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Tag Archives: Economy

Economy


Anshuman Tiwari
ULTI GINTI: MANDI AUR MAHAMARI KI DOHARI MAAR SE KAISE UBAREGA BHARAT?

The global crisis witnessed during the COVID pandemic was terrifying in many ways. Not a single bullet was fired but more people died than in the two World Wars. There were no earthquakes or floods but crores lost their livelihood and were forced to migrate. At the time, many believed that the world would never be the same place again but with COVID-19 virus losing its virulence with each passing day.


Reviewed by: Swadesh Singh

Thomas Piketty. Translated from the original French by Steven Rendall
A BRIEF HISTORY OF EQUALITY
2022

Thomas Piketty requires very little introduction. He is a Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (French: École des hautes études en sciences sociales: EHESS), Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.


Reviewed by: TCA Ranganathan

Mridula Ramesh
WATERSHED: HOW WE DESTROYED INDIA’S WATER AND HOW WE CAN SAVE IT
2021

Mridula Ramesh’s compelling work traces the trajectory of India’s water over 4000 years to highlight the grave crisis India is facing today. Global warming is a tragic reality and it is being predicted that by 2030 India will fail to meet half its water demand. As the book’s blurb points out, water availability per person in India has been decreasing for decades, leaving parts of the country in a cruel ‘Day Zero’ situation, shuttering factories and pushing farmers over the brink.


Reviewed by: Mohammad Imtiyaz

Mary E. John and Meena Gopal
WOMEN IN THE WORLDS OF LABOUR: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTERSECTIONAL PERSPECTIVES
2021

The question of women’s labour has been central to most women’s studies classrooms across the world.The book edited by Mary EJohn and Meena Gopal is pathbreaking because it takes the question of women’s labour out of the confines of traditional women’s studies by adopting an interdisciplinary and intersectional perspective. The book opens with a section that is almost akin to a masterclass on the issues of women and labour in India in specific, accompanied by a very exhaustive discussion of the shifting theoretical paradigms, scholarly debates and literature review. 


Reviewed by: Krishna Menon

Ronki Ram
PAGRHI SAMBHAL LEHAR TO SAMYUKT KISAN MORCHA: A CENTURY OF PUNJAB KISAN STRUGGLE 1907-2021
2022

The book under review focuses on the recent farmers movement that lasted for one and half years and ended only when the Union Government withdrew the three farm laws against which the farmers had put up a peaceful resistance, ensconced on the borders of the national capital territory of Delhi. The movement led the farmers’ unions to form their own party (Samyukt Kisan Morcha) in Punjab and enter into the electoral arena.


Reviewed by: Ashutosh Kumar

Arundhati Bhattacharya. Read by Shivani Vakil Savant
INDOMITABLE: A WORKING WOMAN’S NOTES ON LIFE, WORK AND LEADERSHIP
2022

Arundhati Bhattacharya’s memoir has a literary flavour, mixing personal elements with the professional admirably. But it is distinctive in the way her experiences have been articulated from the perspective of a ‘working woman’. And this feat she accomplishes with elan, making her reflections a readable treat and compelling to empathize with.To begin with, it is a story of a girl growing up at Bhilai and Bokaro and then in Kolkata for higher studies before joining the wider world of professional banking.


Reviewed by: Amitabha Bhattacharya

Suvobrata Sarkar
LET THERE BE LIGHT: ENGINEERING, ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ELECTRICITY IN COLONIAL BENGAL, 1880-1945
2020

The title of Sarkar’s book derived from this legendary quote in text Genesis of the Bible in a way exemplifies Suvobrata Sarkar’s fine work. Sarkar’s work illuminates the complex process of technology adoption and transfer in Bengal and its contentious equation with the rebirth of Bengali entrepreneurship after the setbacks of the 1840s, a trend which was witnessed in its nebulous stage in the closing years of the 19th century and achieved its full bloom during the Swadeshi period.


Reviewed by: Sabyasachi Dasgupta

Arun Kumar
INDIAN ECONOMY’S GREATEST CRISIS: IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS AND THE ROAD AHEAD
2021

The book under review suggests ways out of what is possibly one of the worst crises of the 21st century. The author compares the situation to a war and also finds similarities with the 2007-08 economic crisis. He attempts to address the fallout of the pandemic, its historical context and puts forward the emerging challenges and potential solutions.The book begins with the science behind viruses and gives a historical background to pandemics. This part is very well covered and readers will find it very informative. The later chapters delve into the government’s response. The author critically evaluates the measures undertaken by governments and their prognosis of the situation…


Reviewed by: Sunil Ashra

Ankush Agrawal and Vikas Kumar
Numbers in India's Periphery
2020

The poor quality of official statistics is the basis for many criticisms of the Government these days. Whether it is the handling of the COVID pandemic, the state of the economy, or the quality of life of people in society, a common refrain of all critics is that of the poor and declining quality of Government data. Ironically, this situation has come about in large measure because of the success of official statisticians in persuading policy makers, commentators, and civil society activists to use data and empirical arguments in their discussions…


