Archives: Working Papers

After 22 years in power, the BJP is feeling the heat this year in Gujarat’s election campaign. This paper analyses the reasons for this sudden frustration with the BJP – with a particular focus on caste mobilisation, urban-rural division, and emerging class politics in Gujarat.

Production around the world is now increasingly characterized by shorter product cycles and just-in-time processes. Consequently, the reliability of the supplier is an important distinguishing characteristic. This paper presents a situation where suppliers in more distorted economies would be more prone, in equilibrium, to divert their production away from exports to the domestic market. As a result, importers allocate a lower share of import demand to such suppliers. It is shown that liberalization of such economies results in the importer allocating a relatively greater share of import demand to the supplier, which in turn, appears as an increase in the conomy’s exports. This ‘demand side’ channel through which domestic liberalization affects a country’s export has not yet been explored in the literature.

Indians have, since times immemorial, been guided by the philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiva Kudumbakam’. It is hence not surprising that people from India have been responding to economic opportunities of an international nature knocking at their doors and have migrated to other parts of the world in search of greener economic pastures. The whirlwind of economic liberalization coupled with the phenomenon of convergence in the field of electronic communication has now reduced the entire universe into a global village, converting this tiny trickle into a much bigger stream. In the light of all this, it is interesting to examine the economic experiences of people of this kind often referred to as the Indian Diaspora. The paper here attempts an exercise of this kind and is split into five parts. Part one goes into the issues of defining the concept particularly with reference to the Indian Diaspora. Part two studies the experiences of the Indian Diaspora in two different regions of Africa. Part three examines issues in this regard about the Indian Diaspora in Canada. Part four looks critically at the attempts to woo NRI capital and enterprise to India with particular focus on foreign direct investment. Part five summarises the main findings of this paper to crystal-gaze a little and also to draw meaningful policy inferences.

Globalisation has significantly influenced economic growth in developing countries. However, its impact on development has been diverse. The growing divergence in the impact of globalisation on developing countries has been noticeable. The Centre for Policy Research in its research program of 2003-04 had approved a research study entitled “lmpact of Globalisation on South Asian Economic Development” to be undertaken by Professor G P lsser, a former IFS Officer and Ambassador of lndia. This Working Paper is the result of this research study.

This paper examines the political economy of Indian higher (tertiary) education. We first provide an empirical mapping of Indian higher education and demonstrate that higher education in India is being de facto privatized on a massive scale. But this privatization is not a result of changing ideological commitments of the key actors—the state, the judiciary or India’s propertied classes. Rather, this privatization has resulted from a breakdown of the state system and an exit of Indian elites from public institutions, to both private sector institutions within the country as well as abroad. Private philanthropy in higher education, which was supportive of public institutions in the past, is also increasingly withdrawing its support. Consequently the ideological and institutional underpinnings of this form of privatization remain exceedingly weak. The paper questions the extent to which the political economy of Indian higher education can be explained by the hypothesis of “middle class capture” and suggests that education policy, far from serving the interests of the middle class, is actually driven by a combination of ideology and vested interests. We also examine the role of the judiciary in shaping the regulatory landscape of Indian higher education and argue that it an important actor shaping the regulatory landscape of higher education, but in a manner that has done as much to confuse as clarify. Instead of being part of a comprehensive program of education reform, private initiatives remain hostage to the discretionary actions of the state. As a result, the education system remains suspended between over-regulation by the state on the one hand, and a discretionary privatization that is unable to mobilize private capital in productive ways. The result is a sub-optimal structuring of higher education. The most potent consequence of this is a secession of the middle class—ironically the very class whose interests these institutions were supposed to serve—from a stake in public institutions

This paper traces urban development in India in the 20th century. It studies urbanisation projections made by different scholars in the past, and speculates on a set of economic policy choice reasons that have led to the lower than expected levels of urbanisation. Some of these resons articulated in the paper are inadequate increase in rural productivity; inappropriate technology choice in industry: labour legislation and small industries reservations; location restrictions on industries; limited Urban Infrastructure investment and rigidities in urban land policy. The paper then goes on to project future of urban development and identifies some growth drivers for the same, and proposes a number of policy approaches to support the urbanisation process in India.

The Bhakra-Nangal multipurpose project is among the earliest water resource development projects undertaken by Independent India. Though the main objectives were stated as irrigation and power generation, it has rendered several other incidental and indirect benefits, too. It has already bestowed immense benefits, far beyond the project expectations, to the region and Nation for the last five decades. In April 2005 the Manthan Adhyayan Kendra (MAK), headed by Sripad Dharmadhikary, published a book titled ‘Unravelling Bhakra’. This is very highly critical of the project. This paper presents a critique of the MAK publication. It brings out that the MAK book is neither a fair nor complete evaluation of all aspects of the project. The comments made by MAK are not backed by requisite justifications.

This paper discusses the process of involving the private sector in the management of the solid waste for the Indian capital Delhi – an urban area with a population of over 14 million. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is among the largest municipal bodies in the world The first section of the paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the MSWM service in Delhi and its challenges. The next section describes the overall reform context in the MSWM sector in India. The paper then introduces the waste collection and transportation challenge and discusses the approach and process involved in detailed structuring of the preferred implementation option. The next section provides a brief overview of the process of bidding for private sector participation and an update on the present position of the awarded contracts. Finally the last chapter presents some of the learning on key success factors including openness and creativity on the part of the project developers, the need for detailed discussion with stakeholders and the importance of a transparent structuring and bidding process.

A part of this paper was presented in an India Urban Space conference held in Goa on 10th and 11th February 2006. The present paper is a considerably enlarged version. Apart from the text the paper also contains several tables relating to migration, urban mobility and relevant provisions of the 74th Constitution Amendment. While the volume of the paper is thus increased, the data in the tables and other information, which usually can be accessed only through multiple sources, will be found useful for a better understanding of the issues.

The processes of informal or soft regionalism driving China’s engagement with the regional and global economy are resulting in nuanced understandings of state, security and the conduct of international relations in China. The paper looks at a set of three interrelated processes that made this engagement possible- the informal processes driving China’s engagement; the graduated manner in which China has re-engaged with the regional economy; and the process of decentralisation of decision-making powers aimed at providing local incentives for growth. The paper argues that these processes represent instances of domestic-external interlinkages and makes the case that although not state-led, the Chinese state has played a critical role in setting the direction, pace as well as nature of China’s external economic relations. The paper will then look at some of the inferences that can be drawn from China’s engagement process.