India

The sharp decline in mortality since 1950 and a steady recent decline in fertility has contributed to the process of population aging in India.

Undernutrition in children is the consequence of a range of factors which are often related to insufficient food intake, poor food quality, and severe and repeated infectious diseases. The inadequacy is relative to the food and nutrients needed to maintain good health, provide for growth and allow a level of physical activity (National Nutrition Policy, Government of India, 1993). Widespread poverty resulting in chronic and persistent hunger is the biggest scourge of the developing world today. Poverty, in turn, is closely linked to the overall standard of living and whether a population can meet its basic needs, such as access to food, housing, health care and education. This intersectoral and interrelated cause of undernutrition operates at many levels from the community at large to the household and children within households. Undernutrition is often cited as an important factor contributing to high morbidity and mortality among children in developing countries (Sommer and Loewenstein, 1975; Chen, Chowdury and Huffman, 1980; Vella and others, 1992a, 1992b). Undernutrition during childhood can also affect growth potential and risk of morbidity and mortality in later years of life.

The objective of the present paper is to demonstrate that despite several years of reform, the tax-GDP ratio in India is well below international standards and has been static over the last decade. Based on a crosscountry analysis of tax-GDP ratios in 115 countries over the period 2005-2015, an estimate is made of the extent of under-taxation in India. Considering that children in the age group of 0-14 years constitute about 40 per cent of the population of 1.3 billion in India, in the paper, it is argued that the tax-GDP ratio must be raised to enhance allocation to education, health care and physical infrastructure to ensure demographic dividends by providing the increasing workforce with productive employment opportunities. The reforms needed to raise the revenue productivity of the tax system while taking into account the best practice approach to tax reform are identified in the paper.

India embarked on its new economic policy, popularly known as the liberalization of the Indian economy, in 1991. The basic features of the new economic policy were a reduction in government expenditures in order to reduce fiscal deficit, an opening up of the economy for export-oriented growth, the removal of government control and licensing, and a push for private participation to enhance competition and efficiency. Both supporters and critics of the new economic policy believed that economic reforms would increase internal migration. Proponents believed that the new impetus would boost the economy and job opportunities, leading to increased pull factors conducive to accelerated rural-to-urban migration. By contrast, the opponents of this policy were of the view that economic reforms would adversely affect the village and cottage industries and impoverish rural populations, leading to increased rural-tourban migration (Kundu, 1997). Although there was considerable success in achieving economic growth, from 2 to 3 per cent of growth in gross domestic product in the pre-reform era to over 6 per cent during the period 1991-2001, the impact of this enhanced growth on internal migration in general and rural-to-urban migration, in particular, has not been assessed. The latest census of 2001 reveals several interesting results in relation to internal migration, its regional pattern and the contribution of rural-to-urban migration to urban growth, as discussed by Bhagat and Mohanty (2009). They argue that the push factor has not significantly influenced internal migration. As a result, it appears inaccurate to state that the poor and disadvantaged are migrating more than those that are more well off.

Demographic trends in many developing countries since the second half of the twentieth century are leading to an unprecedented increase in the absolute as well as relative size of older populations (aged 60 years and older). Simultaneously, rapid social and economic changes have occurred that have potentially profound implications for the future of the elderly. At the global level the number of older persons is projected to increase from 603 million in 2000 to 2 billion in 2050. The increase will be especially dramatic in less developed regions where the size of older populations will more than quadruple, from 370 million in 2000 to 1.6 billion in 2050 (United Nations, 2009).

Even though India instituted the first national family planning programme in the world, its contraceptive prevalence rate is still relatively low. In 1980, a national survey estimated that 35 per cent of the currently married women aged 15-44 years were currently using contraceptives, of whom 63 per cent were using sterilization (Khan and Prasad, 1983, pp. 112, 120). As late as 1984-1985, close to the time our study was carried out, oflicial government estimates based on service statistics still showed only 36 per cent of the eligible couples as being currently protected (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, 1986, p. 14); of these, 70 per cent were using sterilization (Ibid., p. 187).

Violence against women continues to be a global epidemic that kills, tortures and maims physically, psychologically, sexually and economically. It is one of the most pervasive forms of human rights violations, denying women and girls’ equality, security, dignity, self-worth and right to enjoy fundamental freedoms. Violence against women is present in every country, cutting across boundaries of culture, class, education, income, ethnicity and age. The evidence of the magnitude of the problem of domestic violence in developing countries is growing fast. In recent years, there has been a greater understanding of the problem of domestic violence, which is one of the forms of violence against women, its causes and consequences, and an international consensus has developed on the need to handle this sensitive issue in an appropriate fashion.

