Economy and Society
Lies, Damned lies, and Statistics: On Arvind Panagariya's Kerala
adventure
Jan 5th 2012, R. Ramakumar
This is a response to the article titled ''Cracking the Kerala Myth'', published in the newspaper Times of India dated 2 January 2012. The author refutes the claims that the development of Kerala was not state-led success, and highlights the statistical fallacies in the argument.
Democracy and the Financial Markets
Dec 1st 2011, Jayati Ghosh
In the last few decades, it has become increasingly common for various developing and “emerging” markets to give greater importance to appeasing the interests of financial markets over the requirements of political democracy. Now, this is afflicting developed countries as well, where governments are sacrificing democracy in favour of the markets.
The End of Europe?
Nov 30th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The crisis in Europe has recently claimed many political victims, with the governments in Greece and Spain, two of the worst hit countries, being changed. The newer governments promise to implement stringent austerity measures that are being proposed as a solution to the crisis. However, how much of austerity can actually be implemented, and what good such measures will do to resolve the crisis is highly doubtful.
Why are Women's Health Outcomes in India so Poor?
Nov 29th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
Women's health outcomes in India are generally much worse than in comparator countries, despite two decades of very rapid growth in India. Public spending on health as a share of GDP has not increased, and per capita spending on immunisation and primary health centres has actually gone down.
Pills, Patents and Profits
Nov 16th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
It is widely accepted that regulation and control in India's pharmaceutical sector had resulted in India ensuring access to cheap medicines for its population. However, liberalisation policies have eroded away much of the benefits. The newly proposed National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy, 2011 can do further damage by weakening the current price control regulations.
Protest in the Age of Crises
Nov 2nd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
If the Occupy Wall Street movement is to acquire strength to actually confront the might of finance capital and the state it controls, it must find greater cohesion, with an organisational structure and a programme that goes beyond anger against the capitalist system and the condition to which it has reduced the majority.
Much More Needed to Help the Poor
Oct 19th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan is not only disappointing, but also disturbing in its attitude towards poverty reduction. Multidimensional approach to poverty, which any sensible government would adopt today, is ignored in the Approach paper and the policy interventions that have been proposed are pathetic.

India's New High Growth Trajectory: Implications for demand, technology and employment
Oct 12th 2011. C.P. Chandrasekhar
Evidence on trends in surplus generation and utilisation suggests that India's recent transition to a high-growth trajectory has been accompanied by and partly based on tendencies towards profit inflation and increased inequality. This paper offers an explanation as to why the net implications for employment and conditions of work of this growth trajectory have been adverse.
How Little can a Person Live on Today?
Oct 3rd 2011, Utsa Patnaik
The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ''poverty line'' follow from a mistake in method which it made thirty years ago and has clung to ever since. On the basis of the officially accepted nutritional norms, the true poverty lines show that 75 percent of the population is in poverty. With this high level of destitution, the sensible policy is to revert to a universal distribution system with an urban employment guarantee scheme.
Poverty Lines and Poor Minds
Oct 3rd 2011, Himanshu
There is much academic debate on the appropriate estimates of poverty line. Poverty lines are benchmarks for policy makers to measure progress over time. The use of such measures for targeting social assistance is arbitrary. The Planning Commission's use of narrowly defined poverty line estimates restricts access of the poor to basic entitlements such as food and health. What is required is universal provisioning of these entitlements without recourse to any targeting.
Nix to Both Teams: People's power can only work within a structured
system
Sep 12th 2011, Ashok Mitra
Although people's power is a beautiful idea, it can work only within the format of a structured system. While the Anna Hazare movement leaves lessons for the government and the Parliament, it should also make the nation realise the perils from excesses indulged in the name of the people's will.
Higher Education: Dealing with higher expectations
Sep 7th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
There has been a significant increase in enrolment in higher education in developing countries (especially Asia) in the past decade. However, this positive change also brings forth certain challenges, the most obvious of which is the challenge of generating enough employment to meet expectations of growing numbers of new graduates.
Afterword on a Movement
Sep 7th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
Any undermining of parliamentary democracy represents a huge social retrogression. But a positive fall-out from the Hazare movement hopefully is self-rectification by the ''democratic State'' in the face of this challenge. However, the Hazare group's assault on parliamentary institutions and exclusive emphasis on corruption within the state machinery, to the exclusion of the corporate sector and civil society groups, could turn out to be a part of an agenda of converting Indian democracy into a ''corporatocracy''.
The Consequences of Increasing Access to Education
Sep 1st 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Globally, there has been a rise in student enrolments in educational institutions, which is a welcome improvement. However, this development gives rise to newer challenges of providing productive employment to meet the aspirations of the newly educated youths. Failure to do so can generate discontent and social tensions that can be destabilizing factors for all societies in the near future.
The Urbanisation Challenge
Aug 10th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Addressing the problems posed by growing ''urbanisation'' is one of the major challenges for India at present. The country faces a potentially deadly combination of growing population in small urban areas with poor or possibly non-existent facilities and inadequate good quality employment generation.
