List of Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1: The Missing Leg of the Globalization Triad: International Migration 1 Chapter 2: Analytical Framework and Research Methodology 23 Chapter 3: Selection Characteristics of Emigration from India 50 Chapter 4: Economic Effects 84 Chapter 5: Social Remittances: Migration and the Flow of Ideas 124 Chapter 6: International Migration and the Paradox of India's Democracy 162 Chapter 7: The Indian Diaspora and Indian Foreign Policy: Soft Power or Soft Underbelly? 185 Chapter 8: Civil or Uncivil Transnational Society? The Janus Face of Long-Distance Nationalism 210 Chapter 9: Spatially Unbound Nations 253 Appendix I: Survey of Emigration from India (SEI) 273 Appendix II: Survey of Asian Indians in the United States (SAIUS): Methodology 281 Appendix III: Survey of Asian Indians in the United States (SAIUS): Questionnaire 287 Appendix IV: Database on India's Elites (1950-2000) 293 Bibliography 297 Index 315

Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India

Mobile technology is currently emerging as the first extensive form of electronic communication system in many regions of Africa and Asia. This article analyses the appropriation of mobile phones in rural India by exploring what new social alternatives mobile phones enable and how these new social constellations relate to culture and cultural change. The ethnographic description relates phone usage to other communication patterns and ongoing processes of transformation. The article shows how the appropriation of phones draws from the local cultural and social context, but also that phones facilitate new patterns that show great similarity with social processes in other places where phones have been introduced as the first form of communication technology, such as the increased multiplicity of social contacts and the greater efficiency of market relationships. I argue that mobile technology amplifies ongoing processes of cultural change but does so selectively, so that it brings about the homogenization of ‘social logistics’.

Resume
Dans de nombreuses regions d'Asie et d'Afrique, la technologie mobile apparait aujourd'hui comme la premiere forme etendue de communications electroniques. L'auteur analyse ici l'appropriation de la telephonie mobile en Inde, en explorant les nouvelles alternatives sociales que le telephone portable rend possibles et les liens entre ces nouvelles constellations sociales, d'une part, et d'autre part la culture et le changement culturel. La description ethnographique fait le lien entre l'utilisation du telephone et les autres modes de communication et avec les processus actuels de transformation. L'article montre comment l'appropriation du telephone s'inscrit dans le contexte culturel et social local, tout en mettant en lumiere la similarite entre la facon dont le telephone facilite de nouveaux schemas de communication et les processus sociaux qui se deploient dans d'autres lieux ou la telephonie a ete introduite comme premiere forme de technologie de communication : multiplication des contacts sociaux, efficacite accrue des relations de marche. L'auteur affirme que la technologie mobile amplifie les processus actuels de changement culturel, mais quelle le fait de maniere selective, en induisant ainsi une homogeneisation de la « logistique sociale ».

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/20203683.pdf

Mobile technology in the village: ICTs, culture, and social logistics in India

This paper examines the political economy of Indian higher (tertiary) education. We first provide an empirical mapping of Indian higher education and demonstrate that higher education in India is being de facto privatized on a massive scale. But this privatization is not a result of changing ideological commitments of the key actors—the state, the judiciary or India’s propertied classes. Rather, this privatization has resulted from a breakdown of the state system and an exit of Indian elites from public institutions, to both private sector institutions within the country as well as abroad. Private philanthropy in higher education, which was supportive of public institutions in the past, is also increasingly withdrawing its support. Consequently the ideological and institutional underpinnings of this form of privatization remain exceedingly weak. The paper questions the extent to which the political economy of Indian higher education can be explained by the hypothesis of “middle class capture” and suggests that education policy, far from serving the interests of the middle class, is actually driven by a combination of ideology and vested interests. We also examine the role of the judiciary in shaping the regulatory landscape of Indian higher education and argue that it an important actor shaping the regulatory landscape of higher education, but in a manner that has done as much to confuse as clarify. Instead of being part of a comprehensive program of education reform, private initiatives remain hostage to the discretionary actions of the state. As a result, the education system remains suspended between over-regulation by the state on the one hand, and a discretionary privatization that is unable to mobilize private capital in productive ways. The result is a sub-optimal structuring of higher education. The most potent consequence of this is a secession of the middle class—ironically the very class whose interests these institutions were supposed to serve—from a stake in public institutions.