The degree of personal autonomy of women in India varies from state to state. Several studies have noted the regional variations in the status of women in India (Karve, 1965; Srinivas, 1978; Mitra, 1979; Dyson and Moore, 1983). Women’s personal autonomy is manifested in practices such as veiling (purdah or ghungat), pressures to get girls married at a very young age (partly to protect their virginity and partly to ensure compliance with parents’ wishes in respect of the choice of spouse), denying or limiting educational or employment opportunities to girls, attaching differential values to sons and daughters, restricting the ability of women to control their fertility by pressuring them to produce children (particularly male heirs), restricting their access to information, and economic and health resources etc.

Few community-based studies in India have investigated the determinants of women’s self-reports of reproductive tract infections and other forms of gynaecological morbidity. One of the most striking findings to emerge from the few that have done so is the strong association between the use of female sterilization, or in some cases the intrauterine device (IUD), and reported or diagnosed gynaecological morbidity.

“Pregnancy is special, let’s keep it safe” was the theme for World Health Day in 1998. Even if agreement existed on the best way to ensure a safe pregnancy in a resource-poor setting, provision is only half the story; the level and nature of the demand for a “safe” pregnancy also needs evaluating. How women themselves perceive the dangers of pregnancy and how they react to those dangers are important questions to answer.

The concept "status of women" eludes precise definition and hence precise measurement. Status can be perceived in different ways: the extent of a woman’s access to social and material resources within the family, community and society (Dixon, 1978), or her authority or power within the family/community and the prestige commanded from those other members (Mukerjee, 1975), or her position in the social system distinguishable from, yet related to, other positions (Committee on the Status of Women in India, 1974), or the extent to which women have access to knowledge, economic resources and political power as well as the degree of autonomy they have in decision making and making personal choices at crucial points in their life-cycle (United Nations, 1975). The idea of status also connotes the notion of equality (Krishnaraj, 1986). There can be self-perceived status, group-perceived status or objective status (Mukerjee, 1975), a situation which can lead to status inconsistency when a person is very high in one type of status and very low in another.

A commonly held belief in the 1970s was that price indices rise because of temporary noise, and then revert after a short interval (Cecchetti and Moessner, 2008). Accordingly, policy should not respond to the inflation because of these volatile components of the price indices. This led to the development of the concept of core inflation (Gordon, 1975), which is headline inflation excluding food and fuel inflation. It was strongly believed that in the long run, headline inflation converges to core inflation and that there are no second round effects (that is an absence of core inflation converging to headline inflation). In recent years, however, major fluctuations in food inflation have occurred. This has become a major problem in developing countries, such as India, where a large portion of the consumption basket of the people are food items. Against this backdrop, in the present paper, an attempt is made to measure the second round effects stemming from food inflation in India using the measure of Granger causality in the frequency domain of Lemmens, Croux and Dekimpe (2008). The results of empirical analysis show significant causality running from headline inflation to core inflation in India and as a result, the prevalence of the second round effects. They also show that food inflation in India is not volatile, and that it feeds into the expected inflation of the households, causing the second round effects. This calls for the Reserve Bank of India to put greater effort in anchoring inflation expectations through effective communication and greater credibility.

Improvements in health services, education and provision of safe drinking water, all have a desirable impact on child survival

The main reason for reinvestigating the possible linkage between consanguinity and offspring mortality emerged as a result of the gross disagreement among researchers on this subject. For the purpose of this study, consanguinity is defmed as marriage between relatives who share at least one common and detectable ancestor. There is no common consensus in the field of human genetics or demographic research regarding the biological impact of parental consanguinity on the health of their offspring. However, in this regard it is possible to recognize three broad schools of thought. Adherents of the first school consider that there is an overwhelming possibility of consanguineous parents having an unhealthy child. According to this school of thought, marriage between close relatives is genetically critical, because closely related individuals have a higher probability of carrying the same alleles than less closely related individuals. Consequently, an inbred child (the progeny of a consanguineous couple) will more frequently be homozygous for various alleles than the offspring of unrelated persons (Whittinghill, 1965). To the extent that homozygosity for genes is deleterious, consanguineous marriage is deleterious (Sutton, 1965). In this respect, the genetic load of deleterious recessive genes, usually known as the lethal equivalent, would cause death if present in homozygous combination (Cavalli-Sforza and Bodmer, 1971). A number of studies on this subject have focused on an increased level of morbidity (Bemiss, 1858; Rao and others, 1977; Ansari and Sinha, 1978) and mortality (Farah and Preston, 1982; Bundey and Alam, 1993; Bittles, 1994) among the offspring of consanguineous parents. Survey results from a few other sources have also identified a linkage between consanguinity and spontaneous abortion (Neel and Schul, 1962; Al-Awadi and others, 1986) and intrauterine loss (Saheb and others, 1981).

