Indian Development Selected Regional Perspectives

India is a country of great diversity. The commonly used indicators of 'quality of life' (such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and literacy) vary tremendously between the different states, rivalling international contrasts between very low performing countries and very high achievingones. This volume of essays reflects an attempt to draw lessons from the disparate experiences within India, rather than from contrasts with the experiences of other countries. It supplements Dreze and Sen's India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, which studies what we can learn frominternational comparisons of policies, actions, and achievements. The essays challenge exclusively economic judgements of the development process. The first task is to identify the ends of economic and social development in order to have a basis in which to found the means and strategies. The second task is to understand a wider range of means than those relatedsimply to the use or non-use of markets.The first two overview essays study the issues at the national level, focusing on policy debates and district-by-district demographic indicators, respectively. They are followed by detailed case studies of three very different states: Uttar Pradesh, Kerala,and West Bengal.

Sen is Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is a former Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University, and a former Delegate to the Press. He is President of the American Economic Association, and a past president of both the Econometric Society and the International Economic Association. In 1990 he was awarded the Giovanni Agnelli Prize for the promotion of the understanding of ethical issues in modern society.