSSS
‘Growth versus equity’ is a theme that continues to occupy most of the policy debates in India, particularly after two decades of experimenting with economic reform.
The outcome of the reform process has been mixed: India’s commendable trend rate of economic growth is unfortunately accompanied by a sustained and increasing degree of inequality. Read more…
Author: Madhu Purnima Kishwar, CSDS
‘Development’ and ‘underdevelopment’ are politically loaded terms.
Most ‘underdeveloped’ societies have a colonial past in which their people and resources were economically exploited and their social, cultural and political institutions were wrecked. Read more…
Author: Rajesh Basrur, RSIS
Though India is widely regarded as a ‘rising power’, the government has not publicly set out its grand strategy or the direction it is taking.
There is still much debate on critical issues such as the viability of its liberal economic model and its relationship with the United States. Read more…
Authors: Rajiv Kumar and Soumya Kanti Ghosh, FICCI
The prevalence of malnutrition in India is a cause for serious concern.
In order to eliminate this problem, a food subsidy bill (FSB) has been proposed. But the fiscal viability of the proposed FSB is unclear and the delivery outcomes could be highly compromised given current weaknesses in governance and the ineffective delivery mechanisms in place. Read more…
Author: Anil B. Deolalikar, UC Riverside
While India’s economic transformation and growth have received much attention in recent years, what is less well-known is the great progress made on many social fronts, with declining fertility rates, expanded schooling, and efforts to bridge the gender gap in schooling, especially at primary and lower-secondary levels.
But there are two areas of human development in which India has not fared particularly well: child malnutrition and the population’s gender balance. Read more…
Author: Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University
In the whole spectrum of India’s political experience, one thing that stands out is the wonder of Indian democracy.
Three aspects of Indian democracy cause theoretical surprise and one that generates concern. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
India is a paradox, as Assa Doron and Barbara Nelson point out in the latest issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly, released this week.
On the one hand, the country’s high growth rate in the past two decades has led to its international profile reaching new heights. On the other hand, about a third of the population still lives below the poverty line. Read more…
