Co-edited with Philip Oldenburg
Asia Society and ME Sharpe, 2005
Hardback (ISBN-13: 978-0765615923)
Paper (ISBN-13: 978-0765615930)
Since 2001, India has gained new attention as an emerging world power with a rapidly growing economy, a world-class science and technology sector, and a huge English-speaking labor pool. After a period of escalating tension with neighbor Pakistan, wide-ranging peace talks are underway. Within India, there is an unprecedented mood of optimism about the future. At the same time, the nation wrestles with difficult questions about the place of secularism in society, the role it sees for itself globally and within Asia, and the reality that millions of Indians still live at the subsistence level.
This volume of India Briefing examines India’s changing fortunes through chapters that cover the economy, the twists and turns of domestic politics, labor in the large informal sector, the cultural roots of Hindu nationalism, the foreign relations rollercoaster, the business of Bollywood, and a special chapter on the range of new resources about India available on the web.
Chapter Contents:
1. Introduction. India Briefing: Takeoff at Last?, Alyssa Ayres and Philip K. Oldenburg; 2. Politics: The BJP Falls from Power, Niraja Gopal Jayal; 3. Indian Economy: New Pathways to Growth and Development, Isher Judge Ahluwalia; 4. India’s International Relations: The Search for Stability, Space, and Strength, Amitabh Mattoo; 5. The Cultural Background of Hindutva, Richard H. Davis; 6. Work and Wealth, Renana Jhabvala; 7. The Business of Bollywood, Manjeet Kripalani; 8. Downloading India: A Guide to Online Resources, Mary Rader; 9. A Chronology, Irawati Parnerkar
Reviews
“The useful eleventh volume of Asia Society’s India Briefing series, edited by Ayres and Oldenburg, provides backing for India’s newfound, and cautious, optimism. The contributors provide an excellent update on the shifting coalitions in India’s party politics and solid analysis of India’s economic reforms.”
Foreign Affairs
“…a substantial analysis and balanced perspective of India–devoid of exaggeration but nourished with substance and blended by the rigours of analysis and sophistication. Indeed, this volume is an excellent rendition of India.”
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International & Strategic Affairs, Vol.27, #3
“What is of interest is that the editors and contributors address their concerns to the central question of power in the economy, when everything in the world today merges into everything else, politics into economics, economics into sociology and history, and so on.”
Business Standard
