|
| Unique
Identity, Leakages and Development |
| Dec
16th 2010, Jayati
Ghosh |
|
| The
latest initiative of the Government of India, the UID
project, apparently appears to have many advantages
for ordinary citizens, especially the poor. But there
is a fundamental mistake in presuming that this will
do away with corruption and leakages, because it misses
out the fact that it is the power relations that enable
and assist the pattern of corruption in India. Also
the project can lead to an invasion of basic privacy
and undesirable monitoring by the state. |
|
| Measuring
Progress |
| Sep
30th 2009, Jayati
Ghosh |
|
| The
limitations of GDP and HDI that are used as standard
measurements of growth and development might have prompted
President Nicolas Sarkozy to set up a commission to
look into alternative ways of measuring economic and
social progress. However, the report of the commission,
instead of making much headway, has added to the existing
debate, thereby leaving some of the most crucial questions
unanswered. |
|
| Assessing
the Recent West Bengal Experience |
| Mar
20th 2009, Jayati
Ghosh |
|
| A
report prepared by Indicus Analytics on the economic
development of West Bengal tries to portray a dismal
performance of the state with regard to growth, employment,
poverty reduction, health etc. The article tries to
question the findings of the report and argues that
in many counts West Bengal has performed much better
than the national average. |
|
| Health
Imbalances |
| Mar
5th 2009, Jayati
Ghosh |
|
| While
India has one of the worst health indicators in the
world, there is a paucity of ideas and initiatives to
take care of the problem of health. The recent Report
of the Independent Commission on Development and Health
in India shows the imbalances with regard to health
indicators in the country and makes important recommendations
to fix the ailing public health system. |
|
| Where
have all the footpaths gone? |
| Feb
3rd 2009, Jayati
Ghosh |
|
| The
author puts forward a new definition of underdevelopment
in terms of lack of amenities for pedestrians in towns
and cities. Although the problems of urban slums have
been discussed in the context of rapid urbanisation,
the importance of having safe, continuous and usable
walking spaces, which are almost lacking in many urban
sprawls across the developing world, seems to be missed
out. |
|
| The
Loss of Development Finance |
| Oct
23rd 2008, Jayati
Ghosh |
|
| The
financial tsunami that is now threatening to engulf
many developing countries as well, makes all the more
clear the dangers posed by unregulated financial markets.
As is known, in addition to creating the conditions
for greater fragility, financial liberalisation generates
a bias towards deflationary macroeconomic policies and
forces the state to adopt a deflationary stance to appease
financial interests. In fact, financial liberalisation
in developing countries has even worse consequences,
because it can retard or even reverse the development. |
|
| Recent
Growth in West Bengal |
| May
12th
2008, C.P. Chandrasekhar & Jayati Ghosh |
|
| The
state of West Bengal has been the focus of national
discussion because of the various implications of its
proposed industrialisation policy. In this article the
authors consider the background to this policy by analysing
the most recent available evidence on growth trends
in West Bengal. |
|
| Digital
Dumps: A Growing Threat for Developing Countries
|
| Mar
17th 2008,
Jayati
Ghosh |
|
The
management of huge and growing quantities of electronic
waste may emerge as one of the more important environmental
problems of developing countries in the near future.
The problems arise from the very significant health
and environmental hazards associated with e-waste. As
usual, this impact is worse in developing countries,
where people often live in close proximity to dumps
or landfills of untreated e-waste. |
|
| Unravelling
India's Growth Transition |
| Nov
2nd
2007, C.P. Chandrasekhar |
|
| India's
GDP growth has experienced a sudden boost in the middle
of 2003. One specific component of the services sector,
and interestingly, manufacturing growth seems to have
contributed significantly to this transition in growth
pattern. But the fact that the domestic market, which
played a major role in this scenario, was driven in
the final analysis by a financial boom that eased credit
availability, reduced interest rates and encouraged
debt-financed consumption and investment, makes the
growth process fragile and a cause for concern for future
policymaking. |
|
| Dealing
with Short-Term Migration |
| Oct
4th 2007, C.P. Chandrasekhar & Jayati Ghosh |
|
|
Short-term
migration for work has evidently increased rapidly in
recent times in India, but our statistical systems are
currently not adequate to capture such flows of labour.
In this edition of MacroScan, C.P. Chandrasekhar and
Jayati Ghosh discuss the limitations of the existing
data, the tendencies that do emerge and the policy implications
of short-term economic migration. |
|
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