India's Decade of Development

We believe that India has a chance for a tremendous breakthrough in economic development during the current decade. India’s political system is more than ever in consensus about the basic direction of reforms. The current government enjoys a strong electoral mandate. A decade of opening of the economy has produced new dynamism, most dramatically in the Information Technology sector, but in others as well. The world is waking up to India’s crucial role as the largest democracy and as a dynamic economy, if still a low-income one on average. The new technologies (especially information technology and biotechnology) give new opportunities for economic and social development. We suggest that India should set major national goals of development. These goals will help to galvanize domestic public opinion in support of the objectives of development, provide a gauge against which to judge the progress of policies, and help the world community to appreciate the efforts underway, and support them through increased flows of foreign investment. To make the first decade of the 21st Century a true Decade of Development will require a broad-based program of economic and social actions. We highlight ten crucial initiatives in this regard.India’s development, India’s economic reforms, Information Technology

Some Contour Integrals Involving Generalised Hypergeometric Function

Contour integral involving Fox's H-function and modified Bessel function of the first kind has been calculated. Some important properties and particular cases of H-function, which is a generalization of G-function, have been derived and discussed

Domain wall dynamics in a single CrO2_2 grain

Recently we have reported on the magnetization dynamics of a single CrO$_2$ grain studied by micro Hall magnetometry (P. Das \textit{et al.}, Appl. Phys. Lett. \textbf{97} 042507, 2010). For the external magnetic field applied along the grain's easy magnetization direction, the magnetization reversal takes place through a series of Barkhausen jumps. Supported by micromagnetic simulations, the ground state of the grain was found to correspond to a flux closure configuration with a single cross-tie domain wall. Here, we report an analysis of the Barkhausen jumps, which were observed in the hysteresis loops for the external field applied along both the easy and hard magnetization directions. We find that the magnetization reversal takes place through only a few configuration paths in the free-energy landscape, pointing to a high purity of the sample. The distinctly different statistics of the Barkhausen jumps for the two field directions is discussed.Comment: JEMS Conference, to appear in J. Phys. Conf. Se

Marine Middle Eocene Otoliths from India and Java

Otoliths collected from the Harudi Formation (Lutetian) of Kachchh, Western India and from the Nanggulan Formation (Early Bartonian) of Nanggulan, Java, revealed the presence of respectively 15 and 24 teleost taxa. Seven new species are introduced: "genus Brotulinarum" siremboides, Apogon townsendoides, "genus Apogonidarum" altissimus, Lactarius nonfungus, "genus Menidarum" occultus, "genus Percoideorum" pseudatherina and "genus Percoideorum" sciaenoides. Both associations reveal very shallow neritic environments. They are compared with a previously described neritic Middle Eocene otolith association from central Western Pakistan, and a combined list of all (43) taxa represented in the three associations is provided. Considering the restricted sampling, the number (8) of taxa occuring at more than one locality is remarkable, and one can probably conclude that we sampled several of the most common and widespread teleosts inhabiting the neritic environments of the Indo-West-Pacific region during the Middle Eocene. Biogeographic evaluation of the available data leads to the conclusion that in the Eocene, the Indo-West-Pacific region was already inhabited by many fish taxa not represented elsewhere, and that probably it contained the most diverse fish community of the world, as it does today

Metabolite characterization in serum samples from normal healthy human subjects by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy

One and two dimensional NMR spectroscopy has been employed to characterize the various metabolites of serum control healthy samples. Two dimensional heteronuclear experiment has been included totake advantage of larger chemical shift spread of 13C resonances allowing a more detailed identification of metabolites not possible in one dimensional spectra. This methodology has successfully allowed the assignment of ninety four resonances of various metabolites. The importance of the work lies in the fact that characteristic fingerprints of various metabolites of serum samples of normal healthy control have been obtained which can identify and distinguish metabolic differences from other diseased specimens or non-diseased/healthy serum samples. This study will help enhance the literature of metabolite identification in serum samples

Foreign Direct Investment in India: Issues and Problems

In this paper, we have attempted to identify the issues and problems associated with India's current foreign direct investment regime, and more importantly the other associated factors responsible for India's unattractiveness as an investment location. Despite India offering a large domestic market, rule of law, low labor costs, and a well working democracy, her performance in attracting FDI flows has been far from satisfactory. A restrictive FDI regime, high import tariffs, exit barriers for firms, stringent labor laws, poor quality infrastructure, centralized decision-making processes, and a very limited scale of export processing zones make India an unattractive investment location