First sexual intercourse is a significant event in a man’s life, whether or not it happens within the context of marriage. In the wake of the HIV pandemic, sexual initiation before marriage has become a focus of attention. From an intervention point of view, the proportion of young people who are sexually active, especially before they form stable partnerships, is an important area of concern. Early age at sexual debut and the number of pre-marital partners have been shown to be correlated with risk behaviour later in life (White and others, 2000). Contextual data on sexual partners and circumstances are needed to understand and assess the risk associated with early sexual experiences, and thereby design appropriate policies and programmes.

China and India are the two most populous countries in the world and together they account for almost 38 per cent of the global population. China’s population has already crossed the 1.2 billion mark and India’s is expected to exceed 1 billion around the turn of the century. However, in recent years, the annual growth rate of the Chinese population has slowed down, to about 1.1 per cent, whereas in India it continues to be almost 2 per cent. The available evidence shows that China has experienced a large and remarkably rapid fertility transition in recent years, whereas although fertility in India has also fallen, the decline has been much smaller. Why has India not been as successful as China in achieving a fertility decline?

Previous studies of migrants’ health-seeking behaviour have demonstrated that migrants under-utilize health services in their new environment owing to problems of access, urban assimilation and the continuation of traditional rural practices (Tam, 1994; Zulkifli and others, 1994; Bender and others, 1993; Davidson, 1983; Uyanga 1983). Migrants, however, have been shown to increase their utilization of services relative to those remaining in rural areas (Tam, 1994). This study examines the maternal health-seeking behaviour of rural-urban migrants in a slum pocket of Mumbai. The objective of this study is to identify and compare the nature, prevalence and typology of maternal and child health service utilization by rural-urban migrant and non-migrant populations in Maharashtra, India. At the same time, the research aims to identify key social, cultural and economic influences on service utilization and suggest possible ways to increase the use of maternal health-care services among recent migrants to Mumbai.

Despite its well-established links to other aspects of reproductive illhealth, such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unsafe abortion (Berer, 1999), infertility is the most neglected component in the reproductive health programmes of many developing countries.

The rural urban disparities in health outcomes in India are often attributed to urban bias in allocation of resources and location of health-care services. Statistics clearly show that the bed population ratio is higher in urban areas and that those regional inequalities have not seen any significant decline over time (Duggal and others, 1995). This regional imbalance is there in both the public and the private health sector. Further, public spending on health care is also disproportionately higher in urban areas. However, while critiquing the regional bias, it is to be examined whether the urban areas in India, where 22 per cent of the population is residing in slums, has the required number of public health-care facilities. Unlike other urban areas, the matter requires special attention in an urban metropolis in India that is characterized by poor living conditions making the public more vulnerable to diseases, and where poverty levels are likely to be similar, if not worse, than that in rural areas. This could be understood by examining who utilizes those services and for what reasons.

Extant research on internationalization of research and development (R&D) has not examined what the impact of foreign R&D investments is for the investing corporate parent firms, in particular on domestic R&D investments. The aim of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of international knowledge sourcing through foreign R&D in an empirical analysis of the effects of foreign R&D investments on domestic R&D intensity for a panel of Indian firms. The paper specifically investigates the importance and impact of the role and the location of foreign R&D centres on parent-company R&D by analysing differences between foreign-technology-seeking and foreign-technology-exploiting R&D, and between centres in advanced countries and in developing countries. The analysis finds contrasting results between advanced and developing countries and between technology-exploring and technology-exploiting investments.

El alto crecimiento pronosticado para China e India mantendría a estos países como el polo más importante de la economía mundial en los próximos años, ofreciendo a América Latina y el Caribe un mercado de gran potencial para sus productos de exportación. Esta posibilidad ha sido poco explotada hasta ahora, salvo en el caso de algunos sectores de productos primarios provenientes de América del Sur. América Latina debería fortalecer los vínculos con ambos países asiáticos, buscando una mayor complementariedad productiva con ellos y estableciendo acuerdos comerciales y además alianzas de comercio y de inversión, lo que le daría nuevo acceso a esos dos mercados y propiciaría su incorporación a las cadenas asiáticas de producción y exportación.

