Given the very large number of suicides by farmers in various parts of India over the last decade, there is a need to probe the issue by utilizing a data source which would provide a comprehensive, nation-wide picture. This paper is a modest attempt to fill that gap. Its basic objective is to put together, and carry out a preliminary analysis on, the secondary data that are available on farmers’ suicides in the country. The paper studies, first, the magnitude and trends in farmers’ suicides in India over 1997-2006; and second, the regional patterns, if any, in the incidence and trends in these suicides.

Given that a substantial proportion of companies in Asian developing countries are either unlisted or have a small proportion of free-floating shares, the surge in investments by private equity firms suggests that foreign acquisitions could increase in the region sharply. With foreign investors controlling a rising share of total assets, the ability of domestic forces and the domestic State to influence the pattern and pace of growth of domestic economic activity would be substantially eroded.

In recent years, the ‘official’ India has been patting itself on account of accelerated economic growth rates and the presumed progress in poverty reduction. However, as this paper argues, the recent economic growth has been extremely lopsided; more than ever before. Further, large sections of the country’s population continue to suffer, very acutely, with reference to a whole range of development deficits. This paper is an attempt to sketch a snapshot of India’s economic growth performance, along with some of the major development deficits it is facing.

The consequence of recent structural shifts is that the Indian economy can record the observed creditable rates of non-inflationary growth of aggregate GDP even when its agricultural sector languishes. It appears that a feature of the growth process in a more open and liberalised environment is that the peasantry has a much smaller a role in sustaining economic growth and can thus be partially excluded from development. What is disconcerting is that the self-correcting mechanism that existed in the earlier period to restore a semblance of balance between agricultural and non-agricultural growth are no more operative.

This paper provides a simple model of the current pattern of India’s economic growth process, to reckon with the fact that even an accelerating growth rate may leave the unemployment problem completely unresolved, or even accentuated, as labour productivity rises at a faster rate than investment. An obvious conclusion that emerges is that the widely-held perception that higher and higher growth rates would eventually eradicate unemployment in the country, is untenable.

This paper argues that both China and India, despite the similarity of the current international hype about their future economic prospects and also despite their obvious differences, face rather similar economic problems at present with respect to the labour market. In both countries, the strategy of development is delivering relatively high growth without commensurate increases in employment, especially in the organised sector; and the bulk of new employment is in lower productivity activities under uncertain and often oppressive conditions. It is argued that this paradox may be a common result of the similar strategy of economic expansion currently being followed in both countries.

The tremendous economic pressure that the Indian countryside has come under in the recent years is bound to impact the well-being of the masses in the rural economy. This paper is an attempt to examine the key elements of the contemporary agrarian crisis and its possible consequences for agricultural labourers. It appears that their economic conditions, in any case quite fragile and vulnerable even in 'better' times, have taken quite a battering in the recent years.

This paper explores why the official poverty estimates show low levels as well as decline in poverty in India over the 1990s, whereas all other economic and social indicators suggest that absolute poverty is high. The former do not capture the true picture because the official method involves the 'fallacy of equivocation'. It is also argued that when actual rural poverty is as high as nearly four-fifths of the population and poverty depth is increasing with a higher proportion of people being pushed down into lower nutritional status, there is an urgent need to revert to a demand-driven universal public distribution system.

In spite of large positive externalities associated with health spending, in India it is until now largely privately financed. The relatively low spending by the government, a trend aggravated during the liberalisation era, implies that health infrastructure and services will be underprovided and will simultaneously deny access to the poor. This study seeks to examine the actual pattern of government spending on health and related areas (particularly, family welfare and child development) by both central and state governments.

This paper brings two new elements to the debate around expanding reservation in centres of excellence in higher education. First, it establishes that Upper Caste Hindus are significantly better off in education, employment and relative incomes than ST, SC or OBC populations. Second, it links this privileged positioning of Upper Castes Hindus with changing labour market dynamics in the 1990s and shows how Upper Caste Hindus dominate the best jobs in the Urban economy. Since access to high quality tertiary education then becomes key to accessing the most dynamic segment of a decelerating labour market, the paper therefore argues that expanding reservations to OBCs in public institutions of higher learning is imperative.

This paper argues that in a situation where unemployment is generated through the disappearance of small-scale production, the ''efficiency'' argument in favour of their closure does not stand, even if small-scale units are more inefficient at the micro-level. The destruction of petty production through exposure to liberal trade, in the name of efficiency, is therefore an undesirable course of action.

This paper considers the recent boom in IT-driven offshoring in India and examines the potential for this to become a major source of economic growth in the future. It is argued that the optimism about the benefits that the new trend can bring to India and other similarly placed countries may be misplaced given the relatively small share of this sector in total output and employment, as well as the difficulties of sustaining growth in the area.

There is substantial agreement that international imbalances in growth and balance of payments performance are a source of global fragility. But disagreements persist on the source of those imbalances. The authors discuss an effort to manufacture a global savings glut to cover up US responsibility.

In this article, the authors consider the nature of developing country capital flows and analyse why investing in US dollar assets has become such a favoured use for financial resources that could be used instead to increase economic growth in the developing world.

This paper argues that even though "accumulation through encroachment" in the inclusive sense of the term is always an integral part of the process of capital accumulation, so that the pure reign of "accumulation through expansion" is rare and at best transitory, a crucial feature of contemporary imperialism is a vast increase in the relative importance of "accumulation through encroachment".

The National Sample Survey organisation is the nation's premier data collection and distribution agency. The agency has since independence, diligently fulfilled the need for critical data for both academicians and policy makers alike. However, given the nature of evolution of the survey methodology over the years, caution needs to be exercised while conducting temporal comparisons of employment figures.

The NDA's defeat in the recently held Lok Sabha elections owes a lot to the alliance's failing to address the problems of the agricultural sector, still a parking lot for the poor. It appears that the ruling Congress-led alliance has not learnt its lessons from the NDA's defeat as the Union Budget 2004-05 completely ignores the farming community's demands.

Unless irrigation facilities are spread to all states in India agricultural output in the country will remain hostage to the whims of the monsoon, and food security of the country can never be ensured.

This is the text of the V.V.Giri Memorial Lecture to be delivered by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik at the Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics in Kolkata in December 2003. In this lecture Professor Patnaik discusses "open economy de-industrialization" which in his belief has not been fully understood.

This lecture was delivered at the convocation of Kalyani University in the capacity of the chief guest at the ceremony.

This paper deals with major issues in school education in Kerala in the 1990s, in particular, with issues of state investment in schooling, the retention of students in the school system, and movements to bring about change in the quality of school education in the 1990s and to the present day.