This book provides a comprehensive analysis of India’s social and economic transformation in the decades leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic and explores both resilience and vulnerabilities in Indian society. It provides an in-depth look into diverse aspects of how Indians live, earn a living and care for their children by examining vital indicators such as poverty, malnutrition, health and marriage and family relationships, among others. Analysing the data from the India Human Development Surveys, it presents a complex picture of India’s transformation and large economic and educational gains, while exploring the reasons why these have not translated into social transformation of a similar magnitude. The volume also describes the backdrop against which the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the Indian economy. In effect, it foreshadows the challenges that need to be addressed on the road to recovery. It argues that in order to reduce the scarring and ensure recovery for all, it will be important to focus on the underlying conditions faced by the most vulnerable sections of the Indian society as policymakers seek to effectively tend to issues of socio-economic inequality and marginalisation in the long run. Rich in data and analysis, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of economics, political economy, sociology and development studies.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of India's social and economic transformation in the decades leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic and explores both resilience and vulnerabilities in Indian society. It provides an in-depth look into diverse aspects of how Indians live, earn a living and care for their children by examining vital indicators such as poverty, malnutrition, health and marriage and family relationships, among others. Analysing the data from the India Human Development Surveys, it presents a complex picture of India's transformation and large economic and educational gains, while exploring the reasons why these have not translated into social transformation of a similar magnitude. The volume also describes the backdrop against which the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the Indian economy. In effect, it foreshadows the challenges that need to be addressed on the road to recovery. It argues that in order to reduce the scarring and ensure recovery for all, it will be important to focus on the underlying conditions faced by the most vulnerable sections of the Indian society as policymakers seek to effectively tend to issues of socio-economic inequality and marginalisation in the long run. Rich in data and analysis, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of economics, political economy, sociology and development studies.

This 2nd revised and enlarged edition a highly acclaimed predecessor offers a panoramic vision of the fast changing contours of Indian economy, covered by some of the most well-known scholars on the subject.

After a phase of slow growth post Independence, the Indian economy has experienced significant changes since the mid-1980s as a result of major reforms. India’s growth story has defied established economic patterns and, in the process, created interesting paradoxes that have attracted global attention. In this new edition of A Concise Handbook of the Indian Economy in the 21st Century, select chapters from the original have been updated to present a brief but comprehensive overview of the Indian economy, contributing to a finer understanding of India’s economic development. The volume adopts a non-ideological and forward-looking approach to discuss important economic issues. It takes into account various social and political factors impacting the Indian economy, and compares the importance of external market factors with that of domestic reforms in India’s economic growth. The book aims to provide a deep understanding of the economy based on careful fact-based research, which is a pre-requisite for formulating pragmatic reforms necessary to achieve sustained and inclusive growth.

After experiencing stagnation for much of the post-independence period, India has shown considerable dynamism in processes and outcomes since the mid-eighties. The post-reform Indian Economy has defied established economic patterns and in the process created a few paradoxes. This book aims to identify policies, institutions and incentives that have worked, and constraints that have emerged in India's growth prospects. More than underdevelopment, the book analyses the bottlenecks that emerge as change occurs, to minimize the chances of being trapped into the dated habits of thought. It takes opportunity from rapidly transforming Indian economy to analyse out-of-equilibrium behaviour and understand the dynamics of non-conventional growth path.

Twenty years ago India was still generally thought of as an archetypal developing country, home to the largest number of poor people of any country in the world, and beset by problems of low economic growth, casteism and violent religious conflict. Now India is being feted as an economic power-house which might well become the second largest economy in the world before the middle of this century. Its democratic traditions, moreover, remain broadly intact. How and why has this historic transformation come about? And what are its implications for the people of India, for Indian society and politics? These are the big questions addressed in this book by three scholars who have lived and researched in different parts of India during the period of this great transformation. Each of the 13 chapters seeks to answer a particular question: When and why did India take off? How did a weak state promote audacious reform? Is government in India becoming more responsive (and to whom)? Does India have a civil society? Does caste still matter? Why is India threatened by a Maoist insurgency? In addressing these and other pressing questions, the authors take full account of vibrant new scholarship that has emerged over the past decade or so, both from Indian writers and India specialists, and from social scientists who have studied India in a comparative context. India Today is a comprehensive and compelling text for students of South Asia, political economy, development and comparative politics as well as anyone interested in the future of the world's largest democracy.