In this paper we analyze the determinants of outward FDI (OFDI) with reference to Indian manufacturing firms. Mainly we examine the impact of firm-specific characteristics such as productivity, exports, imports of technology, and research and development (R&D) intensity on the OFDI of firms for the period from 1998 to 2009. We use dynamic random-effects Probit and Tobit models to examine the determinants of OFDI. The results support the theoretical argument that more highly productive firms undertake OFDI as a mode of internationalization. The study reveals a complementary relationship between OFDI and exports by Indian firms. R&D investment and imports of technology in the form of capital goods play important roles in both the probability of undertaking OFDI and the share of OFDI.

For over a quarter of a century, one of the most recognized and trusted radio voices in India was that of Mark Tully. This British correspondent for the BBC has covered all the momentous events that marked the country's recent history, until the mid-1990s. He is a living witness of the time when radio was the main medium to reach the masses, telephone communications were unreliable, and radio recordings were made on magnetic tapes that had to be physically sent to the editorial offices.

века голос Марка Талли был одним из самых узнаваемых и авторитетных во всей Индии. Этот репортер «Би-би-си» освещал все важнейшие события, произошедшие в стране в последнюю треть XX столетия вплоть до середины 1990-х годов. За свою долгую карьеру он застал и то время, когда репортажи, ввиду ненадежности телефонной связи, приходилось записывать на магнитную ленту и отправлять в редакцию почтой, а основным средством массовой информации было радио.

This study analyses the extent and nature of female unpaid work in the context of rural households in India. In particular, the study looks at the relationship between land ownership and the extent of domestic duties performed by females, adjusted by family size, in rural agricultural households. Further, the study considers the role of socioeconomic and socio-religious class and the engagement of women in domestic duties. The study uses the Indian National Sample Survey quinquennial round of employment and unemployment survey data for the period 2011-2012. To find out the relationship between various land ownership modalities and domestic duties performed by females, the study makes use of the fractional logit regression model. The empirical result suggests that there is a greater probability of more women workers getting involved in unpaid work as the land-ownership size of the household increases. Further, it is seen that the probability that females engaged in unpaid work is greater for those in casual agricultural households with large land cultivated than for those who are in self-employed households. The study finds that the proportion of rural women engaged in domestic duties is 34 per cent, and the majority of them want to work either on a regular or part-time basis (74 per cent) as well as be able to attend to domestic duties. These results suggest that more effective labour market policy, which will encourage women to participate in paid work, is needed. Moreover, family-friendly policies and initiatives that encourage a more equitable sharing of the burden of care and household chores between males and females are required.

Durante más de 25 años, la voz de Mark Tully fue una de las más oídas por los radioescuchas de la India. Este reportero radiofónico, corresponsal de la BBC, cubrió todos los acontecimientos importantes que acompasaron la historia reciente del país hasta mediados de la década de 1990. Fue testigo de una época en que la radio era un medio de comunicación de primer orden para llegar a las masas, y en que las comunicaciones telefónicas eran aleatorias y las grabaciones se hacían en cintas magnetofónicas que se enviaban luego a las redacciones de las emisoras.

Concern over the environmental effects of fossil fuels in India has been growing as domestic consumption levels increase. Along with industry, households are major consumers of commercial energy and, consequently, major contributors to the total energy use in India. Emission levels in the country are gradually increasing.

Literature on regional growth suggests that divergences in infrastructure is a major factor behind the wide and persistent imbalances in regional growth in India. Using a state infrastructure expenditure function, possible factors that determine infrastructure expenditure and its role in the regional imbalance in infrastructure creation across 14 major Indian states are examined in the present paper. The study indicates that such factors as lagged expenditure, resource mobilization and per capita income may cause varying amounts of infrastructure expenditure across states. It also indicates that spending by the infrastructure-deficit states, political stability and positive spatial dependence in infrastructure expenditure have a balancing effect on infrastructure creation across regions. Those results suggest the need to do the following: (a) harness the favourable factors influencing public expenditure that include improving the financial capacity of the infrastructure-deficit states; (b) strengthen the positive spatial dependence among states through the creation of interstate infrastructure networks, such as railways and national highways; and (c) enable a conducive investment climate, which could boost competition among states for improved infrastructure creation.

A policy of trade liberalization is often suggested as a means of stimulating economic growth in developing countries. Given the potential benefits of trade liberalization policies, it is important to examine whether such policies are in fact in conflict with the environment as they accelerate economic growth.

