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This paper reviews the economic policies adopted by the Indian government under different policy regimes, provides a political economy perspective of economic growth in the country during 1950–2020 and examines the inclusiveness of the rapid economic growth in recent decades. The growth performance of the economy improved as the economy moved from inward-looking policy regime to the regimes of pro-business and pro-market policies. India's political economy was supportive of the changes in policy regime. After growing at a sluggish rate during the first three decades after 1950–1951, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth accelerated significantly after the pro-business reforms in the 1980s, and there was further acceleration after the pro-market reforms since 1991–1992. It has, however, slowed down in recent years. Nevertheless, it has not been inclusive, as the benefits of growth have not reached all sections of the population and all regions of the country equally. On the contrary, disparities in income across regions and inequalities in income, wealth and consumption among individuals have exacerbated, and the problems of unemployment and poverty have been persisting in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most remarkable events in the world during the last half-century has been the notable economic growth, social transformation and poverty reduction that has taken place in Asia. The March 2002 issue of the 'Journal of Asian & African Studies,' contains nine papers, authored by economists, sociologists and anthropologists, covering five countries in the region including India, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These papers suggest that rather than making land reform the centerpiece of the strategy for rural development and poverty reduction, the government should give priority to investments in physical and social infrastructures, agricultural research and technology transfer and enforcement of contractual arrangements and property rights. The paper by Saurabh Sinha, Michael Lipton and Shahin Yaqub is closely related to the Baulch and McCulloch paper in that it also is concerned with transitory changes in household welfare.

The concepts of poverty and development have many meanings in contemporary globalized societies. Development by definition implies desired changes in terms of livelihood, improved quality of life and better access to assets and services, etc. However in reality development programmes sometimes have negative consequences, perhaps unintended, multiplying the acute scarcity of resources and opportunities, or reproducing poverty. Also, the consequences of developmental programmes often appear to be out of focus, and seen at the ground level, there seems to be a gap between what is intended and what is actualized. In this framework, this paper presents a case study of the social, cultural and economic correlates of the development processes in Adadakulapalle, a settlement of Sugali peoples, once a semi-nomadic tribe, in Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, South India. The paper shows how factionalism and faction politics affect the implementation of development interventions. It also looks at the poverty in the settlement and focuses on the types of change that people have experienced with the implementation of different schemes by both government and other agencies. The type of change is discussed in the present study through the macro and micro analysis of development programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

India's conception of its peaceful role in international affairs, which evolved during the Nehruvian era, is not an end in itself, but rather a wholesome strategic choice consistent with its economic development and great power ambitions. Despite emphasising a radical shift in foreign policy, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi deemed it essential to prioritise peace in international relations, particularly with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The Abraham Accords, involving the UAE and Bahrain, have created a new geopolitical environment that affirms India's conception of security through peace and permits engagement in key areas while ensuring economic gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the consequences of the economic and educational change among the Dalits of Karavadi. The tobacco cultivation that engages a large amount of labour has attracted the left political parties for the spread of their ideology and recruitment of party workers. It has helped in working against the practice of untouchability. Further, it has enabled the Dalits to be politically conscious and seriously participate in the political process. The growth of educational institutions in the village and the economic improvement have together helped the Dalits to assert their political and economic rights in the village. As a cumulative effect, the hegemonic inter-caste relations in the village have changed, though caste bias has not disappeared. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper expounds on an Adivasi-Dalit subalternist critique of development and compulsory modernization drawn from a participatory critical-interpretive case study developed from several episodic engagements with these groups between 2006 and 2009 in Orissa, India. This critique is advanced by the Lok Adhikar Manch (LAM), a trans-local movement network of 13 subaltern social movement groups in Orissa. These disclosures are then deployed in a critical conversation with a specific strain of Marxist scholarship in peasant studies that dismisses subaltern movements as conservative (status-quo politics in relation to capital) and as scattered anti-Marxist postmodern populisms that fail to challenge the reproduction of capitalist control of the rural hinterlands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the role of social capital in community development by focusing on two South Asian case studies drawn from India and Bangladesh. Both studies recognized social capital as a useful resource, which facilitates social interaction and promotes mutual support and cooperation and thus improves participants’ livelihood through income generation, better community governance and capacity building. An important observation is that social capital yields superior outcome if it is used in line with the local conditions of a given society. The findings suggest lessons for policy planners, donor agencies, development practitioners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society to use social capital as a resource in order to achieve sustainable community development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports on mean consumption, poverty (all three FGT measures) and inequality during 2004 for rural India using National Sample Survey (NSS) data for the 60th Round. Mean consumption at the national level is much higher than the poverty line. However, the Gini coefficient is higher than in recent earlier rounds. The headcount ratio is 22.9 per cent. Mean consumption, all three measures of poverty and the Gini coefficient are computed at the level of 20 states and 63 agro-climatic zones in these 20 states. It is surmised that despite impressive growth rates deprivation is pervasive, pockets of severe poverty persist, and inequality is rampant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

India embarked on a high growth path right in the early 1950s. However, due to some internal and external shocks, the economy slowed down from the mid-1960s until about 1980. Moreover, throughout the period, industry and services grew at higher rates compared to agriculture whose share in GDP was almost 60 per cent in 1950. Thus, the increasing trend in the overall growth rate is the reflection of the increasing shares of the high growing sectors in the GDP. It is also suggested that mere growth is not sufficient to reduce poverty, while poverty reduction may also impact growth positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest to discover the most robust predictors of economic development continues unabated. Social scientists have run the gamut, for instance, from demographic pressure to the degree of price distortion, and savings rate to the rate of technical innovation. Currently, the attention is on "social capital." Although empirical studies operationalize social capital in an almost bewildering number of ways, the shared impulse of these studies, the article suggests, has been to parlay "culture" in a form sensible to economics and policy science: in terms of its capacity to generate economic returns. While there is a pressing need to recognize the discursivity (linguistic and social embeddedness) of economic categories, "culture" translated as "social capital" is a sorely inadequate formulation. Bourdieu's notion of "symbolic capital" is, theoretically and empirically, far more instructive. Employing primary and archival evidence, the article demonstrates how the pursuit of "symbolic capital" by the dominant Patel caste has produced an unexpected trajectory of agrarian change in the Matar subdistrict of Gujarat, India; and, in so doing, it indicates how the analysis of "social capital" could be revised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]