Women's Work in India: Has anything changed?
Aug 9th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
One of the striking features of the latest National Sample Survey round results is the apparent decline in female employment in 2009-10 compared to 2004-05. The other depressing feature that emerges from the survey is that economic growth has still not generated a process of employment diversification for women.
Deciphering Employment Trends
Jul 26th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
One distinctive feature of the labour market in India is the fact that casual work in the construction sector has been the main source of employment during a period when India transited to its much-celebrated high-growth trajectory.
The Latest Employment Trends from the NSSO
Jul 14th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
The results of the latest NSSO large survey on employment and unemployment provide crucial evidence on the pattern of inadequate job creation in this phase of high economic growth.
Public Spending on Education in India
Jun 29th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The failure of the government to provide universal access to quality schooling and to ensure equal access to higher education among all socio-economic groups as well as across gender and region has significant implications for equitable socio-economic advancement. Ensuring a reasonable quality of education to all children will necessarily require a significant expansion of the public resources to be provided.
Why is India Suddenly so Angry about Corruption?
Jun 18th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Post liberalisation, market-oriented reforms have delivered higher aggregate growth but also significantly increased economic inequality and material insecurity for the majority of India's population. The recent outrage against corruption in India reflects a great betrayal felt by a populace that had been told that the era of neoliberal economic policies would end vices that were supposedly associated with greater government involvement in economic activity.
Food Price Transmission in South Asia
Jun 14th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
The recent increase in global food prices has once again set off alarm signals in developing countries, especially in South Asia, where food inflation has been a major problem for some years now. Evidence from South Asian countries corroborates the fact that domestic factors do play a role in the international transmission; while rising global prices put upward pressure on domestic prices in a much rapid manner, its downward movements are less rapidly or effectively transmitted and often do not have any such impact.
The Left and Elections in West Bengal
May 18th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
Assembly elections in West Bengal have resulted in defeat of the Left Front government after 34 years in power. However, a detailed look at the voting shares shows that the Left parties still managed to garner more than 41 per cent of the votes which by no means can be taken as showing a big decline in popular support for the Left among the people in the state.
Depriving Dalits of their Due
May 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The denial of public resources that are mandated under the Special Component Plans for Scheduled Castes amounts to a huge assault on their basic socio-economic rights, as it forces them to continue to live in squalor and degradation.
Health Outcomes across the Major Indian States
Apr 20th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
An examination of the most recent health outcome indicators across the major Indian states throws up some surprising results. In this article, the authors consider the evidence on infant mortality and maternal mortality rates and show how the various states are ranked quite differently as compared to when GDP growth rate is taken as the primary indicator of progress.
Politics in the Digital Age
Apr 20th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
While there is all-round acceptance that corruption needs to be combated, the recent much-hyped movement for a bill on the Lok Pal has generated a number of questions, objections and criticisms. The most important of these is the fact that corruption in societies such as ours is not just political, but also structurally embedded.
The Growth-discrimination Nexus
Apr 13th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is argued by many that market forces break open age-old social norms, particularly those of caste and gender. However, unfortunately, capitalism in India, especially in its most recent globally integrated variant, has used social discrimination and exclusion to its own benefit, to take forward the growth tory.
Socialist and/or Feminist?
Apr 11th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Across countries, socialist feminists face a dual struggle: the need to address and confront the unjust economic order that is expressed in class societies, and the simultaneous need to address and confront the constantly regenerated patterns of gender inequality and subordination.
Teaser Mania
Feb 9th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The Reserve Bank of India's advice to banks to withdraw loans offered with teaser interest rates comes as a precautionary measure to avoid any crisis of the sub-prime type as India remains prone to such crises. Substantial retail lending by Indian banks using teaser rate loans, especially to the housing market, has led to this apprehension.
Food Prices and Distribution Margins in India
Feb 3rd 2011, Jayati Ghosh
To look at corporate retail as the solution to the current food price increase seems to be foolish as the recent evidence on distribution margins indicates that the countrywide share of corporate retail in food distribution is estimated to have tripled in the past four years and the retail food prices have shown the greatest increase. Instead, creating a viable and effective public distribution system in essential commodities is an immediate requirement.
Diluting the Right to Food
Feb 2nd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
In its task of formulating the Food Security Bill, the National Advisory Council has ended up recognizing the supply constraints that could hinder implementation of the bill which guarantees universal access to food through a public distribution system.
Going after the Little Guys
Jan 13th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
In order to control their large volume of non-performing assets (most of which are loans made to large corporate houses), several commercial banks in India are selling off their small NPA accounts to private players at a large discount. By doing so, the banks are indirectly putting great pressure on the small scale producers, the middle class families and other similar groups for repayment instead of the large defaulters.
The Criminalization of Dissent
Jan 13th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The official position idealising economic growth as a national goal and vilifying any opposition to it as anti-national, is reification. But, equally importantly, it is dangerous, both because it criminalizes ideological dissent and because it implicitly justifies corporate control over the State.
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