This book critically discusses the changing relationship between the Indian state and capital by examining the mediating role of society in influencing developmental outcomes. It theorizes the state's changing context allowing the discussion of its pursuit of contradictory economic and social welfare goals simultaneously. Both structural and ideological factors are argued to contribute to a shifting context, but the centrality of re-distributive politics and the contradictions therein explain a lot of what the state does and cannot do. The book also examines what the state aspires to do but structurally cannot accomplish either because of the scale of the problem or the dysfunctionality that sets in with continuous reforms. The collection provides rich evidence on the contested forms of governance arising from changing contexts and shifting roles of the state. Readers will benefit from this recasting of the Indian state in terms of the actual forms of intervention today. Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles of the Indian State is a timely book. At a time when the question of the role of the state in promoting more inclusive forms of development has never been more urgent, this book provides a range of powerful and insightful case studies of how a changing Indian capitalism is impacting and in turn being impacted by the multi-stranded role of the Indian state. Patrick Heller, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Brown University, Providence. Since the early 1990s, the Indian economy has moved away from a statist model of development to a more market-oriented one. However, very little scholarship exists that attempts to analyse India's recent development experience from a political economy lens. This book, which is edited by two of India's reputed scholars in the political economy of development, addresses this important gap in the literature. It provides an insightful account of the role of the state and the market in India's economic resurgence in the last three decades. The book also contributes to a fresh understanding of what is meant by a twenty-first century developmental state in a globalised world. The book will be valuable reading for all scholars of India, as well as to researchers in the political economy of development. Kunal Sen, Director, United Nations University - World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki. This collection gives us a richer and more layered understanding of the Indian contemporary State. Rather than see the State as an unchanging entity with unchanging interests, the book argues that the role of the State changes with the context and with the change in political regime. Thus, taking contradictory decisions such as greater dispossession of land from the peasantry and expansion of the universe of economic rights is explainable. The argument is that we can have a better understanding when we see the Indian State as dealing with the ebb and flow of a democracy. C. Rammanohar Reddy, Former Editor, Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai.

In this timely and unique study, the innovations in India's information (IT) industry are examined in detail. Globally the IT Industry has experienced phenomenal growth. The book examines the issues surrounding the analysis of the Indian IT sector on a global, national, regional, firm, and product level and the significance of national policies to sustain the competitiveness of the Indian IT sector.

This book challenges the notion of a 'new' India, not by dismissing it as an imagined India, but by engaging in the debate as to what constitutes the new. It acknowledges that India is changing remarkably, while also acknowledging that in the overzealous enthusiasm about the new India there is collective amnesia about the other, older India. The essays argue that the increasing consolidation of capitalist markets of commodity production and consumption has unleashed not only economic growth and social change, but also introduced new contradictions associated with market dynamics in the economic and social spheres such as agrarian crisis, slow growth of employment, and the persistence of low-caste exploitation.

The volume also investigates the emergent tensions in art, architecture, and citizenship. In transforming India into an IT valley with corporate campuses, appealing to a westernized audience of technology entrepreneurs, including non-resident Indians abroad, architecture arguably is not addressing India's economic and social plight. Art too has taken a commercial turn by catering to the new middle classes spawned by the global and Indian technology revolution. The extraordinary economic values they command seem to jar with the grim economic and social polarization underway. The book unravels contemporary India in its complexities and uncovers some of the hidden tensions plaguing the country, and points to the significance of a widely shared development outcome as an alternative for social transformation.

International mobility is not a new concept as people have moved throughout history, voluntarily and forcibly, for personal, familial, economic, political, and professional reasons. Yet, the mobility of technical talent in the global economy is relatively new, largely voluntary, structurally determined by market forces, and influenced by immigration policies. With over a decade's worth of extensive research in India, Japan, Finland, and Singapore, this book provides an alternative understanding of how capitalism functions at the global level by specifically analyzing the international movement of technical professionals between India and Japan. There are three factors that inform this study: the services transition away from manufacturing, the movement of technical professionals in the world economy, and the demographic crisis facing Japan. The dynamics of changing capitalism are examined by theorizing the emergence of the services sector in the USA and Japan, analyzing the pronounced social inequality in India that is the basis for the global supply of highly skilled technical professionals, and providing considerable empirical data on the flows of professionals to these two countries to indicate Japan's institutional inflexibility in accommodating foreign talent. The author anticipates that Japanese industry will shed some of its institutional rigidity due to the pressures of competition and the scarcity of technical professionals. Providing a wealth of information on the topic of international mobility, this book is an essential addition for scholars and students in the field of International Development, Business Studies, Asian Studies, Migration Studies, and Political Economy.

This volume critically examines the notion of a 'new' India by acknowledging that India is changing remarkably and by indicating that in the overzealous enthusiasm about the new India, there is collective amnesia about the other, older India. The book argues that the increasing consolidation of capitalist markets of commodity production and consumption has unleashed not only economic growth and social change, but has also introduced new contradictions associated with market dynamics in the material and social as well as intellectual spheres.

This collection documents the different ways in which Asian governments have been pursuing economic nationalism even as they have been integrating with the world economy. The book challenges the popular view that with globalization, either the role of the state becomes redundant or that states are unable to purposefully intervene in the economy. The book argues that since most states pursue national interests, which largely include economic development, they work with national business and often intervene on their behalf to create internationally competitive industries. States are thus viewed as integral to capitalist development, and economic nationalism is neither theoretically nor empirically redundant. Contributors from Asia and elsewhere present wide-ranging arguments and evidence to counter the view that with globalization economic nationalism is passe. Instead, they demonstrate that states in Asia are active in shaping trade, investment, technological, industrial, and financial outcomes. Using interdisciplinary social science approaches that are also historically sensitive, this book critically assesses why and how states in select Asian countries continue to intervene in the economy in both familiar and novel ways. Countries covered include India, China, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and the East Asian region as a whole. Together they illustrate why these states practice economic nationalism even as they enthusiastically embrace the generalized process of globalization through domestic reforms and liberalization.

International mobility is not a new concept as people have moved throughout history, voluntarily and forcibly, for personal, familial, economic, political, and professional reasons. Yet, the mobility of technical talent in the global economy is relatively new, largely voluntary, structurally determined by market forces, and influenced by immigration policies. With over a decade's worth of extensive research in India, Japan, Finland, and Singapore, this book provides an alternative understanding of how capitalism functions at the global level by specifically analyzing the international movement of technical professionals between India and Japan. There are three factors that inform this study: the services transition away from manufacturing, the movement of technical professionals in the world economy, and the demographic crisis facing Japan. The dynamics of changing capitalism are examined by theorizing the emergence of the services sector in the USA and Japan, analyzing the pronounced social inequality in India that is the basis for the global supply of highly skilled technical professionals, and providing considerable empirical data on the flows of professionals to these two countries to indicate Japan's institutional inflexibility in accommodating foreign talent. The author anticipates that Japanese industry will shed some of its institutional rigidity due to the pressures of competition and the scarcity of technical professionals. Providing a wealth of information on the topic of international mobility, this book is an essential addition for scholars and students in the field of International Development, Business Studies, Asian Studies, Migration Studies, and Political Economy.