Development and Deprivation in the Indian Subcontinent

Abstract

The concept of “Development and Deprivation” is an important and timely topic for discussion. It is also highly relevant for Indian sub-continent, particularly for North-Eastern part of India which is comparatively underdeveloped part of India as this region seems to suffer from deprivation in many aspects until last decade of the previous century. Deprivation can be measured as the impact of lack of income and other financial, non-income and physical resources, which can cause income and non-income poverty. The deprivation has four major dimensions, namely the economic, social, political and cultural needs of people. It can be measured by Human Poverty Index (HPI) as devised by United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) and achievements of MDGs and SDGs.The book entitled “Development and Deprivation in the Indian SubContinent” by Utpal Kumar De and Manoranjan Pal attempts to examine several important issues such as poverty, inequality, financial inclusiveness, and role of institutions, entrepreneurship and other socio-political perspectives of inclusive development in Indian subcontinent with a special focus on North- East India. As there are very few books in these areas covering North-East and Eastern India, this book will contribute significantly to the literature on deprivation and development with recent data analysis on these topics. Furthermore, the authors of the chapters utilize advanced techniques and quantitative methods to analyze secondary and primary data. Besides introducing some new questions on financial inclusiveness in development; regional, inter and intra sectoral analysis, sophisticated tools have been used such as Spatial correlation-regression techniques to analyse regional variation, co-integration, vector auto regression, panel data techniques like fixed and random effect models to address the socio-economic complexities, society’s role in sustainable resource use and development along with an analysis of penetration index in Information and Communication Technology (lCT). Also, the roles of the largest rural development scheme, namely MGNREGA along with the role of Self-help groups in India towards socio-economic development have also been taken into consideration in some chapters. The book is divided into four parts, namely: 1. Poverty, Development and Financial Inclusion, 2. Poverty and Inequality, 3. Entrepreneurship, Development and Deprivation and 4. Socio-Political Issues of Development and Inequality. In Part-l , Ashok, Nair and Kharlukhi examine the nature and extent of financial inclusion and region specific constraints in expanding institutional credit in the North-Eastern region of India. The relationship between deficit financing, crowding out and economic growth in Bangladesh is also examined by Banerjee, Siddique and Amin with the help of time series cointegration and vector autoregression techniques. Chapter 3 addresses three issues - the level of concentration; inter regional and state-wise differences; the impact on sectoral performance - in the distribution of priority sector advances over the period from 2000 to 2013 in India. The other chapters of the section address issues related to the role of financial inclusion, micro finance and MGNREGA in poverty reduction. Studies include in Part 2, highlighted the behaviour of absolute and relative levels of living explaining the true picture of poverty in India and North-Eastern states. The other issues covered in this part are the (1) achievement of women in the context of Gender Empowerment Measure, (2) role of gender inequality in human development, (3) ways of capacity building among the women, and (4) economic inequality between the native and non-native groups by using Lorenz Curve and Gini Index on consumption expenditure. Also the role of information technology in development and informal sector along with education is analysed from the perspective of poverty reduction. Part 3 includes studies on various entrepreneurial activities and socio-economic measures in the light of deprivation and inclusive development in various zones of Indian sub-continent. Various sociopolitical issues in inequality and development are presented through different case studies in Part 4. The role of institutions in addressing deprivation, inequality and development has also been highlighted in a number of studies. The book therefore addresses a wide number of issues including sociopolitical aspects of poverty and inequality, financial inclusiveness, poverty and inequality at regional level, agriculture-environment interface and socio-economic development, which will certainly benefit the researchers, other readers and policy makers. I congratulate the authors and the editors for producing a very useful, timely and important book in the area of deprivation and economic development and wish them all the success. Dr Premananda Bharati Retired Professor and Head Biological-Anthropological Unit Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata