Economic liberalisation has been the buzzword in Indian politics since 1991. Although it was never debated in a true democratic spirit, the Congress Government, with Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister and Dr. Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister, dramatically brought this chore into currency. Even the short-lived BJP Government (May 1996) headed by Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, did not throw away this camouflaged concept notwithstanding its substantially different stand regarding globalisation. And, of course, the united front of over thirteen parties led by Mr. H.D. Deve Gowda as Prime Minister started functioning on June 1, 1996, almost in the lap of the Congress Party in spite of occasional vituperations from extremist quarters. The revised (updated) economic survey for 1995-96, and the regular union budget for 1996-97 presented by Mr. P. Chidambaram, as Finance Minister, both provided occasion to Dr. Manmohan Singh to feel elated on the score of economic liberalisation. Even so, this volume comprising 25 selected papers, chosen from a bigger number authored by Professor Om Prakash over the five-year span (1991-96), presents a different picture not only on the basis of cold logic but also in the context of practical pointers. At the outset, three basic issues are examined objectively : (A) Liberalisation vs Bureaucratisation; (b) Public Sector vs Privatisation (The Stock Scam); and (c) Globalisation vs Self-reliance. These are followed by basic investment mathematics (The Benchmark model), convergence paradigms (Devaluation, inflation and interest rates), analysis of union budgets, role of financial institutions, public sector reform/disinvestment, golden handshakie of PSU employees, electronic media, TQM, export-import policies, GDRs, MNCs, and contradictions in India’s economic liberalisation. These include complacency with regard to the size of government/fiscal deficits/inflation and euphoria for multinationals at the cost of India’s public sector and small-scale units.
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