Summary |
The Indian economy has experienced dramatic turnaround in the last two years since the India development report 2002 (IDR) was published. It has made a vigorous recovery from the unprecedented drought in 2002-3 and attained a high growth rate of 8.1 per cent in 2003-04. There are signs that India is on its way to becoming an economic power. The previous government had started nurturing the business constituency to fire the animal spirit of entrepreneurs. As pointed out in our previous report, social exclusion, growing regional disparities, and a high incidence of poverty and unemployment are stark realities. The current growth process is showing signs of social disarticulation. Achieving high growth is one thing, making it pro poor is quite another.
The IDR 2004-05 looks at the macroeconomic scene from both growth and human development aspects as well as from the poverty perspective. It analyses issues such as poverty reduction, state of healthcare, public expenditure in social sectors, agricultural R&D, corporate sector performance, intellectual property rights (IPR) policy, and urban transportation; it also discusses policy options related to these issues and suggests possible solutions. While the presentation is kept lucid and non-technical so as to make it accessible to the general reader, we try not to compromise analytical rigour. We hope that the IDR will contribute to the on going debate on various issues of inclusive development.
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