Issues in the Indian Economy

Course Coordinator (CC) and Team: Anirban Biswas

Email of course coordinator: anirbanbiswas[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: This course is offered only to those students who have attended the courses on Micro Economics and Macro Economics during their previous semesters. An understanding of International Economics and Public Finance will be beneficial.

Aim: This course is a compulsory course for those pursuing a Major in Economics but would be open to all students of the BA programme with some pre-requisites. This course shall highlight and analyse the key features of Indian economic development after independence and the major contemporary issues confronting it. Issues pertaining to individual sectors like agriculture, industry and services, and to their mutual interaction in development, and problems like unemployment, poverty and inequality, etc. shall be discussed with reference to government economic policy and its evolution.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

Historical background: India as a developing economy

State and Society: Continuities and change since independence

Indian Economic Policy through time.

Issues in agricultural development – agrarian structure, investment, technology and productivity.

Industrialization: Trends and fluctuations, patterns of structural change and constraints.

Services and their growth

Trade and external relations in Indian development.

Gender and labour: Specificities and Generalities

Poverty, Unemployment and Inequality

Refererences:

Following are few references. Additional references (books/articles) shall be added according to need.

• Chakravarty, Sukhamoy. "Development planning: the Indian experience." OUP Catalogue (1998).
• Byres, Terence J. The Indian economy: major debates since independence. Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Krishna, K. L., and Uma Kapila, eds. Readings in Indian Agriculture and Industry. Academic Foundation, 2009.
• Kapila, Uma, ed. Indian economy since independence. Academic Foundation, 2009.
• Srinivasan, Thirukodikaval N. Eight lectures on India's economic reforms. Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Goyal, Ashima, eds. Handbook of the Indian Economy in the 21st Century: Understanding the Inherent Dynamism. Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Balakrishnan, Pulapre , eds. Economic Growth and Its Distribution in India. Orient Blackswan, 2015.
• Drèze, Jean, eds. Social Policy, Orient Blackswan, 2016.

Tentative Assessment schedule with details of weightage: