Amartya Sen

Jean Drèze

Two of the country's leading economists discuss how the underdevelopment of social services, archaic attitudes towards women and problems with physical services are a stark contrast to the fast-moving economic successes of India over the past 65 years. (This book was previously featured in Forecast.)

India and Its Contradictions

An Uncertain Glory

Jholawala Economics for Everyone

Sense and Solidarity

This book explores the role of public action in eliminating deprivation and expanding human freedoms in India. The analysis is based on a broad and integrated view of development, which focuses on well-being and freedom rather than the standard indicators of economic growth. The authors placehuman agency at the centre of stage, and stress the complementary roles of different institutions (economic, social, and political) in enhancing effective freedoms.In comparative international perspective, the Indian economy has done reasonably well in the period following the economic reforms initiated in the early nineties. However, relatively high aggregate economic growth coexists with the persistence of endemic deprivation and deep social failures. JeanDreze and Amartya Sen relate this imbalance to the continued neglect, in the post-reform period, of public involvement in crucial fields such as basic education, health care, social security, environmental protection, gender equity, and civil rights, and also to the imposition of new burdens such asthe accelerated expansion of military expenditure. Further, the authors link these distortions of public priorities with deep-seated inequalities of social influence and political power. The book discusses the possibility of addressing these biases through more active democratic practice.

Development and Participation

India

Amartya Kumar Sen

This text comprises three works by two well-known economists. The trilogy discusses causes of hunger, the role public action can play in its alleviation and the Indian experience in this context. It provides a comprehensive, theoretical and empirical analysis of relevant developmental issue.

Comprising Poverty and Famines, Hunger and Public Action, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity

The Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze Omnibus

Meera Samson

Satyajit Singh

Papers presented at Narmada Forum, a workshop organized by Centre for Development Economics and the Institute of Economic Growth in December 1993.

Displacement and Resettlement in the Narmada Valley

The Dam and the Nation

This collection of Jean Drèze's essays offer a unique insight on issues of hunger, poverty, inequality, corruption, conflict, and the evolution of social policy in India over the last twenty years. 'Sense and Solidarity' enlarges the boundaries of social development towards a broad concern with the sort of society we want to create.

Amartyá Sen

Uncertain Glory

When India became independent in 1947 after two centuries of colonial rule, it immediately adopted a firmly democratic political system, with multiple parties, freedom of speech, and extensive political rights. The famines of the British era disappeared, and steady economic growth replaced the economic stagnation of the Raj. The growth of the Indian economy quickened further over the last three decades and became the second fastest among large economies. Despite a recent dip, it is still one of the highest in the world. Maintaining rapid as well as environmentally sustainable growth remains an important and achievable goal for India. In An Uncertain Glory, two of India's leading economists argue that the country's main problems lie in the lack of attention paid to the essential needs of the people, especially of the poor, and often of women. There have been major failures both to foster participatory growth and to make good use of the public resources generated by economic growth to enhance people's living conditions. There is also a continued inadequacy of social services such as schooling and medical care as well as of physical services such as safe water, electricity, drainage, transportation, and sanitation. In the long run, even the feasibility of high economic growth is threatened by the underdevelopment of social and physical infrastructure and the neglect of human capabilities, in contrast with the Asian approach of simultaneous pursuit of economic growth and human development, as pioneered by Japan, South Korea, and China. In a democratic system, which India has great reason to value, addressing these failures requires not only significant policy rethinking by the government, but also a clearer public understanding of the abysmal extent of social and economic deprivations in the country. The deep inequalities in Indian society tend to constrict public discussion, confining it largely to the lives and concerns of the relatively affluent. Drèze and Sen present a powerful analysis of these deprivations and inequalities as well as the possibility of change through democratic practice.

India and its Contradictions

Athar Hussain

The Political Economy of Hunger is the classic analysis of an extraordinary paradox: in a world of food surpluses and satiety, hunger kills millions more people each year than wars or political repression. Now this abridged version, edited by Athar Hussain, puts the most influential essays from the three-volume work within the reach of concerned citizens. Ranging from Africa to South Asia to China, and written by an international array of authorities, the essays included in this abridgement give the best available analysis of the causes of worldwide hunger and deprivation, and the best hope for effective aid policies in the future.

Selected Essays

The Political Economy of Hunger

Una nueva teoría de la justicia para el mundo real. ¿Es la justicia social un ideal fuera de nuestro alcance o una posibilidad real? Más allá del discurso intelectual, la idea de la justicia desempeña un importante papel en nuestras vidas. Amartya Sen ofrece una alternativa a las teorías convencionales de la justicia, que a pesar de sus muchos logros hace tiempo que dejaron atrás las realidades prácticas. Desde la Ilustración, las teorías dominantes han tendido a ocuparse de identificar las disposiciones sociales perfectamente justas y definir la naturaleza de la sociedad perfecta. Sen, entregado a la reducción de la injusticia, centra su enfoque en los juicios comparativos de lo que es «más» o «menos» justo y en evaluar los méritos de ciertas instituciones e interacciones sociales. En el núcleo de su reflexión subyace el respeto por las diferentes percepciones de la «sociedad justa». Muy distintas convicciones puedenofrecer soluciones claras, directas y defendibles. La perspectiva de Sen, uno de los pensadores más influyentes de nuestra era, hace uso de esa pluralidad con el fin de construir una teoría de la justicia para el mundo moderno, capaz de absorber distintos puntos de vista y resolver las cuestiones de injusticia global. La crítica ha dicho... «Sen es uno de los grandes pensadores de nuestra era.» The Times «Leer Las razones de la justicia es como asistir a una clase magistral de razonamiento práctico. [...] Ésta es una obra monumental.» The Independent

Jean Drèze

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