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This article presents a multidimensional account of the politics of resource extraction in two subnational regions of India in response to the question: what are the political conditions that facilitate extraction? Emerging from the same moment of state creation in 2000, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are adjacent mineral‐rich states with similar demographic profiles and comparable levels of economic development. The authors argue that despite these similarities and India's highly centralized legislative framework for natural resource governance, the two states have developed distinctive 'extractive regimes' in the years since statehood, which contrast in important ways across three dimensions: political organization and history, institutional effectiveness, and the nature and management of social resistance. The article offers the first in‐depth, comparative account of how subnational territorial reorganization in India acts as a critical juncture enabling the formation of extractive regimes, which have also converged in important ways in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with sociologist Ramachandra Guha is presented. When asked about what brought him into becoming a sociologist and why his economics training doesn't reflect in his work he refers to the many personalities who had influenced his career. Guha believes that lately he is more of a historian. He also comments on India's pattern of development.

ABSTRACT This article explores transformations of development practice after economic reforms, through an empirical account from Gujarat, western India - the country's poster-state of neoliberal reforms. It draws upon ethnographic fieldwork on the Hariyali watershed development intervention and the delivery of state-sponsored microcredit through the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana programme in Dahod district, eastern Gujarat. This study of development practice reveals the ascendancy of market rationalities in development agencies; the rise of contracting and subcontracting by a restructured rural bureaucracy; the state's devolution of policy implementation to local political actors; and the deployment of self-governance techniques, specifically notation and inscription technologies, to create self-regulating development subjects. Springing from transformations within the state itself, these changes constitute fundamental shifts in the governance of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are the pre-project standard for outlining potential environmental and social risks related to large-scale mining. Incomplete or disingenuous EIAs mask the potential social, environmental and economic impacts of large projects. To examine the possible misrepresentation of project risks, this article analyses a set of EIAs for the proposed Niyamgiri mine and related Lanjigarh refinery and refinery expansion in Orissa, India. In contrast to their promises of development benefits, it is argued that the project assessments fail to acknowledge the substantial social impacts for project-affected persons as some face displacement, livelihood change, marginalization and a loss of natural resources. The issues raised here are not unique to these cases, but are representative of a flawed system in which environmental clearance is granted for projects with misleading or mis-assessed EIAs. This article questions the validation of 'development' projects via EIAs which do not thoroughly estimate the social risks and costs of projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, Dalit mobilization for land rights and the cultivation of gaairan (grazing lands) in the last decade has attracted the attention of international civil society actors who participate in such mobilization through local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This article contextualizes the debate on the growth and role of NGOs by presenting the politics of formation and working of a funding-driven network of NGOs on Dalit rights and livelihoods in India. It cautions against exaggerating the role of international civil society actors in local democratization processes, and also argues that the feared depoliticizing of public interests as a result of INGO involvement is misplaced in the case of Dalit politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining empirical evidence with Amartya Sen's concept of capabilities, this article argues that the digital divide is not merely a problem of access to ICTs. It is part of a larger developmental problem in which vast sections of the world's population are deprived of the capabilities to use ICTs, acquire information and convert information into useful knowledge. Fieldwork research including sample surveys conducted in rural locations in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh in India shows that these capabilities can only be created through large-scale complementary interventions in economic and social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While contemporary globalization makes the world more interconnected, it also reworks and builds on existing cleavages and uneven development. This is an under-researched dimension of the emerging twenty-first century international division of labour. The core question is whether new developments (associated with exports, offshoring and outsourcing) spin off to the majority in the countryside and the urban poor. This article examines the relationship between the dollar economy and the rupee economy in India. It documents the ways in which inequality is built into and sustains India's development. The authors discuss other instances of multi-speed economies and analytics that seek to come to grips with these relations, from combined and uneven development to global value chains. They present three ways of capturing contemporary inequality: asymmetric inclusion, enlargement-and-containment and hierarchical integration, each of which captures different dimensions of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the development planning approach of intellectual Sukhamoy Chakravarty of India, which aims to integrate economic growth with social justice and ecological sustainability. It outlines Chakravarty's approach to planning theory and the major lessons he learned from his policy-related work in the country's Planning Commission. It discusses his views and perceptions concerning economic progress, agriculture-led growth and the main barriers to Indian growth. Moreover, the article analyzes whether Chakravarty's approach to development planning is still relevant despite changes in various aspects of the nation.