/pdf/indian-higher-education-reform-from-half-baked-socialism-to-12he0tksue.pdf

Indian Higher Education Reform: From Half- Baked Socialism to Half-Baked Capitalism

This paper uses data envelopment analysis to measure labor-use efficiency of individual branches of a large public sector bank with a sizable network of branches across India. We find considerable variation in the average levels of efficiency of bank branches across the four metropolitan regions considered in this study. In this context, we introduce the concept of area or spatial efficiency for each region relative to the nation as a whole. Our findings suggest that the policies, procedures, and incentives handed down from the corporate level cannot fully neutralize the detrimental influence of the local work culture across different regions. Most of the potential reduction in labor cost appears to be coming from possible downsizing in the clerical and subordinate staff. Our analysis identifies branches that operate at very low levels of labor-use efficiency and possible candidates for increased supervision and control.

/pdf/labor-use-efficiency-in-indian-banking-a-branch-level-3lxembxffs.pdf

Labor-use efficiency in Indian banking: A branch-level analysis

The new Bill on land acquisition recently tabled in Parliament is well intentioned but seriously flawed. Its principal defect is that it attaches an arbitrary mark-up to the historical market price to determine compensation amounts. This will guarantee neither social justice nor the efficient use of resources. The Bill also places unnecessary and severe conditions on land acquisition, such as restrictions on the use of multi-cropped land and insistence on public purpose, all of which are going to stifle the pace of development without promoting the interests of farmers. We present an alternative approach that will allow farmers to choose compensation in either land or cash, determine their own price instead of leaving it to the government’s discretion, and also reallocate the remaining farmland in the most efficient manner. Our proposed method involves a land auction covering not only the project site but also the surrounding agricultural land.

The Land Acquisition Bill: A Critique and a Proposal

Beyond Nandigram: Industrialisation in West Bengal

During the last two decades West Bengal has led the rest of the country with regard to agricultural performance and implementation of panchayat institutions. But these developments have begun to level out. At the same time the state has fallen behind in other sectors – industry, higher education and state of public finances, particularly – to an extent that is seriously worrying. This paper reviews performance of these different sectors, discusses possible explanatory factors, and makes a number of suggestions for policy reforms. With regard to industrial revival, it stresses public investment in transport and communication, measures to improve higher education, foster industry-university collaborations, and help small-scale industries overcome specific market imperfections (access to credit, technology and distribution channels). In public finance, emphasis is placed on raising tax revenues (especially with regard to the service sector), limiting losses of public sector undertakings, and widening the scope of land taxes and user fees. In the agricultural sector, the need for a greater role of the government with regard to biotechnology, extension services, irrigation and flood control is emphasised, along with suggestions for encouraging and regulating contract farming with MNCs. Finally the article urges greater empowerment of panchayats with regard to social service delivery and agro-business development, and administrative reforms to enhance accountability of state government employees. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the advent of the Left Front government in West Bengal, whose continued electoral success over such a long period is undoubtedly a unique achievement. During this time the nature of the West Bengal economy has changed much, in ways that reflect the principal policy priorities of the Left Front. In the rural sector the state has led much of the rest of the country, with significant acceleration in the implementation of land reforms, and institution of panchayati raj well in advance of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. With respect to comparisons of growth rates in foodgrains production and farm productivity across the rest of India, the state transformed its status from laggard in the 1970s to star performer in the 1980s. The benefits of thi s have been relatively evenly shared: the rate of decline of rural poverty since the late 1970s has also been one of the fastest. Contrasted to these impressive achievements in the countryside, the story is entirely different elsewhere – in industry, higher education, or fiscal discipline its performance relative to other Indian states has progressively deteriorated. Fortunately there appear to be some recent winds of change in policy direction of the Left Front, following a recent change in political leadership, and the message conveyed by voters in the 2001 state assembly elections. It is an appropriate time, therefore, to review the performance of different sectors of the West Bengal economy over the past two decades, and distill from that some lessons for future policy priorities. We start with the problem sectors first, where the need for new policy initiatives is greatest – industry, higher education and public finance. We move thereafter to discuss rural development and governance (including decentralisation, social services, and public administration), and argue there is a need for a fresh policy approach in these sectors as well.

/pdf/strategy-for-economic-reform-in-west-bengal-3hcjpj4qwz.pdf

Strategy for Economic Reform in West Bengal

﻿Reservations in Myth and Reality BEHIND the veil of public professions of piety, most governments tend to conceal a secret agenda. Any analysis of government policy therefore must begin by distinguishing between the overt and the covert, between appearance and reality. Rarely however is the distinction as important as in the case of the V P Singh government's reservation policy.

Ashok Guha

Papers

Beyond Nandigram: Industrialisation in West Bengal

Strategy for Economic Reform in West Bengal

Reservations in Myth and Reality