External Dimensions of an Emerging Economy, India

This book offers an analysis of the external dimensions of an emerging economy, India, against the backdrop of neoliberal globalisation. The external dimensions of the Indian economy signify its inter-relation with the rest of the world in terms of trade and financial flows, and how that affects the development process within the country in the age of neoliberal globalisation. It is based on non-mainstream, heterodox approaches to economics, and as such is a critique of the mainstream neoclassical position on current neoliberal globalisation.

The book covers the following issues: India’s external dimension in the colonial period, through the trade route; concerns regarding India’s balance of payments transactions in terms of illegal flows; the political economy of development planning in the present era of globalisation; capital flows as they affect India’s external front; the Indian pharmaceutical industry under the TRIPs regime; India’s regional economic integration and foreign capital flows in India during the liberalisation period. The entire book is an attempt to decipher the meaning and significance of the process of globalisation for India’s real economy.

The book is unique as it offers an opportunity to find a number of different heterodox positions dealing with the external dimensions of emerging India all in one place. This is rare in any other book.

Byasdeb Dasgupta pursued his PhD on third world debt crisis during the eighties under the supervision of Professor Sunanda Sen at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He started his professional career as a lecturer in economics at University of Kalyani, where he is still located, now as an associate professor. He has visited China and several European countries as a visiting professor and has published articles in several journals and books. Along with Professor Sunanda Sen, he wrote Unfreedom and Wage Work – Labour in India’s Manufacturing Industry (Sage, 2009). Presently, Byasdeb is pursuing two research projects – one on labour security in the urban informal economy and the other on imperialism – old and new, the latter with Professor Sen.