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The basic characteristics are outlined of the UN's Gender Inequality Index (GII) and its Gender Development Index (GDI). Their trends in relation to India's real Gross National Income (GNI) per capita indicate a decline in its gender inequality with its economic growth. However, these trends give a distorted and incomplete picture of changes in Indian gender inequality. Several assumptions underlying GII and GDI are questioned in the Indian context, for example, within India more education of females is not associated with a reduced wage gap between males and females, and greater access of females to the labour market can raise gender inequality. The effects of economic growth (absent in the above indices) are assessed on Indian male–female ratios and on violence against women. Variations in gender inequality in India within households are also considered. New data results in the questioning of several existing hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial development is a multidimensional process. Over the years with the invention of various new products and services, the financial sector (both financial institutions and financial markets) across the globe has significantly evolved. The endeavor in this article is to investigate the relationship between financial development and economic growth in India for the period 1980–2017. To do so, it employs principal component analysis (PCA) to construct a financial development index, which measures the financial depth of the Indian economy. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and error correction model (ECM), the study estimates a positive effect of financial development on economic growth in the long run and the short run, respectively. In addition, the empirical estimates posit a bidirectional relationship between financial development and economic growth. The uniqueness of this study lies in that it unravels a unidirectional relationship between the stock market and economic growth. The study, however, finds that appropriate liberalization policies spur economic growth in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]