Foreword
Vijay Kelkar, Chairman, Thirteenth Finance Commission

Preface
Pradeep S Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS
Bipul Chatterjee, Deputy Executive Director, CUTS

Indian Reforms: Yesterday and Today
Jagdish Bhagwati ,Professor of Economics and Law at Columbia University ,USA

Growth and Other Concerns
Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University, USA

High Growth Fails to Feed India’s Hungry
James Lamont, South Asia Bureau Chief, Financial Times

Contents
 

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This volume is a collection of views on the debate on relationship between growth and poverty which happened over an Internet-based platform hosted by CUTS International. Many renowned experts from across the world participated with a diverse set of methodically reasoned opinions. This discussion has helped to bring to the fore certain striking aspects of the growth-poverty relationship in India but some of the issues discussed are equally relevant for the developing world as a whole. This volume firmly establishes the importance of growth in social development. Its publication is timely as there is a reactionary murmur about growth in some political quarters in India.

ISBN: 978-81-8257-149-5

Some Reflections

I believe that the differences between Sen and Bhagwati are less substantive than what is popularly made out to be. On a variety of important policy matters, they use different languages but say very similar things. My only worry is that even on this Sen and Bhagwati will agree that I am wrong.

Kaushik Basu
Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Government of India

There is a case for land reforms that make the conversion of land into industrial use less fraught; there is a case wide-ranging educational reform which makes it easier for the poor to access quality education; and there is a case for revamping primary healthcare to make it much more functional.

Abhijit Banerjee
Department of Economics
Massachsetts Institute of Technology, US

Obviously, higher incomes are a necessary condition for better state-funded welfare, better jobs and so forth. This is simply not debatable. Indeed, only in India, do serious intellectuals dream of debating these issues.

Martin Wolf
Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times, London