Reviewed by: TCA Anant

Ashok Kumar
MONOPSONY CAPITALISM: POWER AND PRODUCTION IN THE TWILIGHT OF THE SWEATSHOP AGE
2020

The book under review, Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age, could bear the title of the review of the book as it is reminiscent of the regime of accumulation described in the classic Monopoly Capital by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, and recalled by Ashok Kumar on page 50. In footnote 27 on the page, the author advises, similar to the illustrious duo, that ‘“monopsony capital’’ is intended more as an analytical device rather than a quantitative measure.’ Monopoly is one seller confronting many buyers.  Monopsony is a few buyers confronting many sellers. Both are analytical devices…


Reviewed by: Romar Correa

Kshitija Joshi
THE ECONOMICS OF VENTURE CAPITAL FIRM OPERATIONS IN INDIA
2020

Venture capital, though not new in India, has expanded in the last decade; India has created over a 100 unicorns with a combined market capitalization of $240 billion. This enormous wealth creation has spurred a growing investor appetite for start-ups. More than $60 billion has been invested in Indian start-ups over the past five years, with around $12 billion in 2020 alone. The most astounding example is the resounding success of the food delivery app, Zomato, which after registering a robust listing day gain of 66% continues to scale new highs every day despite not making a single rupee by way of profits…


Reviewed by: N R Bhusnurmath

Hari Ram Prajapati
ORGANIC FARMING: ECONOMICS, POLICY AND PRACTICES
2020

Small land holdings, coupled with low productivity and high volatility of agricultural yields, and farmers’ income are the concerns of Indian agriculture today. These concerns need to be addressed by raising agricultural productivity and lowering market, production and climatic risks. Substantially increasing farmers’ income and making it stable are the pre-requisites for the viability of the sector. Adoption of organic farming can be financially rewarding and environmentally sound. The book Organic Farming: Economics, Policy and Practices by Hari Ram Prajapati is an attempt to describe the economics and status of organic farming and related government policies in the country…


Reviewed by: Surender Kumar

Sanjaya Baru
BEYOND COVID’S SHADOW: MAPPING INDIA’S ECONOMIC RESURGENCE
2021

The author of this edited volume, Sanjaya Baru correctly highlights uncertainty as the key problem caused by COVID-19. But the eminent economists who have contributed to this volume have largely ignored it. Most of them have analysed the situation as it existed sometime in the later part of 2020…


Reviewed by: Arun Kumar

Nikita Sud
THE MAKING OF LAND AND THE MAKING OF INDIA
2021

The on-going farmers’ protest in India has once again highlighted the continuous significance of land on the one hand and its continuous process of making and re-making on the other. These protests point towards the fact that the land issues and agrarian politics are not settled…


Reviewed by: Aijaz Ashraf Wani & Muzamil Yaqoob

Maryam Aslany
CONTESTED CAPITAL: RURAL MIDDLE CLASSES IN INDIA
2020

Rural society in India has undergone social and economic transformation in varying degrees during the past decades giving rise to new questions and issues such as decline or demise of traditional social classes and the rise of new ones, changes in patterns of power relations among them…


Reviewed by: Jagpal Singh

Kavitha Iyer
LANDSCAPES OF LOSS: THE STORY OF AN INDIAN DROUGHT
2021

‘When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.’– Benjamin FranklinIndia woke up to a spate of farmer suicides through Everybody Loves a Good Drought by P Sainath, and the first State where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Two decades after that book…


Reviewed by: Radha Varadarajan

Ashok Pankaj, Atul Sarma, and Antora Borah
SOCIAL SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH-EAST INDIA

This book was, perhaps, envisaged along with a conference titled ‘Social Sector Development in North-East India: Problems, Issues and Challenges’. The most striking point the book states is that human capital development should be the focus of all efforts for the social development of the region…


Reviewed by: Ambika Mohan

Urjit Patel
OVERDRAFT: SAVING THE INDIAN SAVER
2020

Urjit Patel joined the Reserve Bank of India as Deputy Governor in January 2013 in charge of the Monetary Policy Department and was subsequently elevated as the 24th Governor of the RBI from September 2016 as the successor to Dr. Raghuram Rajan. He left rather prematurely on 10th December 2018.


Reviewed by: TCA Ranganathan

Devesh Kapur and Madhav Khosla
REGULATION IN INDIA: DESIGN, CAPACITY, PERFORMANCE
2019

The book is a collection of relevant works on different regulatory institutions in India. Given the paucity of literature on state regulation, the essays offer an in-depth view of how different regulatory institutions in India have responded to streamline the administration of the economy.


Reviewed by: Siddhartha Mukerji

Viral V. Acharya
QUEST FOR RESTORING FINANCIAL STABILITY IN INDIA
2020

This book intrigues. It comes heavily recommended. It was released, in a high-powered function graced by two former RBI Governors (YV Reddy and Duvvuri Subbarao) as speakers and a galaxy of present and former RBI officials, Deputy Governors and so on.


Reviewed by: TCA Ranganathan
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ISSN No. 0970-4175 (Print)