Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar

Eradicating poverty is possible only by raising productivity, employment and wages in rural India. One way of achieving this is to create conditions for India to become a big player in the global production of seeds. Dr MS Swaminathan has repeatedly highlighted India\’s potential in this respect, given its cheap scientific and agricultural manpower. He […]

The government\’s National Sample Surveys (NSS) disclosed recently that the proportion of people below the poverty line had risen and inequalities increased in the first 18 months of Mr. Narasimha Rao\’s rule (see accompanying chart). Immediately. several observers declared that the Congress Party had been thrashed in the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh elections because its

INEQUALITIES have increased after Mr Narasimha Rao came to power in June 1991. The National Sample Surveys show that the share of the top 20 per cent in consumption increased, and that of the bottom 20 per cent decreased, in Mr Rao\’s first 18 months. As our table shows, there is no overall trend change

CONTRARY to fears expressed in 1991 that the economic reforms would create massive unemployment, there was little change in unemployment in the first 18 months of reform, while more detailed research may show an actual decline in person-days of unemployment. Employment data are now\’ available from the National Sample Surveys for 1991 (July-December) and 1992

THE POOR are better fed after the initiation of economic reforms, according to the National Sample Surveys for 1991 (July-December) and 1992 (January-December). The surveys asked of people whether they ate two square meals a day throughout the year, in some months of the year, or not at all. In rural areas, those claiming to

Congress sabotage of panchayati raj may have been a reason for voter disillusionment with the party, says Swaminathan S Aiyar. Centralised rule in India has so obviously failed that most observers of the Indian scene, myself included, have long argued in favour of empowering panchayati raj institutions. We also feel it will yield political dividends.

Indian leftists who have long wanted to cripple GATT and the World Bank now have improbable allies in right-wing Republicans who have swept into power in both houses of the US Congress. The Indian left sees these two organisations as agents of US imperialism, no less than the Republicans. They may be surprised to learn

The Fund and Bank should be seen as advisors and not policy makers, says Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar Indians leftist hold that the standard IMF-World Bank reform package never works. They look at the wide range of countries under IMF discipline. Wherever the reforms have succeeded, the leftists say this was due to factors other

Foreigners have stopped asking Whether the economic reforms since 1991 are reversible, and instead tend to make gung-ho statements about India becoming the next Asian tiger. Some already regard Mr Narasimha Rao as Deng Xiaoping Jr. They should look at the antics in the current Andhra Pradesh elections, where Mr Rao\’s prestige is at stake.

Poverty is declining, rural prosperity is booming and even low-income households are increasingly buying consumer durables. This good news comes from by the biggest consumer survey of recent times, conducted in 1992-93 by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). For years, critics have declared with much passion but no data that the economic