The Decade of Development: Goal Setting and Policy Challenges in India

The Government of India has proclaimed the new decade as a Decade of Development, during which India will meet bold targets for economic growth and social development. At his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister announced that the government had set a target of doubling India's per capita income by the year 2010. This is an ambitious target, but one that we believe is certainly achievable. In order to achieve this target, India needs growth in GNP of the order of 9 percent per year over the next ten years. And in order to achieve this growth rate on a sustained basis, India needs a well-focused growth strategy. This paper outlines some of the key policy challenges in meeting these goals. We believe that India has a chance for a tremendous breakthrough in economic development during the current decade. A decade of opening of the economy has produced new dynamism, most dramatically in the Information Technology sector, but in others as well. The world is waking up to India's crucial role as the largest democracy and as a dynamic economy, if still a low-income one on average. The new technologies (especially information technology and biotechnology) give new opportunities for economic and social development. We suggest additional goals that India should set for herself, especially in the areas of health and education. These goals will help to galvanize domestic public opinion in support of the objectives of development, provide a gauge against which to judge the progress of policies, and help the world community to appreciate the efforts underway, and support them through increased flows of foreign investment. To make the first decade of the 21st Century a true Decade of Development will require a broad-based program of economic and social actions. We highlight some action areas in this regard

National Common Minimum Programme of the Congress-Led United Progressive Alliance: Policy Reform and Public Investment Requirements

The National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) lays down some of the key areas of focus of the new government in Delhi that came into office in May 2004. This note attempts to identify and analyze what the key policy reform measures and the public investment requirements might be in order to attain some of the critical objectives of the NCMP. In terms of the thrust areas highlighted in the NCMP, focusing on rural development -- agriculture, infrastructure, R&D, agro-based industries and higher public spending in health and education are the most prominent ones. At the heart of the NCMP is the following assessment. India's poverty reduction must be built on two pillars: rapid economic growth and targeted investments aimed at the poorest of the poor. The rapid economic growth is to be based largely on the private sector, including foreign direct investments into India. Thus, the budget, for example supports many critical areas of market reform and growth promotion, including financial sector deepening, export promotion, liberalization of foreign direct investment. We are of the view that India's rural development would essentially require an agriculture-led growth strategy. In short, the rural development strategy for India may perhaps focus along the following lines -- agriculture-led growth as the main area of focus; under which, some of the key objectives may be: a) Productivity improvements, including agricultural extension, research and development, and crop diversification; b) Bringing in larger areas under irrigation so as to reduce monsoon dependence; c) Enhanced focus on agricultural exports, and much greater focus on building up rural infrastructure, with specific focus on power, roads, and availability of safe drinking water. Just as in China, a careful balance will have to be struck between two kinds of investments in the rural hinterland (e.g. in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar): physical infrastructure in roads, rail, airports, and telecomms to bring these regions closer to the international markets, and investments in human capital, mainly education and health, to raise the productivity of the rural population. The latter investments may end up attracting jobs to the interior, eager to benefit from an increasingly skilled labor force; or it may provoke large-scale migration to more economical coastal regions. Either way, however, the currently impoverished populations would benefit from rising living standards, wherever in India they are enjoyed

The Progress of Policy Reform and Variations in Performance at the Sub-National Level in India

The reform process in India has so far mainly concentrated at the central level. India has yet to free up its state governments sufficiently so that they can add much greater dynamism to the reforms. Greater decentralization of decision making from the center to the states will lead to greater competition among the states and therefore to higher efficiency and productivity in these regions. Policy making at the sub-national level is essential in order for the state governments to be able to follow development strategies suitable to their socio-economic, cultural, and geographic characteristics. Coastal states, for example, can follow a more focused export-led growth strategy, or states with a large pool of trained manpower, such as IT professionals in Tamil Nadu or Karnataka can lay more emphasis on IT and service sector. A few of the Indian States have been more reform-oriented, such as Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu, but states, such as Haryana, Kerala, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal have a lot to catch-up with. Of course, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are even further behind. We analyze the state-level situation in fifteen major states based on the progress of state-level policy reform. Accordingly, we have divided these states into three categories of reformers. These are the reform-oriented states, intermediate reformers and the lagging reformers. We then examine the performance of these states in terms of SDP growth, foreign direct investment, industrial investment proposals, and software exports among other variables. Real annual average growth rates of per capita gross state domestic product bear testimony to the fact that our group of reform-oriented states are the fastest growing states in India in the post-reform period. Also, these states have performed better in attracting both domestic and foreign investment, software exports, and in the areas of primary health and education