The objectives of this paper are to test whether there are any significant trickling down effects of economic growth across the Indian states and to identify the factors influencing the existence of such effects. Using data from 1971 to 1998, and the standard statistical test of causality, this study suggests that the transmission of growth impulses across states have been limited. The results indicate that the structure of the economies, the growth rates of the states and the quality of state-specific institutions appear to raise the potential for significant trickle down growth effects across states.

India’s financial and capital market reforms since the early 1990s have had a positive impact on both the banking sector and capital markets. Nevertheless, the capital markets remain shallow, particularly when it comes to differentiating high-quality firms from low-quality ones (and thus lowering capital costs for the former compared with the latter). While some high-quality firms (e.g., large firms) have substituted bond finance for bank loans, this has not occurred to any significant degree for many other types of firms (e.g., old, export-oriented and commercial paper-issuing ones). This reflects the fact that most bonds are privately placed, exempting issuers from the stringent accounting and disclosure requirements necessary for public issues. As a result, banks remain major financiers for both high- and low-quality firms. The paper argues that India should build an infrastructure that will foster sound capital markets and strengthen banks’ incentives for better risk management.

The Indian economy provides a revealing contrast between how individuals react under a government-controlled environment and how they respond to a market-based environment. Evidence suggests that recent market reforms that encouraged individual enterprise have led to higher economic growth in that country.

Voluntary carbon markets, such as the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), were worth $90 million in 2006. This paper finds that community forestry interventions of three organizations in India are eligible to sell carbon sequestration credits on CCX. Their combined annual sequestration potential is 104,427 tons of carbon dioxide (tCO2), worth $417,708 at 2007 prices. Although this value will be difficult to realize immediately, it indicates the potential for carbon sequestration to raise rural incomes in India. These benefits can be actualized by first linking small pilot projects with CCX and then scaling up operations. Projects will also need to reduce transaction costs to raise the shares of carbon revenue that farmers receive. The diversion of land to raise tree crops needs to be balanced with food security concerns. A potentially viable approach would be to take up carbon plantations on common lands with concerned agencies acting as a liaison between farmer groups and the market.

The global population is more than seven billion and will likely reach nine billion by 2050. As India is home to 18 per cent of the world’s population, but has only 2.4 per cent of the land area, a great deal of pressure is being placed on all of the country’s natural resources. The increasing population has been trending towards an alarming situation; the United Nations has estimated that the country’s population will increase to 1.8 billion by the 2050 and, by 2028, it will overtake China as the world’s most populous country. The growing population and the environmental deterioration are becoming major impediments in the country’s drive to achieve sustained development in the country.

The programme certainly needs to be focused at achieving various welfare-oriented targets rather than increasing the number of contraceptive acceptors.

Energy based on fossil fuel consumption is very closely linked with environmental pollution in the form of CO2 emissions, a major element in global climate change. This paper analyses the changes in India’s energy consumption and CO2 emissions during the five-year period following the 1991 reforms, i.e. 1991/92 to 1996/97. The authors extend the energy Input-Output Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) to identify changes in energy consumption during this period. Results indicate that India’s energy consumption, which increased by 5.7 per cent a year in this period, was determined by a number of forces. The most significant role was played by the final demand structure followed by technical change and interaction between final demand structure and technical change. The CO2 emission trends reveal that the most dominating sectors have been petroleum products and electricity. The paper makes some broad policy recommendations for the future pattern of energy use in India.

India has adopted a balanced growth strategy driven by its large internal market, which entails making a major commitment to the endogenous development model. Previously, the country’s development plans were built around the supply-side and import substitution approach. In the early 1980s, the economy of India experienced structural changes, as the gross domestic product growth rate steadily increased, and then in the early 1990s, the country leapfrogged into a development policy centred on information technology, which led to the development of a globally competitive information technology (IT) sector. IT has helped states in India to develop through intersectoral linkages with several services and the multiplier effect. This makes it interesting to review the impact of growth of IT on development in states where IT development is prominent. As states have not been equal beneficiaries, a shift-share analysis was carried out to arrive at these imbalances for the period 2004/05-2008/09 and 2009/10-2013/14. The results of a shift in the share show that regional variations in software exports can largely be attributed to a regional component. In addition, the results of ordinary least squares estimation point out that existing infrastructure is overstressed, namely that there is excessive pressure on teledensity, a shortage of power and a large population, which is making it difficult for regions to sustain a high level of specialization.