India-The Political Economy of Reforms

This book is a collection of seminar papers about the political economy of reforms in India. There is general consensus that the first generation of reforms (concerning primarily the external sector) are over and to take the Indian economy to a higher growth trajectory, one should move on to the second generation, interpreted variously as the domestic sector or state-level reforms. This is where the political economy of resistance takes over and resistance also concerns some amount of stock taking about what the first decade of reforms has achieved. In particular, other than overall issues, the papers in this volume address decentralization, poverty, agriculture, food security, infrastructure (power), the financial sector, Small-Scale Industry, labour markets, regional disparities and countervailing pressure exerted by citizen groups. In the process, the pending agenda is also set out. The book should be of interest to all those interested in Indian economic policy formulation.