Growth miracles typically have been studied at the country level. In The Making of Miracles in Indian States, internationally-renowned economists Arvind Panagariya and M. Govinda Rao bring together a team of six leading scholars to break from that tradition and study three growth miracles in India at the level of the state: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Gujarat. These are three large and diverse states in India: Gujarat has the third-highest per-capita income among the largest eighteen states, Bihar is the poorest, and Andhra Pradesh falls in the middle. Despite vast differences among the states, all three have grown at rates exceeding 8% for an entire decade in the twenty-first century. Each section of this three-part book offers a historical perspective on the state's development and the specific factors that improved its economic fortunes. The three case studies are backed by extensive quantitative documentation. They demonstrate the critical role that leadership, translated into improved policies and implementation, plays in stimulating growth and development. The Making of Miracles in Indian States is essential reading for students and scholars alike, as well as policy makers, NGO workers, and employees of international institutions.

Looking at the 19th and 20th centuries, and drawing on scholarly sources, this book traces the history of Gujurat from the time of the Indus Valley civilization, where Gujarati society came to be a synthesis of diverse cultures, to the state's encounters with the Turks, Marathas and the Portuguese.

Questioning whether certain sections of Indian society suffer from multiple deprivations, the Indian Human Development Report 2011 evaluates whether the social indicators of the excluded groups are converging or diverging with the rest of the population. The Report addresses three critical issues: (i) Do different social groups like the SCs, STs, and Muslims get excluded from the development process? (ii) Has India experienced inclusive growth in the true sense? (iii) How are flagship programmes/schemes of the government dealing with some of these concerns? Rich in data and analyses, this Report examines: human development index and profile for India and its states; economic attainment of the population, especially in terms of the two major sources of income-employment and assets; availability, access, and absorption of food and state of hunger and malnutrition; health indicators vis-a-vis inputs, processes, and outcomes; achievements and challenges in education; state of support infrastructure such as roads, electricity, housing, and telephony; and challenges facing vulnerable sections of India's population-child labourers, the elderly, and the disabled.

Chapter Introduction: Human development: has the paradigm failed us? -- chapter 1 Conceptualizing Human Development: Towards a social power approach -- chapter 2 Human Development in India: a profi le of unevenness -- chapter 3 Explaining Uneven Human Development in India: A social power perspective -- chapter 4 Human Development in Pakistan and Bangladesh: a profi le -- chapter 5 Uneven Human Development in Pakistan and Bangladesh: A social power perspective -- chapter 6 Conclusions: Agency, human development and social power.

The links between literacy and development have been the focus of research conducted by both economists and anthropologists. Yet researchers from these different disciplines have tended to work in isolation from each other. This book aims to create a space for new interdisciplinary debate in this area, through bringing together contributions on literacy and development from the fields of education, literacy studies, anthropology and economics. The book extends our theoretical understanding on the ways in which people’s acquisition and uses of literacy influence changes in agency, identity, social practice and labour market and other outcomes. The chapters discuss data from diverse cultural contexts (South Africa, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Peru, and Mexico), and from contrasting research paradigms. The contributors examine the significance of culture and socio-economic contexts in shaping such processes. As such, they contribute to our understanding of the role of literacy in processes of poverty reduction, and its importance to people’s capabilities and wellbeing. The themes covered include: the dynamics of literacy use in the production of agency, the enactment, negotiation and embodiment of new social identities - including gendered and religious identities; the impacts of literate identities and use on institutional relations and social participation; the dynamics of literacy ‘sharing’ and their externalities within and beyond households; formal analysis of the impacts of proximate illiteracy on labour market and health outcomes across men and women and social contexts. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.

Written by experts on the economy, industrial growth, urban and town planning, environment, and information technology, this volume of 11 essays charts out policy prescriptions for the Indian state of Gujarat to maintain and accentuate its contribution to the Indian economy and show the path for sustainable and equitable growth. Gujarat is India's second most industrialized state and has emerged as the second most important investment destination, the guide explains, noting that success in Gujarat is essential for India to maintain its economic growth trajectory.