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This paper is an attempt to analyze the trajectories of welfare policy in India since independence. Four overlapping phases are outlined, keeping in mind the transformations in the political and economic contexts. The corresponding welfare discourses are: Paternalistic, Clientelistic, Basic Needs and Responsive. These concepts indicate broad strategies of policy and are not analytical categories. However, one can easily discern a general trend, perhaps a snapshot, of the ideas which shaped welfare policies in India. We assume that the changes are incremental and cumulative. The policy makers' conceptualization of welfare during each time period, the interpretation of these policies in scholarly literature and a critical evaluation are presented. We have suggested that the responsive welfare policy in the recent times is a process of empowering citizens by converting their needs to demands. Democratic representation of the marginalized in the Indian state's policy space is gradually getting recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between the Indian state and society for promoting economic growth and development in India. It argues that the shift to private sector and trade promotion, which was essential for growth, required technocratic conviction and economic crises, for accelerating the pace of change. While growth has resulted in social development, serious challenges to growth and human development remain. Poor physical and human infrastructure in many areas, and the politics of subsidies for the well-to-do at the cost of more inclusive public investment, pose major challenges for making the growth story a more inclusive one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth in India declined in the post financial crisis years both due to external and domestic factors. While the slowdown appears to be largely cyclical, it is possible that trend growth may also have been affected, especially by negative shocks from the domestic policy environment. In this article, we analyze the sources of output growth in the past three decades and discuss the outlook going forward. We make projections for the growth of factors of production and the growth of trend gross domestic product (GDP) per worker for the period from 2013–2030. In general, the outlook for factors appears strong. As long as policy reforms support the broad environment for investment in infrastructure and education and eliminate frictions hampering the efficient use of labor and capital, all of which can also boost productivity, it does not appear that trend growth is likely to decline in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This introduction provides the context for, summarizes, and connects the articles in the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether New Delhi’s engagement with the ongoing conflict in Syria (and Iraq) demonstrates that India is leaving behind its traditionally cautious and risk-averse foreign policy stance and becoming a more proactive international actor. India has not engaged actively with and has not tried to wield substantial influence over the course of this conflict; instead, after a moderate burst of diplomatic activity in the second half of 2011 India has largely tried to avoid involvement. There are some indications that India is trying to become more proactive in its region, in trade diplomacy, and toward a rising China; yet, results sometimes fail to meet ambitions. Accordingly, the article concludes that, on balance, India’s foreign policy orientation has not yet changed significantly; it remains a cautious, reactive international actor unwilling to engage with and actively shape the outcome of crucial crises or conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study documents considerable spatial variation in change and stasis in development outcomes over the decade from 2001 to 2011 (proxied by women’s literacy and child sex ratio) even across villages within the same micro-region (taluk or sub-taluk) and with similar starting points. However, neither decentralization policy / practice nor other forms of public policy has identified village-level factors that mediate the impact of policy. Although extant literature has explored spatial variation, it has not explored such variation across different micro-regions of India, nor has it used methodologies that validate explanatory inference from spatial-longitudinal comparisons. The article notes that the degree of spatial variation in change over such a short period of time is remarkably similar across different micro-regions of the country. It also proposes a tentative methodology for identifying village pairs to produce more rigorous comparative longitudinal analysis of the drivers of development change and stasis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After twenty years of economic reform and liberalization, is India now on pace to close the development gap with China? To assess this prospect, I analyzed multi-decade trends across six dimensions of human capabilities crucial to both individual and national development: 1) economic, 2) health, 3) infrastructure, 4) knowledge and technology, 5) public administration and 6) gender equality. I also conducted a focused comparison of two industrial sectors: software services and equipment manufacturing. The evidence shows that India is starting to catch up in several sectors, but overall China currently has a significant lead on most economic and technological indicators. Whereas most scholars studying this divergence have focused on shifting economic policies as the key to convergence, I argue that lingering development gaps may primarily be a result of India’s lower levels of social investment. Thus, if India is to catch up and surpass China, it will not only need supportive economic policies but must also concentrate heavily on expanding and improving rural infrastructure, education, and especially gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the sources of rapid economic growth in India in the 2000s and explanations for the growth slowdown in more recent years. We use the Indian national accounts and the National Sample Survey (NSS) to perform a growth accounting analysis. We disaggregate the total economy into agriculture, industry and services and separately identify the contributions of labor, capital and improvements in productivity. Services account for the largest share of the acceleration in 2000-10. Industry, on the other hand, is the sector most reflective of the recent slowdown. The high growth of the 2000s can be traced to strong capital accumulation, improvements in labor skills and large productivity gains. A slowing in the pace of economic reform and a general deterioration in fiscal and monetary policies appear to be the major factors responsible for the slower pace of growth since 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Besides its principal purpose to plan for economic development, India's Planning Commission has also served as an influential integrative mechanism for the economy and nation, both spatially and socially. Despite economic liberalization, the state found the commission to be an eminently useful public policy instrument and has continued to retain it. The commission has proven to be a flexible and adaptable organization, receptive to new ideas. Since liberalization, its approach to planning has changed (a) from comprehensive planning to indicative planning; (b) from planning for state hegemony to adapting to private sector expansion; (c) from planning for a producer state to planning for a quasi-welfare state; and (d) from centralization to coordination in planning. Challenges abound, however. The commission's key role in economic integration both over the short and long run, particularly as a link between the center and states, nonetheless makes it worthy of strengthening, not weakening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last few years have witnessed a revival of Indo-African technoeconomic cooperation within a host of ICT-based projects aimed at promoting capacity-building. This article is an attempt at sketching out some of the most significant traits of this evolving trend based on a discussion of two landmark initiatives: the Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation scheme and the Pan-African e-Network Project. The article suggests that differences between these two projects typify key changes that have taken place in conceptualizations of cooperation. First, there was an ethico-political shift in relation to the responsibility of the state and of individual beneficiaries. Then, the spatiality of cooperation has been modified in ways that are epitomized by the image of the network and its concomitant ideal of horizontal dispersion. Finally, a dynamic has emerged in which connecting the world and igniting the pride of the nation feed into one another in innovative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact that national economic policies adopted during Indira Gandhi's final term in office (1980–84) had on four “national” social groups, namely the big industrialists, the middle class, the rich peasantry, and the poor. The study argues that the Congress (I) chose the former two as its major allies, while the rich peasantry and the poor were relegated to a secondary position. In the process, the focus of India's strategy of development shifted from the agrarian to the industrial sector, and from the rural to the urban world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China's anti-satellite (ASAT) test of January 2007 has brought renewed focus on space security. The test also appears to have forced a re-evaluation of India's traditional declaratory policy against the militarization of space and more specifically created pressures for an Indian ASAT system. India's policy itself does not appear to have fully changed yet but there are signs of some fluctuations. This article examines the impact of the Chinese ASAT test on India's policy on space militarization and on India's ASAT policy. The first section of the article tracks Indian policy on space militarization and the small indicators of fluctuation in that policy, some of which predate the Chinese ASAT test. The article then examines how India's ASAT policy also shows some indicators of change, though this transformation is not yet complete, and nor is it clear that the transformation will take place. The article also identifies changes in Chinese ASAT capability as the key driver in India's rethinking about ASATs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

there is no abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1947, Harry S. Truman could scarcely imagine that "anyone thought [India] was important." But only a decade later, Senator John F. Kennedy put forward a radically different appraisal of the value of India, and the strategic meaning of poverty. The sheer scale of India's deprivation, he argued, made it the decisive ideological battleground, and "a world power with a world audience" in its own right. In the minds of American planners, India's position at the center of a line of containment gradually gave way to its more crucial function as a model of economic development. The goal of representing India as an authentically Western model, distinct from China, underlay an aid relationship that created the "problem" of hunger and then made solving it an international goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India, in the two decades following independence from Britain, was an exciting, exhilarating, confusing, and irritating country, or so it appeared from the West. It was also a prime battleground in the Cold War: as the world's largest democracy, it was a focus of Western support, especially given the alternative example that had been established in 1949, the communist People's Republic of China. Accordingly, American policymakers "viewed Indian domestic politics as a critical battleground in the larger war against communism... India 'had' to be built up to withstand the threat from the Soviet Union and Communist China," whatever that threat might be. And while New Delhi's declared policy of non-alignment, supporting neither East nor West, was a potential issue for the US, Washington chose to provide development aid to India despite the latter's reluctance to join in any formal alliance. The Cold War battleground of development aid was reflected in the 1958 establishment of the Aid-India consortium under the nominal supervision of the World Bank, but in reality presided over by the United States. The organization was comprised of a group of wealthy, democratic countries which met several times per year to determine the level of overseas development assistance (ODA) to India. By so doing they hoped to create greater coherence and coordination in both the provision and disbursement of aid, with the result manifested in a quickening tempo of Indian economic development. The Aid-India consortium also demonstrated very clearly the ideological gulf between India and the Bank, which focused on the merits of a planned versus an "open" economy. Indian planning was done through a series of five-year plans, with the first beginning in 1951. Their purpose was to stimulate economic... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the factors that may have contributed to the phenomenon of interregional variations in economic development and growth in India in the 20th century. Emphasis on the need to sustain economic growth in regions which were bypassed for two decades; Information on India's poorest regions; Comparison between the regional disparity in India and European countries.