Tyler Cowen’s controversial New York Times bestseller—the book heard round the world that ignited a firestorm of debate and redefined the nature of America’s economic malaise. America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, media wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess? One political party tries to increase government spending even when we have no good plan for paying for ballooning programs like Medicare and Social Security. The other party seems to think tax cuts will raise revenue and has a record of creating bigger fiscal disasters that the first. Where does this madness come from? As Cowen argues, our economy has enjoyed low-hanging fruit since the seventeenth century: free land, immigrant labor, and powerful new technologies. But during the last forty years, the low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau. The fruit trees are barer than we want to believe. That's it. That is what has gone wrong and that is why our politics is crazy. In The Great Stagnation, Cowen reveals the underlying causes of our past prosperity and how we will generate it again. This is a passionate call for a new respect of scientific innovations that benefit not only the powerful elites, but humanity as a whole.

"The twenty-first century is witnessing a profound shift in global dynamics of unprecedented speed and scale, driven by the fast-rising powers of the developing world. What are these countries doing right? What are their biggest challenges in the years ahead? How will this dramatic reshaping of world politics and economics affect the wealthy industrial North, as well as the poorest nations now clustered at the bottom of the Human Development Index? UNDP's widely praised 2013 Human Development Report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, addresses these questions by analysing more than forty countries in the developing world that have posted unusually rapid human development gains in recent decades, drawing heavily on background research commissioned from eminent economists, demographers and social scientists. This companion volume to the 2013 Human Development Report presents nine of those research papers."--Publisher website.

Human development demands that all social groups have equal access to the services provided by the State and have equal opportunity for upward economic and social mobility. It is also necessary to ensure that there is no discrimination against any section of the society. India's constitution contains various provisions for the development of marginalized groups. Their individual and collective growth, however, cannot be ensured without improving their surroundings and providing basic necessities of life. The major challenges of human development in India are: the measurement and aggregation of human development * the manifestation of poverty in all dimensions of life * the drop out rate and stagnation in primary education * a greater demand for higher education than what is currently available * decontextualization of the present system of education * persistent regional disparities and social inequalities * unregulated human activity and the unsustainable use of environmental resources * the gross under valuation of women's economic contribution. The book, consisting of 24 scholarly articles, provides valuable material on various dimensions of human development in India. It also makes practicable recommendations in this context.

The volume covers issues related to poverty, inequality, inclusiveness development, role of institutions, and socio-political perspectives on development in India with a special focus on North-East India. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka