Policymaking for Indian Planning


Book Description

Montek S. Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India; contributed articles.




Public Policymaking in India


Book Description

Public Policymaking in India integrates various elements of the policymaking process that have, till date, been dealt with separately. These include interest group politics, the role of the media, judicial policymaking, and policy entrepreneurship by civil society groups. Policymaking is no longer a privileged activity of the government: As the boundary between the government and the "outside" has become more porous, the power of non-state policy actors outside the government has increased enormously. The author points to the ways in which the policymaker can cope with this brave new world of policymaking. He also grounds the theory of policymaking in concrete examples of the Green Revolution, economic reforms, patent law amendments, regulation of private educational institutions, and laying down of standards for cola drinks, thereby facilitating easy comprehension and retention of concepts




Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning


Book Description

Updated in its 3rd edition, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning presents quickly applied methods for analyzing and resolving planning and policy issues at state, regional, and urban levels. Divided into two parts, Methods which presents quick methods in nine chapters and is organized around the steps in the policy analysis process, and Cases which presents seven policy cases, ranging in degree of complexity, the text provides readers with the resources they need for effective policy planning and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are systematically combined to address policy dilemmas and urban planning problems. Readers and analysts utilizing this text gain comprehensive skills and background needed to impact public policy.




Economic Policy in a Liberalising Economy


Book Description

This book follows up on the author’s popular previous volume on Indian development planning and policy, published under the UNU WIDER series in development economics. It first introduces an evaluation of the newly mandated policy body of India, National Institution for Transforming India (also called the NITI Aayog), which replaced the erstwhile Planning Commission. As per the government site, NITI Aayog is the premier policy ‘Think Tank’ of the Government of India, providing both directional and policy inputs. While designing strategic and long term policies and programmes for the Government of India, NITI Aayog also provides relevant technical advice to the Centre and States.The book goes on to critically describe and analyse the think tank’s policies in sectors like population, demographics and poverty; agriculture and industry; and infrastructure. Lastly, the concluding chapter discusses appropriate future policies. The approach is to analyse the policy stance of the present Government in India as stated in recent official documents and to see if it has any relationship with past plans in terms of concepts or program details. In addition to the policy makers, the book is a must have resource for students of development economics, particularly of India, and provides a critical account of policies for emerging economies.




Issues in Indian Public Policies


Book Description

This book discusses economic development in general and selected public policy issues with a focus on philosophy, Gandhian thoughts and sectoral issues in the Indian context. It presents scholarly contributions on growth and development in India, with particular emphasis on human development in connection with the economy of India and selected developing countries. It brings to the forefront a body of knowledge on philosophy and ethical issues within the domain of public policies relating to development in today’s world. The book includes contributions from leading economists and covering a range of issues such as the Indian government’s current ‘Make in India’ drive, the role of the World Bank, managing educational finances, development and higher education policy, inflation, decentralization, inequality, regional development, and linkages between health, nutrition and education. Accordingly, the book not only offers a useful resource for academics, economists and development practitioners, but also has important implications for public policymaking.




Creating Adaptive Policies


Book Description

This title describes the concept of adaptive policymaking and presents seven tools for developing such policies. Based on hundreds of interviews with people impacted by policy and research of over a dozen policy case studies, this book serves as a pragmatic guide for policymakers by elaborating on these seven tools.




Perspectives on Inclusive Policies for Development in India


Book Description

This book presents perspectives by eminent economists, social scientists and policy makers, exploring in depth the post-reform developments in India, including issues pertaining to growth and equity, issues which have been at the core of life-time work of Prof. R. Radhakrishna. The book brings out how some public policy instruments created to promote growth have turned out to be regressive, promoting inequalities and creating a highly asymmetric federalism in India. It examines the efficacy of fiscal and monetary reforms and also emphasises the need for strengthening the institutions of governance, particularly judiciary and police, in order to boost investors’ confidence. It presents exercises in econometric modelling for explaining factors in growth and vetting policies, and explores the issue of governance and institutions. The book provides insights into the working of an emerging economy and a large democracy which has to strive for public acceptability of the tensions of its negotiations between equity and growth. With its depth of academic excellence and breadth of topics covered, it is a ‘must read’ for researchers, policy makers, industry watchers, think tanks, and NGOs.




India’s Grand Strategy and Foreign Policy


Book Description

The book explores the competing grand strategic worldviews shaping India’s foreign and security policies by analyzing the interaction between normative modern international relations theories and vernacular concepts of statecraft and strategy. To assess the diverse competing ideas which characterize India’s debates on grand strategy and foreign policy, the author presents the subculture-cleavage model of grand strategic thought. This innovative analytical framework reveals the complexities of India’s strategic pluralism and offers the building blocks for a systematic analysis of grand strategy formation. The book demonstrates that the strategic paradigms, or strategic subcultures, are marked by contending ideas of Indian statehood and civilization, held by policymakers and the informed public, and are a result of ideology-driven perceptions of the country’s strategic environment. The author argues that the apparent hybridization and stretching of modern and traditional concepts of international relations in India has become a widespread feature of Indian foreign policy to meet the needs of state formation and nation-building. A unique approach to organizing and understanding the debates and discourse in Indian strategic thinking, the book will be of interest to specialists and students in the field of International Relations, political theory, South Asian Studies, and India’s foreign and security policy.




India’s Grand Strategy


Book Description

As India prepares to take its place in shaping the course of an ‘Asian century’, there are increasing debates about its ‘grand strategy’ and its role in a future world order. This timely and topical book presents a range of historical and contemporary interpretations and case studies on the theme. Drawing upon rich and diverse narratives that have informed India’s strategic discourse, security and foreign policy, it charts a new agenda for strategic thinking on postcolonial India from a non-Western perspective. Comprehensive and insightful, the work will prove indispensable to those in defence and strategic studies, foreign policy, political science, and modern Indian history. It will also interest policy-makers, think-tanks and diplomats.




Natural Resource Policymaking in Developing Countries


Book Description

Drawing on case studies developed over a two-year period, 1987–1989, by Fellows in the Program in International Development Policy at Duke University, including experienced representatives from developing countries, the World Bank, and scholars, the authors integrate the growing interest in environmental protection and resource conservation into the existing body of knowledge about the political economy of developing countries. This book is about the links that tie resource use, environmental quality, and economic development, and the way in which those links are affected by the distribution of income and resource ownership. The links may be relatively simple, as in the case of peasant farmers too poor to conserve resources for the future and with nothing to gain from sound environmental practices. Or they may be very complex—as the authors find when they demonstrate how achievement of higher incomes by the rich can increase environmentally destructive behavior by the poor. Many of the links in some way involve rural land use, whether for agriculture or forestry.Natural Resource Policymaking in Developing Countriesargues that the policies that matter are not merely those dealing with resources and the environment, but a much broader set that includes income distribution and asset ownership.